The best looper pedals for all needs and budgets
If a riff is worth playing, it’s worth playing 25 times while you widdle ineptly over the top of it. And that is one very good reason for the current popularity of loopers… but it’s by no means the only one.
A looper is your pathway to instant multitracking. Most of them use the same basic principle of operation – stomp once to start recording, stomp again to end the cycle and start overdubbing – and that’s putting a uniquely powerful tool at your feet. If you want to slap down rough backing tracks for writing new melodies, build elaborate soundscapes of layered harmonies, or just have a virtual band to jam with, there’s going to be at least one pedal on this list that will make your life easier than it was before. And while some of them are both complex and pricey, the good news is that plenty are neither of those things.
Incidentally, there’s a certain ginger-mopped troubadour who’s probably done more than anyone else to popularise the art of looping – and, naturally, not everyone is a fan. But if you’re hoping to get to the end of this guide without seeing him mentioned, that’s going to be rather difficult… as his name is on one of the products.
At a glance:
Best simple looper: TC Electronic Ditto 2
Best do-it-all looper: Boss RC-600 Loop Station
Best two-channel looper: Pigtronix Infinity 2
Best multi-memory looper: Electro-Harmonix Nano Looper 360
Best soundscaping looper: Chase Bliss Audio Mood MkII
Best combined looper and delay: Keeley Eccos
Best practice looper: DigiTech Trio+
Best looper for busking: Sheeran Looper +
Best compact looper: Boss RC-5 Loop Station
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Best simple looper: TC Electronic Ditto 2
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It was a different world before the original TC Ditto came along – think caves, loincloths and saber-toothed tigers. This was the pedal that kickstarted the looping craze, simply by being so much simpler than what came before it. The Ditto 2 isn’t quite as basic as its predecessor (which, by the way, is still being made), but it retains that ethos of putting user-friendliness first.
So again you get a single footswitch – which is now more rugged, to withstand relentless repeat stomping – and a knob for loop level. But there are also a few handy added features, including a LoopSnap mode that automatically corrects slightly mistimed taps of the switch. And the price difference from the old version is minimal.
Need more? Read our TC Electronic Ditto 2 review.
Best do-it-all looper: Boss RC-600 Loop Station
This is pretty much the opposite of the Ditto 2, in the same way that an Airbus A380 is the opposite of a paper aeroplane: not simple but elaborate, and not tiny but absolutely hee-yooge. Because this is the flagship of the Loop Station line, and it’s a very powerful piece of kit.
With the RC-600 you’re getting six stereo tracks, 13 hours of storage and a suite of on-board effects, with an LCD screen to help you navigate it all. But don’t be intimidated: Boss knows how to keep things accessible, and you can easily begin with straightforward Ditto-style looping before you begin to explore the advanced capabilities of this floor-hogging beast.
Need more? Read our Boss RC-600 Loop Station review.
Best two-channel looper: Pigtronix Infinity 2
This one’s been around since 2020, and there’s since been an Infinity 3 model launched, but it remains a solid choice if you want to be able to loop on two independent tracks… and yes, it’s every bit as intuitive to use as it looks.
Record a loop on track 1, record another on loop 2, then flip freely between the two to overdub more parts – it automatically times these jumps to happen at the end of the currently playing cycle, so you don’t need to worry about messing things up with sloppy transitions. Again there are bonus features – notably an octave-down effect that has numerous uses – but again you can have a lot of fun without them.
Need more? Read our Pigtronix Infinity 2 review.
Best multi-memory looper: Electro-Harmonix Nano Looper 360
In spirit, the Nano Looper 360 is another entry in the ‘simplicity first’ category: if it didn’t have that right-hand knob it would be more or less a clone of the original TC Ditto. But that knob is a secret weapon that opens up all sorts of possibilities.
Well, actually, what it opens up is one particular possibility: that of recording a whole bunch of backing loops at home – up to 11 of them – and then calling them up whenever you need them. This means it can be used as a handy notepad for song ideas, or even as a live backing band with a built-in set list.
Best soundscaping looper: Chase Bliss Audio Mood MkII
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All the loopers described above are really good at recording whatever you play into them and then repeating it back to you in pristine audio quality – clean, pure and unaltered. The Mood really, really doesn’t want to do that.
In my review of this pedal I summarised it as “a cinematic loop-scaping leviathan”. It has delay and reverb on one side, randomised micro-looping on the other, and a ‘clock’ control for messing with the fabric of space and time in the middle. It’s always listening, even when it’s switched off, and you have no control over which of your notes it will fire back at you… so yes, the Mood is a looper, but it’s way more creative and unpredictable than anything else on this list.
Need more? Read our Chase Bliss Audio Mood MkII review.
Best combined looper and delay: Keeley Eccos
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In a sense, a looper is just a digital delay pedal with ideas above its station – so why not stick the two effects in one unit? The Keeley Eccos does this brilliantly, and crams an impossible amount of functionality into one compact enclosure.
The looping side works just as it should, with the usual footswitch operation and the added bonuses of reverse and half-speed modes. But the delay part goes off on its own path, colouring the repeats with a nice touch of flangey modulation – or more than a touch if you go mad with the knobs’ secondary functions. You even get three slots for storing user presets… and just to really blur the line between the two effects, you can record a loop and set it to gradually decay.
Best practice looper: DigiTech Trio+
Bandmates all walked out on you because of your excessive perfectionism and/or poor personal hygiene? Neither of those things will be a problem if you replace them with DigiTech’s ‘band creator and looper’ – because it never makes mistakes and it doesn’t have a nose. What it does have is the power to listen to what you play and respond by adding drums and bass.
With 12 musical genres to choose from, 12 song styles within each genre and up to five parts for each song, it’s quite the sophisticated arranger – and you get separate level knobs for the guitar, bass and drum loops. Obviously this is never going to sound or feel the same as playing with real musicians, but it’s a heck of a home practice tool.
Best looper for busking: Sheeran Looper +
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Considering how many young strummers must have been inspired to buy a looper after seeing him play, you can hardly blame Ed Sheeran for grabbing his own slice of the pedal pie by launching a signature brand. This is the entry-level model, but it still offers two tracks, instrument and microphone inputs, a full-colour LCD screen and – most crucially if you’re planning to take it busking – the ability to run off four AA batteries when you don’t have access to mains power.
There’s even a battery-powered PA speaker, the Sheeran Busker, to complete your street-ready rig. Just add a guitar, a mic and maybe a smidge of talent.
Best compact looper: Boss RC-5 Loop Station
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Some loopers are simple and small; others are complicated and expansive. The real challenge is to mash those two worlds together without making a mess all over the floor. Boss has plenty of history in that kind of smart engineering, and has been building loopers for longer than most – its influential RC-20 came out in 2001. So who better to make a genuinely compact pedal that can do it all?
The RC-5 follows the classic Boss design format that goes all the way back to the 1970s, yet it somehow packs in 57 backing rhythms, 13 hours of stereo recording time for up to 99 separate loops, and an unrivalled array of connectivity options including MIDI, expression pedal control and USB backup. It’s a big looper hiding in a small box.
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