In case recent releases haven’t made the current state of the looper pedal market competitive enough, Electro-Harmonix has now dropped a teeny version of its best-selling Nano 360 Looper that, despite its shrunken footprint, packs more features than ever.
The regular Nano 360 Looper has remained relatively unchanged for around a decade or so, so this upgrade is certainly a welcome one, with the Pico 360+ boasting overdub controls, fadeout abilities and a downsized chassis as its chief updates.
Coming as part of EHX’s pocket-sized Pico range – which transfers the magic of some of the firm’s most revered pedals into tiny pedalboard space-saving housings – the affordable single footswitch stompbox offers six minutes of recording time, unlimited overdubs, and 11 memory slots.
Granted, that’s a core dwarfed by the 300 minutes of total loop time and 100 memory slots of Mooer’s recently announced GL100, but EHX is confident that those specs are plenty good enough. With that in mind, it’s seemingly focused on delivering better features elsewhere.
Over to the Overdub knob, then, which sets the feedback level of an, erm, overdub. In practice, the level of all previous layers are lowered the more you stack. Setting the knob at 50% lowers the previously tracked overdubs by, you guessed it, 50%. EHX says this helps players “create an ever-changing loop.”
With smoother live performances in mind, an adjustable Fadeout mode is also included. This allows for smooth fadeout endings when the loop is stopped.
The majority of the pedal’s functions – such as record, playback, overdub, undo, redo, stop, and erase – are all operated via the footswitch. Other competitors may outshine the Pico 360+ by throwing a veritable kitchen sink of features at their own pedals – Zoom’s new MS-90LP+ offers a handy undo feature to quickly fix mistakes, for instance – but the EHX charms with its simplicity.
The tiny looper captures high-quality, uncompressed audio at 24-bit, 44.1kHz, and, pleasingly, ships with a 9V power supply. It’s available for $137.70, making it far cheaper than many of its competitors.
“The Nano Looper 360 has been one of our best-selling pedals for just over a decade,” says EHX. “Enter the new 360+ Looper with an updated feature set and a smaller footprint.”
Among those it is set to rival is the Digitech JamMan Solo HD, which, with no bias at all, has been described as “the pinnacle of compact looper development” by its makers.The king of looping himself Ed Sheeran also has a line of loopers.
Boss' ever-reliable RC-1 Loop Station and TC Pigtonix's “grown-up” Infinity 3 are two other looper pedals vying for player's hearts. The options are endless. Resistance is futile.
The EHX Pico 360+ is available now. Head to Electro-Harmonix for more.
