The Electro‑Harmonix (EHX for short) Pico 360+ Looper is a pico‑sized alternative to the company’s Nano Looper 360, but despite its diminutive size the Pico 360+ manages to introduce a couple of new twists. As with its sibling, the pedal features a single footswitch but doubles up on the controls, and now boasts a set of four knobs. The Loop knob turns an 11‑way switch, used for selecting the loop number, and there’s a Loop Lvl control to its left. This has no numbers around it but it is detented. The two knobs below this are Dry Lvl, to set the level of the incoming guitar signal, and Overdub, to set that of the loops on playback. Unlike many pedals, the Pico 360+ comes with a power supply; its compact format means internal battery powering isn’t possible.
As expected, the footswitch controls recording, playback, stop and overdubbing as well as undo/redo functions. With six minutes of 24‑bit/44.1kHz audio recording capacity, the Pico 360+ has 11 memory banks for storing loops. It supports unlimited overdubs and the Overdub knob’s attenuation works continuously, so that each time the loop repeats it gets quieter. Undo and Redo are supported for removing or bringing back the last overdub. The amber Mem LED flashes whenever the Loop knob is moved to a new position, and there’s a Rec/Play LED at the top of the panel that shows red when recording and green when playing back.
There’s now a global adjustable fade‑out time, accessed using a power‑up routine, that goes from 1 to 10 seconds so that loops don’t have to come to an abrupt stop at the end of a performance. And while the normal sequence of operation is record/play/overdub, there’s another power‑up routine that can change this to record/overdub/play if that’s how you prefer to work. A double‑press stops playback, and holding down the footswitch when the looper is idle erases the loop memory. There’s even a power‑up routine for changing the behaviour of the Dry Lvl knob, which is normally disabled when the looper is idle or recording a new loop. If you do disconnect the power cable when the pedal is connected to an amplifier, expect to hear some whistles and whooshes as it powers down!
Differences?
So how does the Pico 360+ differ from the existing Nano Looper 360 other than being a little smaller? Both pedals offer six minutes of recording time across 11 memory banks, and both support unlimited overdubs, but the Overdub level knob is new, as is the adjustable fade‑out time. Fitting four knobs onto a Pico‑sized pedal does make the controls slightly cramped, but thankfully the knobs still leave enough space to get your fingers round them.
The fade‑out is a really useful addition — abrupt loop stops always sound a bit naff!
Functionally the looper works much as it did for the earlier 360 loopers, though locating the correct loop memory is a bit fiddly since there are no numbers around the knob. The fade‑out is a really useful addition — abrupt loop stops always sound a bit naff! — and having user configurations that can be set using power‑up routines is a nice touch. As before, the sound quality is excellent, operation is simple and the only improvement I’d like to see is the replacement of the clunk/click footswitch with a non‑clicking momentary action type.
Information
£129 including VAT.
$137.70
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