Loop pedal power

Decided I want to learn to use a looper pedal with my guitar more. I have a simple one built in to my multi effects pedal already, but it is pretty limited, and it also forgets anything I record as soon as I turn it off.

A little research online seemed to indicate the Donner Circle Looper was a good option and I was able to get a good deal on one on Mercari which has become one of my go to markets in my quest to avoid Amazon, but that is another topic…

Problem was it doesn’t come with a power adapter, and I don’t have a pedal board already setup with power supply, so I needed one. I have saved a small collection of wall warts (a term for power adapter blocks that I thought was more common) but I didn’t seem to have one that would fit, or so I thought at first.

Apparently a good portion of foot pedals have a negative center pin, but all the ones I could find had a positive center. Asked a friend if he had any and he suggested just flipping the connection. And of course that would work! Not sure why I hadn’t thought of that.

Said friend has a good workbench setup for electronics stuff and lives just few minutes away, so I took my part over and we did the minor surgery and everything worked!

Yay for friends, repurposing stuff, and fun music equipment!

Quick notes on the foot pedal itself: it’s pretty good. Worth what I paid for it for sure. The drum loops are much better than the ones I have on my multi effects pedal, and there are a lot of them! The dual input and outputs work well. While it’s a nice feature to have distinct instrument outputs I do wish I could put the drum loop out one and my own recorded loops out the other, as it is drums always go out both channels. Being able to have many saved loops is awesome. Only being able to actively play one at a time is limiting. You can overdub on given any slot and even undo overdubs, but only one slot can be looped at a time, so complex layers and compositions aren’t as easy of an option as I was expecting

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The Benefits of Gardening

As I ate the last of the fresh produce that came out of my garden for lunch today it struck me that the value I got out of gardening this year has little to do with the edible output. The fun and challenge would be one of the intangible values. However, the knowledge and everything that comes with it probably outpaces that by far, at least for me.

For example as I ate today I marveled at the taste of the peppers in a way that I just wouldn’t have otherwise. The dirt, water, and sun combined with biological processes to produce something nutritious, colorful and spicy. It is truly amazing! Yet it is something that is so easy to miss when you aren’t involved with it as intimately as gardening forces you to be.

Then there is the sense of confidence that comes with the knowledge. I am not anywhere close to being able to feed myself, much less my family, but I am closer than I was; close enough that I feel like if I really wanted to I might be able to.  It is difficult to articulate, but there is something very liberating in that.

Gardening turns out to be yet another case among many that I have been noticing lately where thinking in terms of typical pragmatics fails – typical pragmatics being concerned with efficiency and measurable results. Life is more multidimensional. It exceeds the measurable environment it takes place in. That’s worth keeping in mind I think.