Line 6 JM4 Looper 03.09 layout.indd

Line 6 JM4
Looper
Digital looping pedal
Bob Thomas
T
he extended repetition of rhythmic or
melodic phrases lies at the very heart of
music and probably has been there ever
since our ancestors first discovered the pleasures
of singing and dancing. Musical structures
that combine repeating melodic and rhythmic
elements became popular across all cultures not
only because they are easy to memorise, but
also because of their potential, under the right
circumstances, to induce meditative and other
transcendental states of mind.
These repetitive, rhythmic structures
developed into a sophisticated high art in many
cultures, but European art music, some time in
the Middle Ages, started to take a different path.
The development and elaboration of the rules
of harmony that began during the Renaissance
led finally to the great Classical works, where
complex harmonic structures used rhythm and
repetition simply as a landscape for the harmony
to occupy. This resulted in the mode-based,
repetitive, rhythmic, non-classical music of
Europe and the rest of the world being labelled
as ‘primitive’.
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Ever since the dawn of tape loops, musicians have exploited the ability
to record a phrase and play it back again... and again... and again...
Ravel’s 1928 composition ‘Boléro’ is, to me, the
point at which rhythm and repetition returned
to centre stage, its two themes repeating nine
times in 15 minutes as it builds to that climactic
crescendo. In the early 1940s, composers such
as Cage began using gramophone records with
varispeed turntables to produce works based
on pre-recorded music, and after the end of the
Second World War, musique concrète composers
like Messiaen and Stockhausen produced some
works based on gramophone records. However,
the availability of the tape recorder from 1950
meant that the earlier technology was quickly
superseded. Edgard Varèse’s 1954 composition,
‘Deserts’, was the first of this new wave of
music to use both the physical and electronic
manipulation of tape to alter, reverse, edit,
overlay and generally mangle pre-existing or
newly recorded sounds in exciting new ways.
At the same time, on the other side of the
Atlantic, a certain Lester Polsfuss (Les Paul) was
also using the new tape technology to create
new music but, although in many ways it was
no less complex than that of Cage, Varèse et al,
his work was aimed at capturing and enhancing
a performance of a popular song, rather than
trying to create new works by reworking
recordings.
No one actually knows when tape loops
(from which our term ‘looping’ takes its name)
were developed but it is likely that their genesis
goes back to the inventors or the early users
of the tape recorder. In any event, outside the
world of avant-garde music, tape loops almost
immediately turned up in radio and film studios
the world over. However, tape loops are static
in that once created, they can’t be modified
‘live’. It wasn’t until 1963 when the American
composer Terry Riley was working in Paris on
the recording of his music for the play, The Gift,
that an anonymous engineer developed for him
a tape delay/feedback system based on two
Revox tape recorders that could be used live.
This system, which Riley named the ‘Time Lag
Accumulator’, and which became Robert Fripp’s
1970s ‘Frippertronics’, is the spiritual ancestor of
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the digital looping systems that we know today.
For more mortal musicians in the 1960s and
1970s, the tape-based Watkins Copicat and the
more costly Echoplex gave us a foretaste of what
was to come from the digital world, but it wasn’t
until 1986 that the legendary TC Electronics
2290 — the first digital device that was a real
looper — ushered in the era of live looping as we
know it today.
New, the TC 2290 was horrendously
expensive, but things have improved
dramatically in recent years as more
cost-effective solutions have arrived, and
nowadays one of the best-known and most
effective examples of a musician employing live
looping is KT Tunstall’s brilliant use of her Akai
Headrush E2 delay/phrase sampler pedal on
‘Black Horse And The Cherry Tree’.
The new JM4 Looper isn’t Line 6’s first looper,
as the DL4 Delay Modeler, released in 2000,
had a 14-second loop facility, and the loop and
playback engine first used in the Spider Jam
combo provides the basic architecture of the
JM4. Line 6, as we all know, are a company whose
innovative, modelling-based products have been
taking the world by storm since they started
up in the mid 1990s with the aim of harnessing
technology for the benefit of guitarists. With
the JM4, Line 6 have taken the engine first
developed for the Spider Jam combo, and have
added a number of looping-related features and
facilities that I haven’t seen before.
How to drive it
The JM4 is housed in a cast, greyish-brown
metal case crowned by a fair number of heavily
chromed knobs and switches. If you’ve played
with the Spider Jam, you’ll find the controls of
the JM4 instantly familiar. The front panel splits
conceptually into three areas: the loop/playback
controls, the knobs relating to the amp models
and the four footswitches that handle, in
addition to several other functions, Record,
Playback and Undo.
Inputs and outputs sit on the back panel.
Starting from the left, you’ll find the Input jack
for your guitar, which has its own dedicated
amp modelling and effects processing. The
XLR socket and its associated Trim control for
a (non-phantom powered) microphone or
other balanced source comes next, and it feeds
independent EQ and effects processing. Next
you’ll find the mono Aux input, which can be
used for almost any kind of input (second guitar,
bass, keyboard, drum machine, etc), and this
can be processed and recorded using either the
guitar’s or mic’s effects. The last input is a stereo
mini-jack which lets you feed any stereo source
into the JM4 for recording as part of a loop or for
playing along to.
