About to pull the trigger on an EHX 45000- your opinions welcomed

Started by Rhcole, April 04, 2014, 02:19:01 PM

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Rhcole

I asked the group yesterday about a looper for non-traditional music such as ambient. Clearly, the RC-300 is the gold standard for loopers and the main looper discussed in depth here. But, I have decided to go for the EHX 45000 instead. Here are my thoughts, and I welcome your agreement or disagreement.

1. I grit my teeth over and will have to compensate for the lack of an undo/redo on the 45000. Ouch! It uses a punch-in instead, which is more trouble to manage live.
2. BUT- for non-traditional music, I think the 45000 has the advantage due to its immediate loading of loops while a different loop is playing. You have to have the footswitch, but nobody thinks the 45000 is useful without it anyway. With the 45000 you can be in a loop- say #30, and then use the FS to select a different loop- #31, which will start playing right after #30 finishes. You can then reselect another loop. AND, each loop has 4 different tracks which you can select/deselect at will. This is very different from the RC-300, where you have three tracks at a time under the same loop, which might cover verse/chorus/bridge or all be synchronized. On the RC-300 there is a time gap between loading different loops which would make it impractical for complex styles with time and key changes. THAT IS THE KEY DIFFERENCE.
3. Will have to make up for fewer features in the 45000, such as FX and expression control, but I have outboard boxes to handle that.

Your thoughts?

Elantric

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=7799.msg54932#msg54932

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=7678.msg65085#msg65085


Aliensporebomb wrote>
QuoteThe problem with the 45000 besides its expense with the external footpedal (locally it's about $475 for the 45k and an additional $120 for the footpedal) is its form factor does not suit itself for live performance very well in my opinion it has a design suited for a tabletop while working in the studio.   That I could get past - but there's a bigger issue for me.

The biggest problem for me is the lack of every loop being stereo.  It has some nice capabilities but once again EHX produces a really cool piece of hardware with some limitations that won't work for me.  As an ambient artist I do big wide stereo fields for every signal I produce and when I heard that the 45k was 4 loops with undo but only 1 of the loops was truly stereo that bummed me out. 

And after my last experiences with EHX as a live performance looper I'm probably going to confine their stuff to the studio - it just doesn't stand up to live performance under hot stage lights.  I love the Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai but heat is its achilles heel and makes it do all kinds of strange things in live performance.  Too risky.  That's about 40 gigs over 6 years of owning it and the two biggest stage light rigs generated big heat and the thing just went out of its mind.  I'm sure most of their stuff is fine but for whatever reason mine acts possessed under the heat of live performance.  I've never had a problem with Roland gear in 25 years of playing out.


Loopman replied>
QuoteHi Aliensporebomb,

first, here in Italy, the RC-300 is more expensive compared to the EHX 45000 (almost 100 euro of difference)
yes, the RC-300 is more live use oriented, but let's consider these matters:
1) If you read the manual, you'll see that all the functions of the 45000 can be controlled from a midi foot    controller. I use my Roland FC-300 midi foot controller to control all the functions of the 45000 which I need of, so it's handy for me in live concerts and I never had problems, everything works great.
2) ..." I heard that the 45k was 4 loops with undo but only 1 of the loops was truly stereo that bummed me out..." 
This is not true, the 45000 is capable of 2 Stereo tracks, you can choose to use them coupled by clicking the Stereo Mode button, so you'll have the 1&2 or the 3&4. Or, if you like, 4 mono tracks.

I'm an ambient artist too and I never had problems about the stereo matter, don't worry...
Take in mind another important thing : the 45000 is capable of the Variable Feedback Decay for every track (aka Loop aging), do it remember you something?
------> Frippertronics, yeah, that's it, exactly.
The RC-300 is not absolutely able of the Loop aging feature, its way to make loops is very static and not so much ambient style.

Hope it helps