Loopy Forum

I have been using the setup you are talking about and I love it. I have not used the 300, but I have used RC 50 and a Jam Man and I personally think Loopy is way better for several reasons. I have a FCB1010 hooked up through the iO Dock (don't buy the iO Dock though. It has problems- go with something else for your input/output)

1) Visual- As soon as you begin record you can see the waveform, so levels are a visual thing also the loop glows orange when recording. Once you record the audio you can watch the curser(?) move around the loop so you can see where the loop begins. If you arm a track to record or mute, the curser flashes (orange if it is armed for recording). Compare this to a couple blinking lights on a pedal.

2) Tactile- You can manipulate every loop you create with the touch of a finger. Volume/record/overdub/erase/fade/pan and more just by touching the individual loop while it is playing. A pedal doesn't allow you to look at the thing you are manipulating

3) Loop Flexibility- I don't know about the RC300, but I know with most hardware loopers you have to record different "levels" of loops layers and cycle between them by moving up or down between loops. Loopy lets you record or import up to 12 completely different loops and play then back in ANY combination. For example right now I am playing in a duo where we do a lot of improvising over some pre-made tracks and adding loops to those. I can open up a session with two different bass loops and some drum tracks. As we play I can, at any time switch between those bass loops, drop the drums, fade one out, record a few sax loops, then mute everything but the sax loops, record some live drums, then kill that and bring in the original loops again. This is just an example. I could do any of these in endless combinations or import some .wav files that will be automatically stretched or compressed to fit the loop timing (which you can change with a tap tempo button). Plus all of it is synced to the first loop and you can set it so that a loop you are recording can be 2,4,8,16 etc. times the length of the first one, as well as fractions of the first one (or you can have them not sync at all). I think most pedals limit you to Loop, Loop plus overdubs, next loop, previous loop. Loopy has infinite possibilities. Just sitting here I can think of about a page worth of other stuff you can do, but you get the point.

4) Pedal Flexibility- With the FCB1010 hooked up I can assign the pedals as I want and can make them do pretty much anything you can do with your fingers. Record, Overdub, mute, solo, stop/start the whole thing, select next/previous track. There are about 10 more, but those are the ones that I remember because I am using them. RC300- two pedals do what the manual says they do. =)

5) Recording- Loopy lets you record whole songs. Hit the large record button, start recording, looping, muting, soloing, it records the whole thing with or without your live audio passthrough, so you really can use it as your backup band and then sing along with it. Hell, you could be your own backup singer if you stay on pitch. When you are done it lets you save it, e-mail it, Facebook it etc. I don't think the RC-300 interfaces with SoundCloud or lets you e-mail that love song you just wrote to your special lady.

I just really love this app and if you are trying to decide between this and the pedal get this. Not only will you get a vastly better looper that is way more fun to use, but in the few minutes when you can tear yourself away from music making with it, you will also find that the iPad you have purchased has other uses besides Loopy.

While it sounds like I am a Loopy salesman, I assure you I am just a music teacher from Vermont who really likes this thing and keeps finding new awesome things to do with it. I think all the Boss pedals are awesome, but this is on a different level of creative possibilities.

Hope this answers your question adequately and I hope my longwinded rant is acceptable in the forum. If not, sorry and I'll try to keep any other posts a little shorter.

@TheFrapp thank you so much! You've basically confirmed some of the things I suspected - I guess I've just hard a hard time fully accepting that an $8 app plus an iPad + foot controller/etc. could be so superior to a dedicated high-end hardware looper, but it seems clearly like it would be.

And it's nice to get the more detailed explanation/concept directly comparing how one works with Loopy compared to working with a hardware looper (things like being able to visually see the soundwaves and the loops, etc.).

I'm going to wait and see if the iPad 3 does in fact come out in March, and in the meantime I'm going to hold off on buying the RC-300 as I had been planning. Loopy really does sound like the way to go.

Regarding your comment to not get the Alesis IO Dock, perhaps this newly announced Behringer iStudio iPad dock might fit the bill?

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2012/01/21/behringer-intros-istudio-ipad-dock/

Hey guys, I was almost 100% on the Rc-300 until I read this thread. I am looking for an easy live looping setup for guitar, vocals, synth, and bass, but not sure if the iPad can handle it.

The boss has some pretty awesome all in one features for live use... I can set different effects for different inputs or looping channels, it has supposedly good vocal effects, it can make my guitar sound like a bass with a special effect, volume/expression pedal, etc.

My question to you is, can you run multiple audio apps on the iPad at the same time for effects and sounds and still use loopy to record them? Basically I would like the iPad to add reverb to my live vocals, some delay to my guitar, I would like to use a midi synth when need be, all live, and all the while recording these sounds into Loopy. Is that possible, or too much to ask?

Thanks.

yeah Michael, that's a cool approach...
but please stay away from the FX thing as long as you're not convinced you can keep up with an Eventide, a classic Lexicon or a Bricasti
(ok, the last one's a bit over the top, but you get the idea) :D
hopefully it won't be too long that multichannel interfaces are available
(the most recent RME Fireface already is a step in that direction)
As far as I'm concerned, reverb quality in apps annoys me time and again.
First step is almost always to switch the FX part off ;)

Regarding the RC300 (I've had a RC50 once, which had excellent sound)
obviously it's NOT the same level of audio quality as it's predecessor
so that point goes to Loopy :)

cheers, Tom

To Csimmons> You say the rc 300 does playback at 16 bit vs rc 50's 24bit, is this enough for me to get the rc 50 instead?? Is the audio bit rate make THAT much of a difference? I'm willing to have only 22 min if the sound is vastly richer than the rc 300's 16 bit rate. What's your take?