The main JM4 outputs are made up of a mono
jack Out To Amp socket and a pair of mono jacks
giving you a Stereo Line Out for connection
to a PA system or recorder. In what Line 6 call
Normal operation, guitar and any loop playbacks
etc are fed to all jacks, but in Performance
mode, only the guitar is present at the Amp
output, with everything else turning up on the
stereo jacks. The last output is a stereo mini-jack
headphone output, which, when used, forces
the JM4 to return to Normal operation. The unit’s
overall output level is controlled by the rear
panel Master Volume.
The back-panel complement is completed by
the SD card slot, which takes standard SD cards
up to a maximum capacity of 2GB. You can use
the card to store JM4 Looper recordings and to
transfer them to and from your computer. This
ability to create, record and then export loops,
modify them externally and then re-import them
is a significant step forward for looping.
On the front panel, the middle row of
controls for the 12 amp models are pretty much
self-explanatory, with the selector, drive and EQ
controls operating as expected. The effects are
limited to one knob selection and level control
of Chorus/Flange, Phaser and Tremolo, a second
operating similarly for Delay, Tape Echo and
Sweep Delay, and a third dedicated to Reverb.
Delay times are set using the Tap button that
you’ll find on the top right of the front panel,
where it also selects the Tuner function when
held. Finally, the Channel Volume allows you to
balance the volumes of different setups when
you store them in the 36 User preset locations. In
case you think that that isn’t that much storage,
you might like to know that the JM4 comes
factory-loaded with a comprehensive collection
of guitar amp/effects combinations made up
of over 200 artist-created presets and over 150
song-based presets for your sonic enjoyment.
It’s the 71 songs and 86 drum patterns that are
factory loaded into the JM4 Looper that really
make it a looper’s paradise. Recorded by real,
live session players and seamlessly and endlessly
looped (you can turn this off), these form a great
basis for jamming along to, or as the basis for
your own songs and loops. When you load
a song or drum pattern, the JM4 automatically
loads a suitable guitar amp/effects preset (this
too can be disabled) and you’re good to go.
The top set of front-panel controls looks after
the selection and setup of loop playback and
recording. The back-lit, orange, mid-row matrix
display keeps you informed of what you’re up to
and, on its right, the large Select knob and the
four-way navigation button let you find your
way through the menus and modify values. The
Save button that sits next to these lets you store
amp/effects setups, save recordings and erase
saved recordings.
The four buttons on the left of the display are
seriously multi-functional. The Record Select
button toggles between Guitar and Mic/Aux
inputs, but hold it and it lets you choose
whether the Aux input reaches the recorder
via the guitar amp/effects or through the Mic
effects. The Song/Drums button lets you select
playback from a factory song or drum pattern,
or from a user recording/loop stored on an SD
card or the JM4 itself. A second press brings in,
among others, the Time Stretch/Transpose and
Speed/Pitch Adjust functions. The Level/Inputs
switch brings up playback levels for Song/Drums,
Guitar and Mic/Aux tracks, while a second press
lets you set Mic, Aux and CD input levels. The
Tones/Settings control has the most options of
all, giving you on first press direct access to the
Style, Artist and User guitar presets, then the
Mic/Aux presets on the second press and finally
another nine functions including Mic/Aux EQ,
Delay/Reverb and Compressor, plus six setup
settings.
Finally, as this is a floor-based unit designed
for live use, four footswitches let you actually
drive the thing. There are five footswitch modes:
Jam Control, Loop FX, Rec Select, Guitar Preset
and Guitar Amp/FX. In all modes the extreme
right-hand footswitch is used solely for mode
selection/exit, with the other three controlling
Multiple input sources are catered for, along with flexible output routing options.
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Line 6 JM4 Looper
Digital looping pedal
mode functions. Jam Control is the default and
lets you play songs/drum patterns, record, play
and overdub loops and undo errors and clear
unwanted loops. Loop FX mode simply lets you
play back the selected loop at half speed. Rec
Select enables you to step through your previous
recordings to select one for playing along to, and
to toggle Guitar or Mic/Aux input for recording.
Guiatr Preset steps through Presets and gives
you footswitch access to Tap time and Tuner
activation. Finally the Guitar Amp/FX mode lets
you individually bypass the selected preset’s amp
model, modulation effects and delay effects.
In use
The JM4 is, in reality, ridiculously easy to use.
Plug in your guitar and an amp or headphones,
select a song to jam along to, adjust the levels
so that you can hear what you want to hear
and jam away to your heart’s content. Fancy
creating a loop? If you want drums on it (you
can record a loop without one), just pick a drum
pattern to play along to, select Guitar as your
recording source, hit the Record footswitch,
listen to the count-in (only there if you’re using
drums), play as long as you want your loop to
be, hit the footswitch on the first beat of the
next bar and that’s you done. If you don’t like
the result, hit Undo and start over, otherwise
you can overdub another guitar or use the
Mic/Aux inputs to add different sounds. It really
is that easy to get started!
