Came across a used JM4 Looper for a good price, hoping it would be the looper of my dreams. A bit surprised by its apparent short comings.
1) Out of ALL those DRUM loops, are there really no odd meter grooves? 3/4, 5/4, 7/8?? AND no jazz.. basic medium swing (without back beat!), no jazz waltz?
2) Setting the tempo for a drum loop should not require bending over selecting and scrolling through that tiny screen, it should be foot tap-able!
3) Because of my first 2 comments... I would like to run a drum machine (or in my case the fantastic drum beats+ app), and a bass/guitar through the JM4 and record a loop in real time. Does the JM4 not allow for more than 1 input at a time? Even the lowest end Boss RC looper has inputs a+b, which can both be recorded simultaneously to a loop. ie: a drum machine to A, and a bass to B.. play along to the groove until you're ready, then hit the looper and make a loop of any length... both signals are looped. AS far as i can tell, you can only have one input being looped at a time with the JM4?
Conclusion/Comments:
-I could be corrected, but the JM4 drum tracks overlooked some very basic jazz grooves (while overloading on tiny variations of rock grooves), and not having the tempo foot tap-able (or even a tactile and quickly accessed scroll wheel) is a major pain. The fact that there is a TAP button on there, but is only for the time based effects and not the track tempos is funny!
-More than 1 input at a time would allow a bassist and a guitar player to track a loop at the same time.. or a drum machine and bass.. 2 guitarists... etc...
-As I have read repeatedly throughout this forum.. who buys this thing for the amp models and effects!? Make a kickass LOOPER Line 6, see what all other loopers do well, and interview a cross section of musicians who use it for gigging and practice, and get it ALL in there! The Boss RC stations do most these things, I just wish they had more drum play along tracks than the 10ish on there (again with no basic jazz, or even a met that doesn't accent on beat 1 of 4/4).