Acoustic's new LS6 true bypass effect pedal loop controller, $150

[Mr.Grumpy]

I presume this is a new product, as I'd never seen it before. It's from Guitar Center's "in house" Acoustic brand. The unit is a programmable 6 loop effects controller, with six banks each  with six patches in each bank, for a total of 36 total patches. As far as I know, this is the most inexpensive programmable loop switcher on the market. This is a simple, bare bones unit, so there's no capability for amp channel switching nor MIDI control of any kind. However, those are features I don't need at this time. 

The unit is in a heavy duty bent case made of curved steel. The stomp buttons are chrome plated, and have a nice solid "click" when you step on them even though they're momentary switches. Each of the six selector switches is surrounded by a bright backlight to show which loops (pedals) are activated for each patch. There's a nice large LED display that shows the bank, patch and status (program/edit/save, ect). The LED display is also used by the unit's guitar tuner function. It also has a mute function but apparently no "bypass all" function so if you need a completely clean tone you have to program a patch for that. The unit comes with a power supply, but thankfully it runs on bog-standard 9V Boss DC power. I powered mine from  my pedal board's ISO-5 power supply. 

Setting up the programs for the patches is very simple and quick. Once I got everything cabled up (that's a whole other post...) it only took me a few minutes to get my patches programmed. My pedals and effects sound exactly like they did before! No pops of thumps when changing patches; no added noise.  I'm pleased as punch with my purchase. 

A few things to note if you're considering one of these:

Since it has six footswitches, it's rather wide, and due to the steel enclosure, has some significant weight too. It takes up a sizeable chunk of pedalboard real estate, and that prime bottom row space too. The built in tuner is nice to have, but it's a bit mediocre compared to most pedal or clip on tuners. The LED display is easy to see, but it's a simple 3 mode flat/in tune/sharp display. 

Switching to a loop controller FX setup means doubling the number of your pedal interconnect cables. so there's that expense and hassle to consider. Once I got this looper, I instantly saw and understood the utility of narrow bodied "mini" pedals that everyone's making right now. I'd like to run several more pedals on my board but there just isn't room. Also in regards to cabling the jacks are numerous and close together, so certain types of cable ends might not fit.