BILL HOLLAND: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. My name is Bill Holland. You're looking at the Digitech JamMan, probably one of the more popular looper and phrase samplers out there.

Now what we have here is a pretty simple setup. Two foot pedals. We have a record, play, and overdub, also undo function. We have a stop, tap tempo, and clear pedal. Up here you'll see the loop level. This is for the actual loop playback. We have the rhythm level that's for your metronome. We have a select knob that allows us to select which loop we are on. You can also decide whether it's looped or single. Mic level, instrument level, in this case I've got a keyboard hooked up.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING A SYNTH SOLO LINE]

We have our exit key, which can also be used as shift. If you push it in, it'll now access all of the circled parameters here like rhythm type, time signature, delete, and stop mode. See time signature for example, right now I'm set at 4/4, get out of there. We have the store button for storing patches and settings. There's the loop single button like I said. Tempo, which you can actually tap the tempo here if you want.

[BILL HOLLAND SETTING UP TEMPO USING THE TAP TEMPO FUNCTION]

We have auto-record, record mode which decides if we are taking in the instrument's mic input, aux input, minus center, or inputting a full-range amp. In this case, I'm going to stick with my instrument mic settings. We have mic level here. I can take the mic out because we're using the instrument level. On the back side, you'll see there's an input, output, aux input, USB connector for backing up your files to the computer. There's also a SmartMedia card that allows you to automatically store all of these. In that way, if you need to switch it out with other phrases or samples you have saved, you can go right ahead and do that. It's great for that reason for performance. You can also have a backup in case it crashes.

All right, so I'm going to setup first of all.

[BILL HOLLAND SETTING UP TEMPO]

Okay, that's good. We hit record.

[BILL HOLLAND RECORDING A LOOP THROUGH THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

Okay, now we're going to play it back.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING A LOOP AND RECORDING ANOTHER LOOP USING THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

You hit overdub.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING A LOOP FROM THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

Okay, hit hi-hats.

[BILL HOLLAND RECORDING A HI-HAT LOOP FROM THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

Okay, I'll also grab a bass.

[BILL HOLLAND PLAYING A LOOP FROM THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

Stop this for a second so that overdub is off.

[BILL HOLLAND AUDITIONING SYNTH SOUNDS FOR 1A BASS LINE FROM THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

All right. Let's hit record.

[BILL HOLLAND RECORDING A SYNTH BASS LINE FROM THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

Now I'll get a lead.

[BILL HOLLAND PREPARING TO RECORD A SYNTH LEAD USING THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

Okay, so now I'm going to push play again and hit overdub.

[BILL HOLLAND RECORDING A SYNTH LEAD LINE USIN THE DIGITECH JAMMMAN]

And that's pretty much how to create a basic loop using the JamMam. Again, this can be used with guitar, with vocals, with a variety of different things. You can even make washes of noise with it for ambient numsic, so it's a very useful tool regardless of whatever type of music you're making. Well, that's the JamMan from Digitech, and I'm Bill Holland on Gearwire.Com.