Product: Akai Head Rush E2
Price Paid: US $249.99
Submitted
02/08/2005
at
02:25pm
by
Roger Williams
Ease of Use
:
6
Very easy to use. Tap tempo is great. The looping function is the best. That's primarily what I bought it for. There are other looper pedals out there, and some do things better than others. The main thing I like about the Headrush E2 is the ability to overdub, and ERASE the overdubs. BUT, ALL overdubs will be erased leaving only the first loop. The Line6 DL4 is a competitor, but it cannot erase any overdubs. The Boomerang seems to be the best in this department. IT is also twice as much!
The delay function is easy to use. BUT, delay time CANNOT be adjusted once the tempo is set. It appears that te delay is function is just an extension of the looping function. If you try to adjust either Time pots, the delay (or, really the LOOP) will be cut up and stuttering. ITs like it was recording in RAM and the whole sample was spread across all the addresses. If you then adjust the time once it has been recorded, its like the stack pointers are moved only playing back PART of the whole sample.
Sound Quality
:
10
Great Sound! On an amp, I could not detect any extra noise or aliasing with the looping function. I have not tried it with headphones yet. The Tape delay is awesome. It is too clean for someone to mistake it for an echoplex, but the simulation with the High frequency dampening, is still great fun! I suppose one could ADD noise and distortion to complete the simulation, if they wanted.
The multiple outputs is a lot of fun for the delay. I love multi-tap delays, and with the headspace, time, and head outputs one can get pretty wild delays!
Reliability
:
No Opinion
So far, I 've had no problems.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Haven't needed them yet.
The manual is so-so, but almost all pedal manuals are like that.
Overall Rating
:
10
I bought it primarily as a looper. But as a synth player, I've found the tape echo simulation to be extremely useful and fun to play.
I bought the Boss RC-XL loop station, and promptly returned it. It seemed that you could do overdubs, but you had to bend over and turn knobs to do it. Not useful for anyone standing up. I also tried out the Line6 DL4. I maight have bought that instead, but again, there is no way to erase the overdubs. The Boomerang and the others not mentioned are just too expensive.
All in all, I've found the Akai Headrush E2 to be the best LOOPER pedal in its price range.
