Best Looper/Switcher Under $300? One Control Tail Loop Review! 

Glad you found it useful. Cheers!

No worries, I'm glad you found it useful. Cheers ; )

No worries, good timing! I actually made a vid on power a few weeks ago ; ) Check it out here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-w9ABdDpnj2w.html

I was just thinking the same but what I really would like to know is how useful is the power sharing capabilities this looper? If I understood correctly, the whole idea behind this unit, it can do a lot of things but what makes it interesting for me is the fact that you can power pedals from it which is super useful - so, what is your experience in that regard? I am thinking about One Control Chamaeleo Tail Loop MKII that has 6x9v outs but I don't know how good they are and what can you power with them... What is the max mA you can send from them. Could you please be so kind to share any idea or data you might have before I decide on that device? Thank you!

This looper isn't a power supply, it's a power distributor (kind of like a daisy chain). So the total output power will depend on the power supply you're using to power the looper itself. This feature probably works pretty well, but I haven't tried it. To keep things as clean and quiet as possible, I opted for a seperate, fully isolated power supply. Hope that helps ; ) @@masternippleblaster

Awesome, John. I appreciate that mate ; ) Regards power, the unit itself just takes a standard 9v input. As you mention, you can also daisy chain other pedals from the switcher as well. Personally, I just use a dedicated power supply to make sure that everything stays isolated. But I'm sure the chaining option would work great in a pinch. Anyway, glad the video helped. All the best!

@@guitariq Thanks! I was planning to use the isolated dedicated outs as well. Good to know that you do as well ... 👏👏

@@guitariq Hey there my friend ... The unit came today ... EZ to set up & program once I figured out it's 6 "Send/Returns" but only 5 "Loops" .. LOL ... I think it's just the terminology that's confusing at first. At first pass here is what I noticed .... More "Highs" coming through since not all the pedals are in the chain as before ....... made some adjustments and we are good! Thanks again. ... Happy Holidays!

Hey! Hmm, not really... All switchers will take the pedal in/out of your signal chain. (Which means the tails will be cut off.) Of course, you could just place your reverb and delay effects after the switcher. This means you can switch modulation and drive effects etc. without cutting the tails. Hope that helps ; )

Schizo good question. I don’t want any time/modulation effects cut off abruptly IF switched off, but that is unavoidable with a switched loop AFAICT.

They're Mooer Candy pedal toppers. You can find them cheap on eBay ; )

Hey! If you're running wet/dry, I'd just use the switcher for my gain staging (comp, eq, boost, overdrive, ect.). Then I'd use a simple buffered splitter after the switcher to send my delay and reverb to the second amp. Hope that helps ; )

Yeah, it's mainly setup to use in preset mode. That said, once you click the switcher into edit mode, you can manually switch banks on/off individually. I assume the JOYO would let you do something similar but I haven't used one.

Hey! Yeah, the Empress buffers can be configured in multiple ways. The standard way is as you describe, using it as a loop with separate buffers on the input and output. However, it can also be configured as a 2-way (and even 3-way) splitter. Below is a link to the manual if you want more info on how that works. Hope that helps, cheers mate! support.empresseffects.com/support/solutions/articles/1000282797

Thanks! Mine just has the standard type of switches. However, I haven't noticed any pops when switching between loops. That said, I only really use it to clean up my signal chain in the studio. Not for switching sounds when playing live. Anyway, I hope that helps ; )

No, you'd want to use a separate channel footswitch. Cheers ; )

Yes. In the 'Program' mode you have access to switching on and off all 6 loops. The switch only scrolls through banks when you're in 'Preset' mode. Hope that helps! Cheers ; )

@@guitariq awesome, thanks for the reply! I’ve been considering getting one of these because for the price and how compact it is, seems like a pretty good deal. Haven’t seen too many videos of people using them. One year after posting the video, do you still like it?

@@abchighway Yep, great little compact unit. It's going to be front and centre on my new studio pedalboard ; )

No worries. The Tail Loop comes pre-loaded with 5 banks. But you can access up to 20 manually, if you so desire later. (The product manual shows you how to do this.) Hope that helps, cheers!

Yep! I'm doing that on my new pedalboard. Works great ; )

Thanks!

Cheers!

