Quickly now - Looper Question - Headrush or RC2

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:01 pm

Hello shortscale. Helping a bloke at work buy his son a pedal for Christmas (hence the urgency in the thread title), and have narrowed it down to a Headrush E2 or a Boss RC2, for about the same price. He wants it to emulate Tunstall-isms (no accounting for taste, but he's young, bless him), and I know she uses the Headrush, but I've heard good things about the Boss. At the moment my thinking runs:

Akai: user friendly but shorter (23 sec.?) loops, handy for nice delays too, no save option.

Boss: more of a pure looper, longer loops, able to store sounds.

Anyone care to chime in? If it was for me, I'd go for the Headrush, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts...

Post by **Doog** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:06 pm

I'm pretty sure Hurb has owned or used both, he's probably the GO-TO GUY on this one.

I had a goof on the RC-2 at Doogfest (see the Demarco Dream thread), and the drum patterns are a boon, especially for practising or trying out multi-layered ideas for songs or whatever.

Though I guess if he wants to emulate Turnstyle, best go with what she uses- I remember being young and impressional and wanting the EXACT SAME BIT OF KIT, just makes it that much more exciting using the same stuff as your idol.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:08 pm

I used to have a Line6 DL4 I used for looping, which I guess would be more like the headrush.

It was easy to use and layer stuff but frustrating to use in a band setting since if you didn't kick down at just the right moment the time would be thrown off and it'd fuck up the drummer.

The RC2 I know kind of quantizes your loop to the drum tracks it has.

I would personally go RC2, and the user interface really isn't hard to figure out at all. Most people figure it out in less than 5 minutes on their own.

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:18 pm

Cheers both - anyone else care to weigh in?

*projects Hurb-symbol onto the night sky*

Post by **Mike** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:32 pm

The RC-2 is more complicated to use but has drums. The Headrush is more simple but has no drums, but had delay.

RC-2 much smaller.

Headrush much bigger.

The End.

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:35 pm

Had much of a go on either, Mike? The Headrush just seems a bit more fun to me.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:38 pm

Nah, I'm not really a looping guy. I can tell you that I tried to use the RC-2 at Doogfest this year and got nowhere with it in 5 minutes. This is a bad sign.

euan · Post by **euan** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:39 pm

Man I loved the sound of the Headrush. It was the one delay I instantly got on with. There is nothing wrong with Kunstall is you ignore her music. I so would. The dirty girl.

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:42 pm

Mike wrote:I can tell you that I tried to use the RC-2 at Doogfest this year and got nowhere with it in 5 minutes. This is a bad sign.

Holy fuck - this is the biggest blot in the RC2's copy book so far.

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:13 pm

I owned a HR2 for about a year. For myself it was really frustraiting in a band situation, If i played a riff for a couple barrs I always found it to have like a half second gap before the loop came back in, which would then mean the loop was way out of time with the rest of the band.

Post by **Hurb** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:31 pm

If you want the best looper rc-2 no question.
If you want to be kt and have delays and have the worst looper get the akai.

euan · Post by **euan** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:40 pm

Nah. The DD3 is the worst looper.

More Cowbell · Post by **More Cowbell** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:44 pm

The EHX 2880 is awesome, but $400, and has no drums...but its awesome.

Post by **Hurb** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:45 pm

euan wrote:Nah. The DD3 is the worst looper.

out of the two. the akai isn't a bad looper at all. but compared to the rc-2 it isn't as good. the akai is a simple looper to use though.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:46 pm

euan wrote:Nah. The DD3 is the worst looper.

haha... yeah. It's useless.

euan · Post by **euan** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:55 pm

I've been trying to find my niche as a guitarist using the DD3s looper. Not really had much success.

James · Post by **James** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:05 pm

I've had a few couple of minutes goes on the RC2. I never managed to get it to work properly during one of those, but it did seem like with a read of the manual first, or a bit of a demonstration it wouldn't be too difficult. It's certainly not vry plug and play though.

The Doog DeMarco video

[youtube][/youtube]

Doog managed to do that without having used one before and with just a little instruction from Donk.

It seems the only reason to get the headrush would be so he could have 'teh Tunstallz" and follow the idol. I'm not very good with loopers and don't know too much about them, but based on this thread and seeing one in action the RC2 seems a smart choice.

James · Post by **James** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:07 pm

Some interesting stuff here. Probably not going to help the choice much, but for anyone interested it's worth a look. Would be good to pass on to the boy getting the looper for Christmas too.

More Cowbell · Post by **More Cowbell** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:08 pm

The Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai does 30 seconds of looping and you can record 1 loop, then another on top, then play over that. I'm not sure how many layers it will do, that is all I've found so far and its easy to use.

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:27 pm

Cheers all - ordering the Akai (thus ignoring a lot of your messages, but the secondhand RC2 had sold...).