MXR might be arriving fashionably late to the looper pedal party but it is showing no shortage of confidence that its Clone Looper's signal reproduction performs better than any in its class.
Citing the usual MXR qualities – all but indestructible, reasonably priced, easy to use, and so on – Jim Dunlop says that the Clone Looper "delivers higher fidelity signal reproduction than any other looper of its type—hands down."
The Clone Looper comes housed in a typically sturdy MXR chrome chassis with two footswitches, with rec/dub to record loops and then clear them and play/stop to turn your loop playback on and off.
A volume control sets the pedal's output but it has push functionality that lets you change your speed and direction of your loop – push once for playback at half-speed and the blue LED lights continuously, and push twice for double-speed, and the blue LED will flash. Or, if you don't like the loop you've recorded, quietly cancel it by holding the volume knob down for five seconds.
The CTR jack allows you to connect a tap tempo switch for doing this with your foot while the EXP jack allows you to connect a volume pedal or tap tempo switch for Play Loop Once mode – a neat feature when playing live, especially if you want to go all Mix Master Mike and have the crowd go wild as you stop and start your loop on the fly.
The Clone Looper has up to six minutes of recording time and offers unlimited overdubs. All loops are saved to the pedal once it is switched off. An LED will even count you in with a flashing 4 count when you start recording your loops to help keep your overdubs in the pocket.
The Clone Looper has switchable true or buffered bypass, and has an analog through-path to keep the integrity of your dry signal. With storage sample rates up to 88.2kHz, MXR says the unit will handle a heavily processed signal, so no need to take the fuzz out the signal path.
You'll need a 9V power supply to get those lights going and a few extra hours in the day to stop playing around with it each night.
The Clone Looper ships October and is priced $149 (£123, €135 approx)
See Jim Dunlop for more details.
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