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I want to loop a bass line and then layer guitar loops over it.

This picture shows what I am trying to achieve:

bass+guitar through a stereo looper to two amps

I have the blocks shown in the diagram, including a Boss RC-1 which does have stereo inputs and outputs, but it blends the signals. I don't want my bass signal to play through the guitar amp, or vice versa. I'm not gigging or recording; this is just for hacking around in the basement mostly in the style of live performance looping.

My questions:

  • Is my goal achievable by replacing the RC-1 with some other looper?
  • If so, what description/attributes/keywords do I need to be looking for? (I.e. I'm not looking for a specific product recommendations, just for how to go about finding the right bit of gear.)
  • If not, can I do this by adding a small amount of extra gear that doesn't require a huge amount of complexity and/or budget? In particular I'd like to avoid running through a laptop and mixing software.

Possible solutions I've considered:

  • I briefly thought about getting a second looper pedal and running completely separate signal chains but getting the timing right seems challenging at best. Using a single looper at least makes it so that the loop start/end matches up for the two instruments.
  • Single guitar+amp, using an octave pedal for the bass loop. This works but the sound isn't quite the same.
  • Boss RC-300 looks like it might support this and I'd get one if I was certain it will work and is the only way to solve this, but it's at the top end of the budget. If I can get away with a more lightweight solution that would be ideal.

FWIW I'm also open to an answer that tells me I'm asking the wrong question and there's a better way to play over my own bass line without big piles of complexity/budget.

Related questions:

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    It's 'RC-1 blends the signals' that confounds it all. Unless you can pan hard l/r when recording, this won't work.
    – Tim
    Oct 15, 2022 at 15:42
  • While reading the manual for a different pedal, I realized that maybe only the RC-1's A output is blended, so I just tried reversing my inputs so that guitar is on the A and bass is on the B. This is the case, so I can at least isolate the bass. This makes my current setup usable but I'm still interested in having fully separate outputs.
    – bstpierre
    Oct 15, 2022 at 16:37
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    I feel like the best answer to this question is to recommend a specific looper that can do what you want, and that would be off topic. Maybe you just want to have two loopers that can be synchronized via MIDI?
    – Todd Wilcox
    Oct 15, 2022 at 16:43
  • If you want to loop different kinds of signal together your probably best off not plugging the looper into a guitar amp at all. Better mic up the guitar amp, send that into the looper as well as the (DI-ed) bass and play it back directly over the PA. (Honestly though... what's the point of all these looping shenanigans? It's so much more fun to just have a different player play the bass, and use loops either only on the guitar or only on the bass, or not at all.)
    – leftaroundabout
    Oct 16, 2022 at 12:39

2 Answers 2

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I do this myself using a looper with stereo inputs and outputs. Guitar goes into input A and out output A. Bass does the same via in/out B. Simple and easy, but not an inexpensive piece of gear, at least not the one I chose.

When I only had a 2-channel input, 1-channel output looper, I would mic my guitar and bass amps separately, then run those mics through the looper and into a PA. This worked but I prefer the stereo outputs to each amp.

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In the setup you drawn it seems that the looper has no way to know to which amp it is supposed to send the signal. You need another A/B before RC-2, directing the signal to its desired input.

enter image description here

The main inconvenience is that you would need to switch each of the two A/B boxes whenever you switch instruments. Perhaps some more advanced A/B or selector type units could allow to switch the routing in both places by pressing a single button, but they wouldn't necessarily be cheap.

If price is a significant concern, maybe the cheapest would be to make by yourself a selector that would switch the signal routing in two places, e.g. based on a 3PDT switch?

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  • Not at all sure, but I reckon this could work. There's no need to press both pedals simultaneously, is there, though? The looper can be set to overdub, both A/B selections made, then hit the looper overdub.
    – Tim
    Oct 16, 2022 at 8:46
  • @Tim indeed you don't need to press them simultaneously, but it adds up to things that may ruin your performance.
    – user1079505
    Oct 16, 2022 at 16:46

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