Finnegan Shanahan

I use a BOSS rc300. In some ways it is overkill (with all of the effects that you can apply to individual tracks or your input, etc) but it has been very useful for what I do. I had the rc20 for a while and it just didn’t cut it - I found myself having to practice undoing/redoing the previous layer a lot… I got really good at the timing after a while, but it became really silly.

I guess the main reason I got this one is so that I can have more freedom when I’m writing music. It’s hard to loop without getting in the way of your instrument, and harder to use loops without losing your audience. One of the main complaints I have heard about looping - especially coming from musicians - is that it gets boring. I still don’t understand it all that well, because I haven’t composed all that much using looping, and sometimes I have to take a break from playing against 30 other violins so that I can listen to myself. Obviously looping can be a great songwriting tool (Andrew Bird is a great example), but it definitely takes a lot of inventiveness and patience. 

What instrument do you play? I have heard/met several artists who use looping with guitar, and I have been blown away with what they can do using pretty simple (rc2/rc3) pedals. I saw one guitarist named Dustin Wong who did some really cool things with multiple delay pedals, and all he used to loop was an rc-2. John McLaughlin has done some incredible live looping with guitar. My pedal still probably has more than I need, but with violin there is a broader range of texture that is easier to explore when you have multiple tracks that you can manipulate. With purely instrumental looping it is easier to get by without being able to add and remove tracks. Ultimately, I needed more room/flexibility when it came to songwriting and to playing with other people. I also use a BOSS octave pedal for bass-y stuff and for distorted effects I typically use the effects on the rc300 (I try to make the most of that $550…)

In case you are interested (and in the likely event that you are a Bird fan), Andrew uses two Line 6 pedals (one for bowed layers and one for pizzicato stuff) and the older BOSS octave pedal, which is no longer made. He gets his fuzz tone effect with a custom pedal I believe.