The Best Looper Pedal in 2023?

How to Choose the Best Looper Pedal for You

Knowing which product is right for you depends on which features are most important for you. For example, if you are somebody who just wants to be able to loop phrases live and overdub without saving them, your options are much more open, as there are many more products on the market to do just that. There are also many products on the cheaper end that do this well, allowing you to maintain the workflow of your live show without having to spend too much money.

On the other hand, if you value being able to store phrases for later usage, you’ll have more customization options depending on how many phrases you want to keep in your pedal. There are also many great options for this, but be prepared to spend a bit of money if you’re looking for over 99 phrases to store.

Size also plays a role—many products will be incredibly compact, while others will act as looping stations and therefore take up significantly more space. How often you will use it and how often you will carry it around with you definitely influences this factor, but it should be noted that there are products of all different sizes that work well with both amateur setups and professional gigging rigs.

What is a Looper Pedal Used For?

A Loop Pedal is a self-explanatory product, being used to loop certain phrases to play back during a performance. This is incredibly helpful for musicians who want to get a fuller sound, as with them you’re able to overdub your instrument or voice in realtime, creating larger textures and more layered performances.

Though they are mainly used with guitars, these loop devices can actually be used for any instrument, simply being a tool to overlay different voices to create more complicated textures. You can accompany yourself, build more complicated forms of music, and give your performance an improvisatory element that can also help you improve your stage presence. It should be noted that it does not matter what type of guitar you have, be it an acoustic guitar or an electric, loop devices work as long as you can run the sound into the device via a 1/4″ instrument cable.

Loop devices might also be used for practicing, as you can loop chord progressions to later improvise over, allowing yourself to practice jamming. This can also be a good way of writing harmonies, allowing yourself to loop certain sections and figure out harmonies on top of them.

A notable example of someone using a loop device is the artist tUnE-yArDs, who is notable for creatively using the device to loop her voice as many times as she needs, creating elaborate textures to sing over. Another example of a loop device being used on a recording is on the gay angel song “i’m artificial” in which guitarist Wendy Eisenberg uses extensive looping towards the end of the song. You can hear this effect at 03:10 in this recording. Ed Sheeran is an artist that also uses loop devices frequently—this version of his song “Shape of You” will show you what’s possible with one of these devices.

What Types of Looper Pedal are There?

The different types of loop devices available are distinguished mainly by three different categories: memory, amount of effects, and size. For example, there are some loop devices that have no memory, meaning that it cannot save looped phrases, requiring you to perform and overdub yourself each time you perform. In contrast, there are also devices that allow you to store any number of phrases so you don’t ever have to perform something twice.

The amount of effects can also be a distinguishing factor for many loop devices, as some will offer no effects whatsoever while others will give you a multitude of effects such as reverb, distortion, reverse, 1/2 speed, and other ways to customize the sound. For many, this is an essential part of a loop device, as it also allows you to consolidate your pedalboard setup in general. Some devices even have faders for each track, allowing you to transition from looping one phrase to another seamlessly.

Naturally, the complexity and different options of different loop devices will affect how large they are, with devices sporting a lot of features taking up more space than more minimalist devices. Devices that have more than two tracks are typically referred to as loop stations.

How Do Looper Pedals Work?

Loop devices work by recording sound that goes through them for a predetermined amount of time, then playing it back ad infinitum to allow someone to improvise over it. This is possible because the devices themselves are forms of small computers, being able to remember and save sound. Users of loop devices can toggle when the device is recording or not, allowing them to designate the length of the phrase.

The technology also allows for one to manipulate the phrases that are saved onto the device, similar to how computers let you edit previously saved data.

A Brief History of Looper Pedal

To understand how loop devices were invented, you have to understand part of the history surrounding the tape recorder. This is because shortly after tape recorders were invented, looping was invented, with people being able to record themselves and then play along with it afterwards.

Despite tape machines being invented in the late 1800s, the first example of tape looping (being able to record and then record on top of the loop) would come in 1953 with the guitarist Les Paul displaying it on the popular TV show Omnibus.

From that point, it became very popular with minimalist composers, with composers Terry Riley and Steve Reich basing a lot of their works in the 1960s off of loops, having multiple works involving tape machines looping recordings to get different sound configurations.

After decades of being used by performers, the first truly modern loop devices were released in the 1990s, with the first being the Paradis LOOP Delay. Because the early looping devices had such little memory, performers would have to improvise on top of their loops instantly, creating the live looping that we know in modern equipment today.

What’s the Best Way to Use Them?

Using loop devices is most effective when you are trying to create elaborate textures. Practically, the best way to use them is whenever you want to record a track to accompany yourself with, but loop products are most effective when you are able to create many different layers, allowing yourself to create a sweeping texture.

Any guitarist who wants to perform over their own playing should be using a loop device. It can also help you in a live band setting, as you can get the sound of two guitarists with just one guitar.

Are They Worth It?

Loop devices are worth it if you are somebody who wants to overdub yourself in realtime. If you’re looking into a loop device only for the effects associated with it, then you might be better off finding a device specifically geared towards the effect that you want. However, if you simply want to create more dense textures and counterpoint with yourself, you can’t go wrong with buying a loop device.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, the Best Looper Pedal that I looked at in the reviews was the BOSS RC-300 Loop Station because it provided the best overall options for someone looking to loop phrases that sound great and are also able to be customized a bit with faders and light effects. It also comes with an incredibly sleek and durable design that makes it easy to use in a variety of situations, with an overall interface that promotes fluid workflow. The price might be off-putting to some, but it’s truly the product out of all of the Top 10 products I looked at that struck me as the best.