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Digitech's original JamMan set the standard for full-featured digital looper/phrase sampler pedals and garnered the praise of numerous legendary musicians. The double-sized pedal lets players record phrases, overdub tracks and play along with their backing rhythms and riffs in live settings. But the JamMan is also a great way to practice, learn and compose. You can connect an external music source, sample a phrase from a song and even loop the playback at slower or faster speeds.

Now comes the JamMan Solo, which offers almost all the features of the JamMan in a standard-sized stomp box.



For a compact pedal, the JamMan Solo is laden with features, and it’s hard to detail everything it can do in the space of a review. At its heart, the JamMan Solo is a mono phrase looper that can record your guitar’s output and/or record the output from an external audio device, and then play the recorded phrases back continuously. Any number of overdubs can be added to a looping sample, provided that the total loop time doesn’t exceed the 10-minute record and playback limit. Time signatures are selectable, and the samples can be set to play only once if you don’t want to hear them on a constant loop. You can also change a loop’s tempo up or down (Time Stretch) without altering the pitch. The JamMan’s built-in rhythm tracks provide nine metronome sounds that you can build your loops around. The rhythm guide track is not recorded with the audio, and it can be changed or turned off in any loop.

Though the internal memory’s 35 minutes of record time and 99 patches will be sufficient for most users, the SD/SDHC card expansion slot lets you expand this to 16 hours of record time and add another 99 patches. For maximum flexibility, the optional DigiTech FS3X footswitch facilitates live switching of loops and lets you play different loops back to back.

Loops and their settings can be backed up to a Mac or PC via the pedal’s mini-B USB port and organized using DigiTech’s JamManager Loop Librarian software (a free download at digitech.com). Headphones can be connected to the unit’s single 1/4-inch output, and power is provided through the included 9.6-volt adapter. Battery power is not an option.



PERFORMANCE

Although the JamMan Solo’s numerous control options can be somewhat daunting at first, the unit is very intuitive to use. In a matter of minutes, I was recording, looping and layering phrases that played back with impressive digital sound quality. Bear in mind that when playing along with the JamMan through an amp set for crunch or distortion, you’ll need to connect the pedal to a parallel effect loop to keep the backing tracks from distorting as well.


THE BOTTOM LINE

Whether you want to play complex, layered guitar lines, loop polyrhythmic phrases, compose or just play along with your favorite tracks, the DigiTech JamMan Solo is a must-have tool.