Looper Pedals: The Complete Guide

A looper is a type of guitar pedal that records your guitar as you play and then plays that part back over as many times as you like in a continuous loop. You can then add to this loop by ‘overdubbing’ – playing a second part which will be recorded and added to the loop next time it circles round. It's an invaluable tool for any guitarist, whatever style of music you play as it has several really helpful functions for practice, writing music, recording and sampling, and live performance.

Ed Sheeran is the most high-profile guitarist who uses a looper pedal and uses a highly expansive looper prominently in his live shows to build out songs from scratch. Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, legendary virtuoso Paul Gilbert and Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher all use looper pedals in creative ways to enhance their music.

From making practice more enjoyable to building up epic live loops on stage and even in composition, the looper pedal is somewhat of an unsung hero that you should seriously consider picking up. Here are a few ways you can get the most out of one:

Passive practice: simply loop a part of your playing you'd like to improve on, and stand back and really assess your playing.

Active practice: a looper pedal is great for nailing a specific part of a song, particularly lead lines. You lay down the riff or chord sequence in the loop and play over the top of it as many times as you need to perfect that solo or lead melody.

Writing new music: by the same measure, a looper is an ideal tool for writing songs just by repeating the riff and overdub process with your own music until you unlock the exact guitar lines you're looking for. You can also make quick tracks for recording, experimenting with layers and listening to how a song flows.

Live performance: the most common use of a looper in a live setting is to build up parts and even multiple instruments into a performance. If you're willing to get really creative, you can use loops as samples in your gig, either creating them on the fly or pre-programming sounds to enhance your performance.

A number of huge brands make loopers in a range of styles, sizes – be it mini or double pedals – and with extra features like a built-in delay. Companies like TC Electronic, Boss and NUX specialise in this field and produce some of the most popular models available.

Legendary stompbox creators Boss love a good looper pedal among all their other amazing effects, with the compact Loop Station line-up and its variants still going strong. They’re super simple, with basic level and loop capabilities and the potential on some models to save and recall your old loops. This is a great starting point for beginners, especially the RC-1. The RC-5 adds a backlit LCD screen, 3 hours of stereo recording and a hefty 99 phrase memories.

For live players, the next-gen RC-10R pushes this performance side of a looper with the dedicated stop switch and 16 drum kits covering intro and ending fills, essentially making it a drum machine too. Getting even more advanced in the RC-500, which packs two tracks of stereo looping with onboard mixing with a host of effects and the drum kits of the RC-10R. Boss' RC-600 is the flagship Loop Station. This beast has class leading sound and dedicated footswitches for three loops, plus synced time-based effects and all the connectivity you'd need for a comprehensive live show.

Looper pedals are certainly one of highlights of TC Electronic's range. The Ditto delivers clean functionality with the potential to mix up your loops with half speed and reverse capabilities. They also come in a number of sizes and offer various save spaces. Better yet, they're very accessible price-wise.

The entry level mini size Ditto is an ultra simple one-footswitch pedal for the guitarists who need basic functionality for home use. The Ditto + squeezes in a hi-res screen to clearly navigate through 99 loop slots, the two loop modes and importable backing tracks to spice up your playing. If you're love to get your loops spot on, then the Ditto 2 is the way to go with the intelligent beat tracking to instantly correct timing error. It's also got the potential for future firmware updates. At a similar price point comes the standard-sized Ditto, which boasts stereo options for the expansive setup.

At a slightly larger size, the Ditto X2 packs in a chunky five minutes of continuous looping time, stereo compatibility and the reverse and half speed effects. The most exhaustive of the Ditto line is the X4, which is still a relatively pure creation for guitarists who need the core functions of a looper at their best. It's a two-track looper with dedicated footswitches, seven on-the-fly, versatile effects and a decay dial to elegantly fade out loops.

It's worth shouting out the Flashback series too, geared towards the players who love to combine loops with fun delay controls to essentially use looping as specific effect rather than a utility tool.

A great option if you’re going to dive straight into looping, Electro-Harmonix love creating new and exciting pedals and their loopers are no different. The 360 Nano is core to the EHX line-up, giving you six minutes of looping time in total for complete loops and overdubs – remember, limits get the most out of your playing. There are 11 save spots to recall your loops. Even if your switch off and unplug, the pedal will keep all your saves. The even smaller Pico 360+ is a little version of the best-selling 360 with independent controls for loop and dry levels and an adjustable fadeout time.

Like the Flashback, the hugely Canyon pedal is a combined delay and looper, but here, they can only be used seperately. Think of the looper in this one as a little bonus features, as it's mainly loved for the nine brilliant sounding delay types. The larger Grand Canyon takes the looper feature further with up to 16 minutes of recording time, plus a dedicated stop button, fade out, reverse and speed adjustment.

NUX is a relatively new entry into the pedal game with an emphasis on making modern, forward-thinking pedals that your hobbyist or working guitarist could operate, all the while sticking to a budget. The same formula applies to their looper pedals, which are available in both mini pedal and expanded forms.

The smallest in the range includes the Hook Drum and A/B Roll; the former a simple but clever device with auto tempo detection and inbuilt drum tracks. The A/B Roll adds in a SUB control to dial in a polyphonic sub-octave to add some weight to your sound, as well as IR cabinet simulations to help you build an ampless rig. The Loop Core meanwhile is a stereo looper with a brilliant auto start feature that waits for you to play. The most in-depth offering is the Dual Loop, which is a complete workstation with an LCD display to access over 640 rhythm variations, as well as effects like octave, reverb, boost and a cab sim.