May be an option better suited for you like the Swiss Things by earthquakes devices gives you several great functions one of them being two independent effect loops one designed for all your dirt pedals and the other for time and mod effects basically giving you time to turn on whichever multiple pedals you want to come on at once before ultimately hitting the loop 2 button which will add any pedal you have on thats in the loop and cut them all off at once when hit again. Theres also an independent clean boost with volume knob and an awesome a/b/y switch allowing you to run to 2 amps and with between them or blend both amps together. Finally it has tuner out and volume pedal out all in a pedal the size of a big muff. Few other options which offer similar but add the ability to run effects parallel is the OBNE signal blender or the Tri parallel mixer by electro harmonix. the last 2 both under $150 and the Swiss things will run around $250 last I checked. Love JF also and not sure why he doesnt use the new tools available but likely its simply the old stuck in their ways thing which is understandable when you feel that technology has done us more harm then good us old people are skeptical when we have a system that has served us well lol. I think his tone is better than ever today imo Its also not as big of a problem degrading your signal running all those pedals in series when your playing through 3 Marshall stacks

The unit has 6 loops. 'Edit' is just a secondary function on the 1st switch. Hope that helps ; )

If you mean 'daisy chaining' the power, I have tried that. However, it runs perfectly fine running multiple pedals in a single loop (if that's what you mean). Hope that helps ; )

@@guitariq Yes sir, that's exactly it. I ended up with the Chamaeleo, and it's working great. Thanks for posting this!

@@Xyrium Awesome! Glad the video could help. Best of luck ; )

Cheers! Unfortunately, you can't switch the order of loops with this unit. Some of the bigger units come with this functionality. Hope that helps ; )

@@guitariq Thanks a lot for the reply mate ! I made my research and it seems that only older units and high-end ones offer this. Upon further reading, I also found out that most people who thought they would swap orders a lot rarely do so. I think it settles it then. If anyone is interested I found out that the Moen gec438 offers a 4 channel order swap. It can be found at around 50 USD used here in Japan. I'd rather have 8 or even 6 channels than 4 with order swap but it seems to be a good solution for anybody interested in having this feature without having to pay 400 USD for a Boss ES-5. Cheers.

@@Ad-excelsum this was a really really helpful comment, thanks for sharing!

Thanks!

Hey! From memory, this is a setting you have to enable on the unit itself. I don't use more than the default 5 banks, so I've never needed to. But I remember the process of adding more banks was pretty simple. You should be able to download the manual from their website if you'd like to find out more on how to do it. Thanks ; )

​@@guitariq Thanks a million chap! Not sure I really need more than 5 banks either, but it's nice to know all the functions. I bought one becuase of your video btw. The manual could be clearer but seems to suggest you can set the number of active banks between 1 and 20 by powering up in a special way. May set it to 3!

@@TheStoneboat Awesome, best of luck mate ; )

You power it up while holding the BANK switch, and you'll see all preset LED's light up red and the current highest number of banks available. Press BANK to increase the amount of banks you want to use.

Nice! I'll have to check it out ; )

Yeah, the edit button does have it's own loop but you can't save a preset to it (like the others). So in each bank, there are 6 loops to choose from but only 5 switches for saving patches. Hope that helps ; )

Everything is looped in series. This means if you're running 4-cable method, you have to choose whether to place the looper in front of the amp or in the FX loop (you can't do both). In general, I'd suggest always using loop switchers in front of the amp. However, if you're only using 4 pedals (2 in front and 2 in the FX loop) you probably don't need a loop switcher at all ; )

@@guitariq I have a delay, reverb, and chorus pedal in the fx loop. I'm wondering what effect it would have being all plugged in front of the amp through the looper?

What I think (hope) you can do is this: Think of your amp's preamp section as a pedal and put it into one of the switcher's loops (say loop 4). In all of your presets, you'd keep your preamp on. It "costs" you one of your loops, but you could then have, for example, delay and reverb in the amp's effects loop, and 2 drives and a chorus in front of the amp. I'm considering buying this switcher, with this specific use case in mind.

No, not on this model. It only saves presets based on which loops are switched on and off. Cheers!

@@guitariq hey thanks for your reply. Do you know a looper which can change the order in a similar price range?

@@althewicked Not off the top of my head, sorry. Perhaps, check out the other models in the One Control series. Cheers.

@@guitariq Thanks man

I haven't had that issue with mine. Sound super frustrating though! As it's only a few months old, however, be sure to reach out to the retailer you purchased it from. They should be able to fix or replace it under warranty.

Yep.

I picked this one up for $150 used yesterday. It’s definitely better build quality than Joyo

I was thinking the same

He kept saying "simply" - but it didn't seem simple haha