Boss RC-1

Great looper that I use for practicing alone at home. One of the features that I love is visual display of the loop length which is extremely helpful, especially if you don't have any previous experience with looper pedal. Also the boss-style silent switch is great, since it doesn't make annoying click and is very easy to engage and disengage. Press once to start recording, press one more time to instantly overdub. There is an option to configure pedal to start the playback on the second tap without overdubbing, which might be useful for some players. The only caveat is that erasing the loop (hold the switch for a second) would initially playback around a second of recorded loop, which makes it not very usable in live situation, but external footswitch totally solves the problem. Looper stores in memory whatever you recorded on it even when turned off, but there is no option to store multiple loops and switch between them like using presets. Build quality is perfect like on any other Boss stompbox, it is very solid and feels like this pedal would perfectly work for ages without failing. There was no AC adapter included and I've never tried running it from batteries - I'm powering the pedal with my power supply and don't have any hum or noise issues. In overall, great and very easy to use looper for home practice, which can be extended for live situations with external footswitch.

I have always loved the ingenious industrial design of the Boss compact pedals, first introduced back in 1977! Due to the way everything is laid out, the knobs are always protected from being accidentaly stepped on, and the pedal itself is large and really easy to press even with bare feet, which could never be said about the small round metal footswitches of most of its competitors. My first looper pedal was the original TC Electronic Ditto, and the footswitch was the primary reason I no longer have it. The pedal itself was smaller than the Boss, but a slightly increased size is a sacrifice I am more than willing to make for the sake of improved comfort. Also, the RC-1 has an extremely convenient round loop indicator which serves as a sort of progress bar of the loop, so you can always know when it is nearing the end and overdub it or simply turn it off at the right time. Lastly, I read the manual and discovered an amazing feature I did not even know the RC-1 had: apparently it can be set whether it goes right into the overdubbing mode when you press the pedal to stop the recording, or whether it just starts playing the recorded loop. I think, it is very convenient, especially for musicians who use multi-layered loops live.

This is a simple looper that you can use straight out of the box. You can layer multiple tracks to achieve a depth of sound. Solid pedal (like all BOSS pedals)
It's simplicity is probably also its drawback: you can only save the loop you last recorded and you have to get used to hitting the pedal at exactly the right time or a new layer will be out of sync.

If you want a looper to add a simple backing loop this is perfect. If you want a wall of sound that you can save and recall again you'll have to invest in something with more features.