About a week ago, I played a gig that involved six bands, of which I played with two. I used my Fireball mic and an RP355, and I ran the output from the 355 straight to the PA. It worked great–after a song or two the sound man had it dialed in, and I had plenty of volume and a great sound through the monitors. It was great, even though I was anxious at first about being the only guy onstage who didn’t have an amp.

So what’s the problem, you ask? Well, the problem is that damn looper that’s built into the RP355 (and RP255). Every once in a while one of the guitarists, drunk on music (and whatever else was handy), would wander into my space and step on the RP. After a while, one of them managed to start the looper. It took a few minutes for me to figure out what was going on, during which time the melody for “Lo Rider” worked its way into at least two other songs.

I don’t much like the looper in the RPs–it’s not a very sophisticated piece of kit–and even worse, there’s no way to disable it. The only solution is to make sure that there’s enough space between you and the guitarist in your band to prevent an inadvertent step from changing your sound or starting the looper up. If necessary, plant yourself between the guitarist and the RP.