# TC Electronic DITTO Looper



## Louis (Apr 26, 2008)

Anyone here tried one of those ? 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7qDxW6gYiI





Louis


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## elliottmoose (Aug 20, 2012)

I have one on my board. It does exactly what I want: basic phrase looping with none of the do-dads that normally come with the territory. Pretty solid little unit for the price and its the only one that's true bypass in its class, I think... Anything you want to know in particular?


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## Louis (Apr 26, 2008)

elliottmoose said:


> I have one on my board. It does exactly what I want: basic phrase looping with none of the do-dads that normally come with the territory. Pretty solid little unit for the price and its the only one that's true bypass in its class, I think... Anything you want to know in particular?



Thank's Elliot !!..........yes !.........is it noisy ??.......lol ...............or quiet?



Louis


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## elliottmoose (Aug 20, 2012)

Louis said:


> ...is it noisy ??.......lol ...............or quiet?


You know, I haven't really gotten it up to band volume yet, but I suspect there's probably some noise. A LOT less noise than a boss though, and the added bonus of no tone suck, to speak of. I'll have to crank it up this evening while the wife is out. Keep you posted!


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## Louis (Apr 26, 2008)

elliottmoose said:


> You know, I haven't really gotten it up to band volume yet, but I suspect there's probably some noise. A LOT less noise than a boss though, and the added bonus of no tone suck, to speak of. I'll have to crank it up this evening while the wife is out. Keep you posted!



Thank's !!.............seems to be a great thing to practice with or create .


Louis


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## elliottmoose (Aug 20, 2012)

I can report that there is SOME noise (as expected) but only when adding lots of layers. This leads me to believe its more to do with the other pedals in my chain than it. I've got it on a separate PSU (TC/Cioks like everything else on my board (isolated power supplies for each pedal), so that's not the most likely culprit. I'm thinking that something else is causing the white noise.... not sure yet who.


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2013)

Remember TC Electronics pedals have cheap switches, and when they break, TC will offer only to sell you a new pedal at retail, plus you have to pay to ship the old one to them, and they throw your old one away. So you can buy a new pedal every time a TC Electronics pedal breaks. The switches are cheap, and soldered directly to the board. No substitutions, and they will not supply you with a switch, or help you in anyway by telling you what type of switch it is. TC will never get another nickel of my money.


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## Louis (Apr 26, 2008)

Player99 said:


> Remember TC Electronics pedals have cheap switches, and when they break, TC will offer only to sell you a new pedal at retail, plus you have to pay to ship the old one to them, and they throw your old one away. So you can buy a new pedal every time a TC Electronics pedal breaks. The switches are cheap, and soldered directly to the board. No substitutions, and they will not supply you with a switch, or help you in anyway by telling you what type of switch it is. TC will never get another nickel of my money.



Thank's for your input!



Louis


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## lchender (Dec 6, 2011)

Hi Louis.

I recently picked up a TC Electronic Ditto and I'm liking it so far. It's simple to use, sounds pretty good, and has plenty of recording time.


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## -ST- (Feb 2, 2008)

I have a TC-Helicon VoiceLive Play GTX and it has a one-button-looper function. This has the same logic as the one-button-looper in the Ditto.

This works fine for me except that at times I have trouble getting it to stop (double tap to stop).

http://www.tcelectronic.com/media/1633414/tc_ditto_looper_manual_english.pdf


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## lchender (Dec 6, 2011)

I had trouble with the double tap to stop thing at first too, but found an intuitive way to work with it. 

It's the second tap of the series that makes it stop, so I try to make my two taps rhythmic in keeping with the tempo of the song I'm playing. For example, if I'm playing something in 4/4 and I need the looper to stop at the end of the bar in a mid-tempo song, I'll tap the pedal first on the 'and' of beat 4 and then do the second tap on beat 1 of the following bar. That makes it stop perfectly where I want it to to start the next phrase without disrupting the groove. Otherwise, the spastic, double tap thing is hard to do cleanly.


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## -ST- (Feb 2, 2008)

Hi lchender,

Thanks for this great tip and it makes a lot of sense the way you've explained it. 
I'll try it out it ouy tomorrow. I guess the trick is to figure out how much time you've got between taps. Otherwise, the first tap could be taken for overdub off/on.

Much appreciated!


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

You might wanna try the new Digitech Jamman Express XT

http://www.digitech.com/en-US/products/jamman-express-xt

115$ at Axemusic

http://www.axemusic.com/store/product/32217/Digitech-JamMan-Express-XT-Phrase-Looper-Sampler-Guitar-Effects-Pedal/


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I find the emergence of things like this Digitech pedal and the Ditto interesting for what they say about how loopers are getting used. You have one trend, which sees increased recording capacity, slots for memory sticks, and USB ports for transferring files back and forth. There, players are using loopers for pre-recorded backing tracks, almost like keyboard players use MIDI recorders.

