Is it worth it to get an extra looper with the pod hd500x?

[BaylorPRSer]

Played a gig recently.  Had tinkered with the looper beforehand and felt confident.  Played the gig, looped a progression, played my solo, then turned off the loop only to notice that there was something jarring occurring when I turned it off.  
 

i then went home and practiced looping in and out it, only to discover that I simply could not turn off the loop, and go into the next part without something weird happening.

 

did muh Googles only to discover that the looper switched to mono.

 

if I put an external looper in the fx loop, and used that instead, would that solve the problem?  Would it present other problems that would make it not worth it?

 

got another gig tomorrow, and would like to do some looping.  Will go to the store and grab one, if I can use it in conjunction with the pod

[silverhead]

Yes, an external dedicated looper pedal works better than the onboard looper for playing live.

[BaylorPRSer]

Went ahead and snagged a simple Boss RC-1. 

 

I'm amazed I just noticed this because I've used the FX Loop before, but I just saw you're supposed to use a TRS Stereo cable.  

 

I don't have one, but will probably order one in a bit.

 

To make sure i'm understanding correctly: if I want to run the looper in stereo (I definitely want to make some stereo fx part of my loops), I'd run a TRS cable from the FX send to the mono input of the Boss RC-1, then use guitar cables with both outputs from the RC-1 into the FX return of the POD. 

 

Is that correct?

[silverhead]

In general what you describe will work.

 

Whether or not you need a TRS cable depends on whether the signal you are feeding to the RC-1 is stereo or mono. If you are not using any stereo FX blocks in the POD before the signal goes out the Send block then you don’t need a TRS cable. If you want to send a stereo signal to the RC-1 then you need a TRS cable. In the latter case check the specs for the RC-1 to see whether the mono input actually accepts a stereo signal if a TRS cable is used. 
 

Similarly, check the specs for both the RC-1 and the POD to see if using a single TRS cable from the RC-1 L/mono Send to the POD L Return will also handle a stereo signal. In that case you could use two TRS cables overall.

 

 

[BaylorPRSer]

Away from my setup rn, but it says in the manual that you have to use both input jacks for stereo.  No mention of stereo capability coming from a single cable.

 

in this case, my best bet will be to use guitar cables from both outputs on the pod into both inputs on the rc-1.  Then guitar cables from both outputs on the rc-1 into the soundboard for when I play live.  Correct?  
 

so in total 5 cables ( guitar into pod, cables out of pod into rc-1, 2 cables from rc-1 into soundboard)

[silverhead]

Yes, that’s the best setup to guarantee stereo all the way in terms of the POD and RC-1.

 

You may want 7 cables if you use the POD Send block. Then you want the pair from the RC-1 going back to the POD Returns and the POD Main Outputs going to the soundboard. This would allow you to place additional FX blocks in the POD for processing the signal received back from the RC-1 - this portion of the signal would not be in the RC-1 recorded loop.