Once you’ve bought your new looper pedal, it’s really important to understand how to operate it. The easiest way to do this is to read the manual. But if you’re more of a visual learner, try searching “how to use (looper pedal name)” on YouTube and you should get some demonstrations.
As I’ve recommended the TC Electronics Ditto Looper, I’m going to demonstrate how to use this specific looper here.
Looping Functions
To Record – Red Light
To record, simply click the footswitch once. When you do this the little light turns red indicating that you’re recording.
To Stop Record
To stop recording, simply click the footswitch again. When you do this, your looper pedal immediately goes into playback mode where it plays back what you’ve just recorded.
Playback – Green Light
When in playback mode, the little light turns green. The light stays green until playback gets to the end of the loop. When it does, it blinks once to show this.
Recording Layers
When in playback mode, you can then click the footswitch again to go back into record mode to record layers over the top of your primary loop. When you do this, the little light will turn red again indicating that you’re in recording mode. Everything you play at this stage will be recorded as a layer over the top of your primary loop.
Once you’ve finished recording a layer, you can click the footswitch again to disengage record mode to return to playback mode, where again the light will turn green.
If you’d like to record another layer, simply repeat the process.
Deleting Layers
If you’ve recorded a layer that you are unhappy with, you can simply delete it by clicking and holding down the footswitch for around 2 seconds. Please note, that you can only delete the very last layer that you’ve recorded.
Re-Doing Layers
You can also bring a deleted layer back into the loop by again holding the footswitch for around 2 seconds.
Stopping The Loop
You can stop the entire loop by double clicking the footswitch. When you do this, the light flashes green. This just tells you that there’s a loop saved within the looper.
Deleting The Loop
Once you’ve stopped the loop, you can then delete the loop by holding down the footswitch for around 2 seconds. When you do this, the little light remains off which tells you that there’s no loop currently saved within the looper.
Stopping and Deleting the Loop
You can also stop and delete the loop at the same time by double-clicking and holding the footswitch down on the second click whilst the loop is in playback mode.