I’ve been jamming with a drummer for years, just the two of us. A few months back he says “I had this looper in my closet”. I laid down a bass guitar loop, he started grooving over it, then I pulled out my guitar and all of a sudden we were sounding like a power trio. It blew me away.
I don't play guitar, but keys and live looping is incredible fun. I do it in my DAW (Reaper) though and I'm not satisfied with the ease of use but also don't want to have another pedal lying around.
Does anyone know a working software solution that just mimics a basic pedal? Should also be trustworthy, I'm hesitant to install random free VSTs.
If I'm not mistaken, one he does miss out on is Synth1, but then that would be 10 free VST's, and also gives www.kvraudio.com a reason to exist.
*The real problem is, people writing crappy VSTs and installing bits of crud all over my PC (and that inclludes DAW software writers), but hey,that's why backups and rollbacks exist, I guess.
To specifically answer your question "Does anyone know a working software solution that just mimics a basic pedal?" - which particular pedal? The software you may be hesitant to install may have the answer you require: I've found software that sounds better than the pedals they emulate, but aren't as easy to control (with a mouse), and are equally at the mercy of a DAW crash (looking at you Steinberg :-).
I've always been interested in trying to code guitar effects. Just over the break I submitted an 8-band EQ to OBS studio that has yet to be merged. That got me thinking about doing more, but I don't know what the best environment to code for is.
Boss has desktop loopers in the RC lineup, now. The guide in the link is more than a decade. There’s the RC202 and RC505. Not that you can’t put a peddle on a desk and use your hands if the switch design doesn’t actually require a stomp.
RC505 is definitely the gold standard for standalone desktop looping (5 tracks) that are suitable for hand operation. The 202 is just a less expensive 2 track.
There are other hardware options, like Aeros loop studio or even things like Akai MPC One, for example, but these get more complex than just a simple looper.
There are basic looper pedals but I suspect most people want something like an RC202 or RC505 for basic but multitrack simple live looping.
I'm not an expert at recording but in my experience trying to do anything live with a DAW is next to impossible due to latency issues. It would probably just be easier to record into the daw then spend a few seconds in the gui to loop it properly.
> trying to do anything live with a DAW is next to impossible due to latency issues.
It takes a little effort (and sometimes money), but you can definitely get latency low enough to be able to use the DAW live. Consider that almost every electronic artist playing music on stage today is using Ableton Live.
The basic components are:
1. Make sure your OS's drivers aren't introducing too much latency. I hear horror stories about the default audio drivers on Windows but as a Mac user I've never had to worry about this.
2. Make the buffer size small in your DAW. DAWs process audio a block of samples at a time because it's much kinder to the CPU's cache and gives you better overall throughput. But chunking obviously adds latency because you don't hear a single sample from the buffer until the entire buffer is done. Controlling the buffer size lets you make the latency/performance trade-off wherever you want.
At a 48k sample rate, each sample is ~0.02 milliseconds long. So a buffer size of 1,024 adds 21ms of latency, which is low enough for doing things like tweaking effects and arranging live, but high enough that you will definitely notice it if you're playing individual notes on an instrument. Dropping the buffer size down to 128 gets you down to ~2.6ms of latency, which is essentially unnoticeable.
3. Make sure your audio interface doesn't introduce too much latency. You can find sites that measure this precisely. My experience on my Mac is that even my cheap Focusrite audio interface is low enough to work fine. If you really get into this, you can spend extra money and get interfaces with lower latency.
the boss rc series kills. if you're a beginner, i'd recommend the rc-1. it's very basic, but this is a good thing at first. you'll want to get yourself to the point where you can click it on and off in time with the music, making a multi-bar sequence that stays in time without any quantization. don't even worry about midi to begin with, just sync yourself up with your own playing. looping seamlessly is its own musical skill.
once you get to be more of a wizard, you'll want things like backwards playback and multitrack looping and midi sync. you could progress toward more advanced boss pedals, or start looking at things like the electroharmonix 95000 (i have one, i bought it because i saw a video of reggie watts using one)
it's always gonna be a tradeoff between simplicity and complexity, and honestly more complex isn't always better. i find myself reaching for the rc-1 way more than the ehx95000 because it's so simple. just experiment, figure out how YOU like to loop. there's no right or wrong way. the gear should make you want to keep playing. if it doesn't, trade it in for something else. don't burn too much time deciding.
Ableton has an actual looper plug-in it comes with that works just like a pedal, in addition to Session View, which is looping on steroids and one of the key features of it.
I'm just somebody who has used it a lot, not associated to Ableton in any way.
Another popular DAW for loop-based recording is FL Studio (a little less expensive than Ableton with lifetime free updates and plenty powerful). Also a longtime user of FL.
I'm just getting started exploring with exploring DAWs myself and haven't looked at live looping yet. You'd want some sort of MIDI controller for it, and I understand there's hardware for recording samples and MIDI if you don't want to use a DAW.
I've wanted to get a looping pedal but at $100+ I've hesitated because I'd rather just get an adapter to plug my guitar into my PC and simulate pedals in software than spend $100 for every pedal I need. From my research an iRig2 is what I should get but open to any suggestions?
If you are a little patient, you can pick up an Avid mBox3 for ~$50 including shipping off eBay or Reverb (mine was $30). They are USB class compliant, built solid, and have high quality electronics consistent with a $500 price when new...two mic preamps with 70db gain for ribbon mics. They also do direct input and have additional jacks on the front...you could spend a lot more and do worse on an audio interface. [1] Avid is a high end company.
But of course, I am advocating used gear.
[1]: Also makes a pretty good headphone pre-amp that just needs USB power (like from a power brick).
There's $20-30 looper pedals on Amazon and Ali Express that do the job just fine.
Most any USB audio interface will have an "instrument" input/mode that will allow you to plug directly in and will work with Mac/Windows/Linux directly with low latency. Most of the come with some software bundles as well with free amp and pedal models.
All those cables are a hassle and the electronics are a bit like cheating (edit: for lack of a better word). I want an instrument with the effects built-in, physically, mechanically. Unfortunately, it seems to be sort of a lost artform.
Not lost at all. Acoustic music is alive and well. An interesting thing about the arts is that nothing ever become obsolete. Instead, the new just moves in next door to the old, and both coexist.
Whether you prefer electronic or acoustic just comes down to personal preference. I still play alcohol powered instruments (double bass, cello), and ride an acoustic bicycle, though my friends badger me about when I'll switch to electric.
There are a bunch of offerings like that. The GTRS S800 guitars come to mind. If you want to keep your own guitar, the BOSS Waza Air headphones are completely hassle - free.
practicing electric guitar without a loop pedal is like building a website without live server.