These stripped-down units have limited memory, and none of the storage and transfer capabilities of the other kind, which suggests that players use them in a momentary way, like a sort of intelligent echo. The loops may get built up when playing or experimenting, but they are not stockpiled as they might be on a unit with, say, 32gb and save/load capacity.


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## lchender (Dec 6, 2011)

I use mine for solo gigs so I can take a solo over my own rhythm guitar part recorded live on the fly. It works great for my purposes!


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## -ST- (Feb 2, 2008)

Hi mhammer,


mhammer said:


> I find the emergence of things like this Digitech pedal and the Ditto interesting for what they say about how loopers are getting used. *You have one trend, which sees increased recording capacity, slots for memory sticks, and USB ports for transferring files back and forth. There, players are using loopers for pre-recorded backing tracks, almost like keyboard players use MIDI recorders.*


The Boss RC30 is a great little device and it has all these features (USB transfer instead of memory card slots) and several other things. I had one for over a year and never did get around to using more than 10 or the 99 memory slots, and really - never more than one or two actively. I had really only needed a phrase looper and if the Ditto had been around I might have looked at it. I would probably have been blinded by features though. The RC30 is nice because it is battery powered and it has a phantom powered microphone input (that I need for my microphone). 



> These stripped-down units have limited memory, and none of the storage and transfer capabilities of the other kind, which suggests that players use them in a momentary way, like a sort of intelligent echo. The loops may get built up when playing or experimenting, but they are not stockpiled as they might be on a unit with, say, 32gb and save/load capacity.


I got a TC-Helicon VoiceLive Play GTX after getting the Boss RC30. The VoiceLive Play GTX had a 30 second looper built in but that was too short to be useful to me so I ignored it. But TC Helicon released a firmware update that allowed the looper to run 60 seconds (if you gave up the undo facility), and this is long enough to get in a decent phrase to work with. 

Like khender, I can lay down a rhythm part and solo over it, or do some neat multi-tracked solos while the band holds the rhythm down. 

I mainly use the looper for practice. I'm not inclined to loop parts when there are live players on stage. 

I could do the practice loops with Audacity or other recording software but it's kind of neat to control everything with your feet and not have to look at screens or other hardware to make things happen.


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## -ST- (Feb 2, 2008)

Hi lchender!



lchender said:


> I had trouble with the double tap to stop thing at first too, but found an intuitive way to work with it.
> 
> It's the second tap of the series that makes it stop, so I try to make my two taps rhythmic in keeping with the tempo of the song I'm playing. For example, if I'm playing something in 4/4 and I need the looper to stop at the end of the bar in a mid-tempo song, *I'll tap the pedal first on the 'and' of beat 4 and then do the second tap on beat 1 of the following bar. That makes it stop perfectly where I want it to to start the next phrase without disrupting the groove.* Otherwise, the spastic, double tap thing is hard to do cleanly.


I just spent about 15 minutes with this technique and it works really well. Thanks for explaining this SO clearly.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

I have an Alter Ego, a TCE pedal.

It has a loop function, which is really fun, once you get the timing down.
The only problem I find, and maybe why I haven't picked up a Ditto yet is -
when the loop function is selected on the AE, there's a discernible tone suck/level drop.
Even if the pedal is disengaged, but still with the loop function selected, the problem still exists.

When any of the delay function are selected, there's no problem with the pedal, on, or off.

So is there any difference noticeable with the Ditto in, or out of the chain?


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## lchender (Dec 6, 2011)

I haven't noticed any major tone suck or level drop with the Ditto, but I haven't used it with any other pedals in the chain. I use it for solo gigs where it's the only pedal between my guitar and the amp. 

Anybody else notice any tone suck or volume drop?


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Maybe try it in, then out of the chain to hear if there's any difference.

Because my delay is from TCE, I wondered if the Ditto did the same thing.
It may just be my delay that does that though.

Thanks for the reply lchender.


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## lchender (Dec 6, 2011)

I auditioned the pedal repeatedly in and out of the chain when I bought it to make sure there was no noticeable tone suck. I didn't notice any volume drop when doing that and noticed a very minor loss of high end, which I attributed to the extra cable length between the guitar and amp when going through the Ditto. Maybe your ears will tell you something different, though. Does your local music store have one you can try out in the store?


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

That's good to know about the Ditto.

It was within the pedal I have, it's really noticeable between the delay settings and when you set it the looper.
Crystal clear when engaged with a delay on and Ok when it's off, nothing noticeable.
You can tell as soon as you set it on the looper, a slight volume drop and a bit of high end loss.
That would still do happen when the pedal was disengaged too.

I'm not aware of anyone locally selling TCE, I had to order my Polytune from L&M down south.

I really enjoy the looper on the Alter Ego, regardless of its shortcomings.
Fun to jam with and you can fart around learning licks over your loop.
I'm not into a really complex unit either, that's why the Ditto caught my eye.

I might just have to take the leap and order one.


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## lchender (Dec 6, 2011)

If you get it from L&M, you can always return it within 30 days if you're not crazy about it (although return shipping is kind of a pain).


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