If you want to get a bit more into the JM4,
you can change the key and tempo of the
pre-recorded songs to better suit your voice or
Tech Spec
JM4 Looper
• 200+ artist-created presets.
• 150+ song-based presets.
• 36 user-programmable presets.
• 12 Line 6 amp models.
• Seven Smart Control effects.
• Three Tone controls.
• Integrated tuner.
• Independent Mic/Aux input effects:
three-band EQ, Compressor, Delay and
Reverb
• 100+ Endless Jam tracks and drum
grooves.
• 24 minutes of 16-bit/44.1kHz internal
recording time.
• SD card slot for importing and exporting
loops and recordings (maximum 2GB).
• Record/Overdub, Play/Stop, Half Speed
and Undo footswitches.
• Quarter-inch instrument input.
• Quarter-inch aux input.
• XLR mic input with Trim control.
• 3.5mm CD/MP3 input.
• 3.5mm stereo headphone output.
• Quarter-inch guitar amp output.
• Quarter-inch stereo outputs.
• Dimensions (WDH): 305 x 190 x 83mm.
• Weight: 1.8kg.
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playing skills. Each song displays its basic key
signature on its title page and changing pitch
and/or tempo is the work of moments. The
onboard memory is sufficient for a maximum of
100 individual recordings totalling 24 minutes,
so once you’ve recorded your loop you can then
save it, which will also store the pitch/tempo
setting, the Aux setup, mic effectss and the
guitar preset used. Again, all these functions are
really simple to get to and to use.
The quality of sound that you get from the
JM4 is very good and I would have absolutely
no hesitation in using one on stage or as part of
a studio session. I particularly liked the separate
guitar output for direct routing to an amplifier —
such a useful facility.
If all that the JM4 gave me was a bunch of jam
tracks to play along with and the ability to build
up, record, save and recall an infinite number
of loops (SD card purchase budget permitting),
I would consider it to be the biggest bargain in
the looping world. However, the JM4 has a trick
up its capacious sleeve that, for me, is its real
raison d’être.
Recordings saved on the JM4 are saved in
a proprietary format named JAM. Essentially,
a JAM file is a folder that contains a Guitar track,
a WAV/Mic/Aux track and a ‘track’ that contains
all the settings for the recording. In addition, the
JM4 can create (through its Save Rec Mix As WAV
function) mono 16-bit WAV files on, and load
them back from, an SD card. It is these two latter
abilties that make the whole thing so exciting.
Saving a Rec Mix as a WAV lets you adjust the
relative levels of the three replay tracks (Song/
Drums, Guitar and Mic/Aux/WAV), which means
that you can create three solo and completely
synchronised WAV loops by turning down two of
the three tracks each time you save the recording
as a WAV to the SD card. If you then reload a WAV,
you can overdub another guitar track, mix that
down ‘solo’ and you’ve got yet another perfectly
synchronised loop at your disposal. Workflow
is crucial in making all this synchronised
loop creation work and the JM4 Advanced
Manual (available only on-line) gives you the
blow-by-blow lowdown on how to achieve this.
Once you’ve got your synchronised loops,
you can then import them into your computer
and overdub, add new material and generally
be creative knowing that you can then re-save
them as WAV files and load them back into your
JM4 where they will loop and (as long as you
haven’t changed the length) lock perfectly with
the original reference loop. Now that’s what I call
a killer app, and probably one that Varese and
Cage would have killed for!
Conclusion
I’ve been playing around with tape loops and
loop-based music for longer than I care to
remember. Having started out with physical
tape loops, in recent times my looping has been
primarily computer-based and, frankly, not that
high up my list of musical priorities. The Line
6 JM4 is set to change that.
I haven’t really found anything about it that
I don’t like. I could have a whinge about the
fact that, once you’ve selected a song from the
library list, the display doesn’t automatically
revert to the main Song screen so that, without
having to bend down and manually press the
Song switch, you can immediately see what key
it is in. Continuing in minor moan mode, I could
also question why Line 6 don’t include the
songs’ chord sequences in the manual; why the
numbering of the JM4’s song and drum library
lists are so wildly non-sequential; and why the
Advanced Manual is only available on-line.
However, none of these are actually of any
importance. The real-world reality is that the
JM4 sounds great, is easy to use live or in the
studio, allows you to export and import WAV files
to and from SD cards, and the potential of 6.5
hours recording time on a 2Gb card means that
you can build up an enormous library of loops
and recordings that can be cycled and recycled
virtually forever.
If you’re into looping and you’ve heard of it,
you’ve probably already been out and bought
a Line 6 JM4 Looper. If you aren’t or you haven’t,
just go out and buy one. Given its feature set,
facilities and retail price point, there’s really
nothing more to say.
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