Mooer GL100 Groove Loop/Drum

I'm a jazz improviser, and I'm using this looper along with an EHX Bass9 to perform solo. It is exactly what I expected after reading its description. Overall the functionality and experience is similar to what I get from my Spark2 looper but in a pedal format.

I previously had a Boomerang which was awesome but also was large and frankly required me to remember too many details to perform live flawlessly. Though the manual for the GL100 is 35 pages long, I find it intuitive after just a little practice. The touchscreen + rotary dial are easy to use.

The auto-record and drum machine (or flashing LED if you prefer) do indeed guarantee a perfect start and stop every time. The two footswitches make it very easy to reliably dub, undo/redo, and stop. The auto fade out (2 speeds) is useful, as is the wide range of tempo values. Overall it's a big improvement over the 1-button loopers I've used.

The built in drum sounds are good but for the most part are loud and are not at all subtle, more suited to rock than the music I play. But I can make my own drum loops on my Mac and load them.

Minus one star for quality since it played random stuff until I updated the firmware. Minus another star since the Mooer Studio software is not signed correctly and was (rightly) a pain to install on Mac; Mooer Studio works but is very slow.

Other improvements I'd like to see and would pay for: Ability to name the loops in Mooer Studio so I don't have to remember numbers. Support for 2 (or, better, 3!) simultaneous loops. Stereo 1/4" inputs & outputs (as opposed to 2 mono inputs/outputs). MIDI clock input.

Positives
+ very intuitive to use
+ has a lot of features for the price, e.g. touchscreen, drum machine, two footswitches, lot's of memory slots and capacity for long loops.

Negatives
- Single track looper only (though you have to pay much more for a dual track looper).
- parts of the display are quite small to read - I'm either too tall and/or too shortsighted these days.
- No additional footswitch socket to control the looper as a desklooper (so you can read what the display says) or to switch the drums on and off independently of the loop.
- power supply only, doesn't work on batteries.
- MAJOR FLAW - the PC software to manage/import tracks DOESN'T EXIST.

Well this gets very good reviews as a looper with drum sounds as well.

Pros: Its packed with great features - no problem there - and it’s not difficult to use. Drums sound good. I didn’t do much looping yet but it seems quite intuitive. So quite easy to use. Loop playback quality really good too.

Cons:
It adds a lot of hissing to the signal chain, even at low volumes and even with little gain. That’s quite annoying. At high gain it adds a lot of hissing which makes it largely unusable except playing clean at low volumes. I sent it back and got a replacement. It was quieter than the first unit but still not good. I have kept it because of the ease of use but it is annoying so most of the time I remove it from the signal chain. I checked lots of reviews an no one mentions this problem and I am surprised, but they are probably paid reviews.

The second gripe is that the screen is really small and difficult to read, but for the price I didn’t expect more and the reviews online clearly say this, so I knew that in advance.

Third, you can alter the volume / level of the drums but actually even on the lowest setting it’s quite loud. It would be better if they could go a bit quieter.

All in all I decided to keep the pedal as I did get a replacement after the 30 day return period (which was really great of Thomman) and if it didn’t make so much noise I would be very happy with this product. I think they have just used some low quality components to keep the price low and I was unlucky and got a noisy one.

I think that I will use it for now but probably invest in a better quality looper if I end up using it a lot. It really shoudn’t add so much noise to the signal - to me thats inexcusable.