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SKU TCE-DITTOX4

TC Electronic Ditto X4 Looper Pedal

This product has been discontinued.

We have discontinued this product permanently. Please find alternative products from below section.
  • The guitar player's looper - made for guitarists by guitarists

  • Dual loop tracks - create evolving multi-track compositions or fully fledged songs

  • 7 loop FX - endless creative potential

  • MIDI sync and control - for perfectly timed live loops

  • Loop decay

  • True bypass and analog dry-through

  • Stereo In/Out

  • StarJam - Import free loops made by music's finest

  • 9V DC/300mA

Manufacturer's Description

I should start this review by stating that I have limited experience with looping pedals. I have tried many through the years, but had not settled on one to place on my own pedalboard. Bands and artists who employ looping such as El Ten Eleven, Don Caballero, Tera Melos, Reggie Watts, Battles, Nels Cline, and others are regularly in my listening rotation, so in the past couple months I had been researching pedals to purchase in an effort to start learning the art of looping in depth. One of the most buzzed about products that came out of this recent Winter NAMM show in January was TC Electronic’s Ditto X4 Looper. As soon as it arrived at Pitbull Audio I had to check it out for myself.

The Ditto X4 is an expanded X2 with a couple new features and some borrowed from other pedals in the Ditto family. A Serial/Sync mini-toggle and Decay knob are added, a dedicated Stop switch like on the Ditto Mic, and an FX section with 7 effects and dedicated switch. There are stereo inputs and outputs, MIDI ins and outs, and USB for import/export of loops. This is all housed in a sturdy metal body that could handle the rigors of the road.

There are also four DIP switches on the back panel giving you further control over your X4, allowing you to adapt the pedal to your looping style and needs. The first switch changes Record-Play-Overdub to Record-Overdub-Play. The second switch changes Overdub Mode from being instant to starting at beginning of the loop cycle. Switch 3 allows you to change your switching between loops 1 and 2 from instant to happening at the beginning of the loop cycle while in Serial mode. Lastly, switch 4 changes the pedal from true bypass to buffered.

If you have ever spent time with a TC Electronic Ditto Looper, you know how easy it is to use. Nothing about that intuitive nature has been lost in the X4, with recording, playback, and overdubbing of up to 5 minute of time on each loop all made a breeze. Each of the two independent loops has their own volume control, with playback mode controlled by the Serial/Sync mini-toggle. Serial mode lets you switch between the two loops (like in a verse-chorus manner), while Sync mode allows both to be played at the same time. The Decay knob determines how quickly layers fade away, allowing you to endlessly compose if you want to. If you want to keep your layers right where they are, turn Decay fully clockwise.

The stereo ins and outs on the unit made the songwriting process much easier, allowing a bandmate and myself to both run into the looper at the same time and out to our respective amps to test parts against each other on independent loops without tiring ourselves out playing riffs over and over. This in conjunction with the ability to decay loops will also be of great live use to with multi-instrumental solo performers. Thanks to the Store/Delete/Backing Track Level mini-toggle borrowed from the Ditto X2 and Stereo, the USB port in the back allows you to easily export your stored recorded riff ideas or even entire loops to your computer and into your DAW of choice, or import your own loops from your own library or some pre-recorded loops from famous artists to jam along to from TC Electronic’s StarJam Loops and Loop Packages.

The features that first brought the X4 to my attention are the 7 on-board effects and its dedicated switch. A couple of the effects had been available on another Ditto pedal, but TC Electronic made some smart choices for which new sounds to include on the X4. The Reverse and Half-Speed from the X2 are present, but 5 new effects included: Once, Tape Stop, Fade, Double, and Hold.

The Once effect plays the loop cycle once then stops. The Tape Stop creates the sound of a tape machine slowing to a stop with your loop, then starts the loop up again instantaneously when you hit the switch again. Fade creates a fade out on your loops. The Double effect plays your loop at double speed.

As someone obsessed with glitch pedals of all varieties, and always searching high and low for devices capable of similar sounds, the “Hold” sample-and-hold effect at the end of the FX selector was actually the first I tried out. I was pleased with what I heard, and although you couldn’t adjust the width of the sample that is held I will definitely find myself using Hold quite often. This is also the only effect that changes the dedicated FX switch from latching to momentary. A couple of the effects such as Once and Fade had more utilitarian uses for singer/songwriters and other looping musicians who are switching between loops in song structure and want to end them when they decide. The Tape Stop effect will also be of use to the utilitarian loopers, but is bound to find even more fans in the noise and ambience crowds.

By far my favorite facet of the FX section of the Ditto X4 is the ability to layer effects over each other on your loops. For example I could build a loop with as many overdubs as I wish, Half their speed, turn the FX knob and hit it again to flip it into Reverse, turn the knob once more to Hold and sample sections in mid-cascade to build tension while I play over the held sample, or stretch a segment into its end with a well-placed Tape Stop. It gets even better though! While that Tape Stop is still engaged (after the loop has slowed to its stop), I can turn the dial to Half, switch that off, then turn the FX knob back to Tape Stop, hit it, and restart the loop playing at normal speed but still in Reverse. There are so many ways to combine effects on here that it really is stunning. At the same time though, it is possible to get lost on which effects you have activated in which order and find yourself having trouble figuring which one you have to turn off.

For all the great possibilities to the Ditto X4, there is a downside or two. To begin with, the unit is much noisier than I would have hoped for. Even bypassed with no loops playing the pedal added some hiss and noise to my signal chain, whether it was powered by the included power supply or one of the isolated, appropriately powered outlet off my Walrus AudioPhoenix pedalboard power supply. The noise was present if the pedal was used by itself with no other pedals or at the end of my pedalboard (8th pedal in line). While the noise could be a deal-killer for many musicians, this problem could be easily fixed with a noise gate such as the Sentry, also made by TC Electronic, placed after the looper or inserted into your amplifiers effects chain (if it has one), or even your venue or studio engineer adding a noise gate into your channel. It would still be nice for the noise issue to be taken care of in an update or the next version of the X4 without having to add a noise gate to your signal chain.

Other features I would love to see added to the X4 would be parameter controls for the FX section. Two or three dedicated small knobs and a mini-toggle or two would greatly enhance the effects section, solidifying its place in glitch- and manipulation-minded looping guitarists’ arsenals and giving solo looping musicians deeper control. I would want to keep the large FX selection knob though, as its size and smooth movement made it easy to move turn it where I wanted with my foot when lining up effects to layer without bending down to adjust it by hand. As I mentioned before if I could pick the sample width of the Hold effect that would be nice, allowing me to hold small phrases or pick smaller stabs for jittery effects and broken sounds. Having some controls over the length and taper of the Fade and Tape Stop effects would also be nice, perhaps even adding the ability to add tape warble with depth and/or speed to the Tape Stop. Mini-toggles would be useful in switching to alternative speeds for the Half and Double effects, for example being able to choose quarter or half speed in Half, or double or quadruple speeds in Double setting. If I can keep dreaming, an expression pedal input for control of these effect parameters on the fly would also be welcomed. Despite the lack of parameter control, the possibilities of the available effects and the ability to layer them live and on the fly gives this looping pedal a sharp advantage over the competition.

Of course adding these features would mean adding more hardware, possibly even adding to the size of the pedal to accommodate extra knobs, switches and inputs. We all know extra hardware means higher price. All the features I mentioned above I would like added would pretty much equal a deluxe version of the X4 anyway. Then again, at $249.00, the lack of complexity and having features on-board such as MIDI ins and outs (for MIDI-clock sync) as well as those FX available with dedicated switch gives more expensive looping units a run for their money and make it any easy choice as a performance looper. Despite the noise issue, I feel the Ditto X4 will undoubtedly find many fans and a home on many pedalboards.