Recommend a looping pedal for guitar practice/songwriting?

I thought someone had posted something about experiences with such a pedal, but it might've just been a blip in the big gear thread, and in any case I can't find it...

Pretty much what it says in the title; a friend grabbed one and had good things to say about the basic ability to stick a chord progression together to practice over without the overhead of firing up the recording software I haven't really learned how to use yet (Audacity, but I'm not even sure I'm sticking with that, and the upshot is that's a rabbit hole that's bigger than I want to go down just to practice and experiment).

If there's a continuum between "easy to use" and "bells and whistles" then I'm definitely after the simple end. I mean, I guess I don't know what features I might be missing, but I'm looking to make it easier to practice, not set myself up to learn a three-tier menu system you have to navigate with a foot button...

Oo, was it David, but about a pedal that had some built-in rhythm track stuff? That's more or less at odds with the last thing I said, but I had a flicker of memory. Anyhow, curious about what people have tried and liked (or disliked).

Not sure why I'm bumping this; it's not like I'm short of other things to be getting on with and need the distraction... 

I tell ya man. I got excited about the idea and went out and bought a TC Ditto.

Two days later I marched back into Guitar Center and returned the sucker. When asked why I was returning it I said "I don't like the player this thing wants me to be"

It is far, FAR too easy to get sucked into bad noodling over chord progressions. It is a "blues guys" dream device.

I have seen some players do amazing things with them, it turned me into a wanky, youtube pentatonic scale tutorial guy and I hate that stuff.

Your mileage my vary

I've had good luck with the Headrush line, and a friend loves his "looper" model, but I've not used it myself. 
 

What's the budget?

As for the recording end, there's no way to learn other than to just jump in and start. For ease and simplicity I'd highly recommend a tascam portastudio of some flavor. It'll do the looping thing too, and doesn't require a ton of cables running everywhere. 

In reply to Trent :

It's a concern, for sure. I'm just hoping for something to help me learn more about... music, I guess.

I don't know how to address the issue of keeping my playing, uh, weird for lack of a better word. But hoping that just being able to see how different stuff works (or doesn't) against some chords feels like a good step. I may have exactly the same experience...

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

Wow, the Headrush looks like... a lot. Features/price/etc. I'd figured on $100 or so, with a fair bit of flexibility, but by north of $200 it feels like I should just get over the small barrier to using a basic DAW and do it at the computer. I picked up a Focusrite USB interface a while back to replace the Tascam that finally got so old drivers were nonexistent. The last time I was more actively poking at this I was using Ardour on Linux... It's been the better part of 20 years.

Just getting over the small barrier to where it only takes me a minute to record and loop something is probably the sensible route; I'm just trying to remove barriers like "the last thing I did was something else so where's the USB cable and my desk's a mess; is the USB interface under here?" and be able to just pick up the guitar and play.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

The Headrush is a lot. Lots of dollars, lots of features, and honestly not my thing. Too much "option paralysis" 

Looks like $1-200 gets a good range of brands and options. 
 

If you're just wanting to hear rough ideas, don't overlook the camera/mic/computer in your pocket. I don't know about making a continuous loop, but it would be easy to play/record a progression for 5-10 minutes and that should give plenty of time to hear ideas and try a few things. And it's free. 

The TC Ditto used to be the default looper. Not sure if that's still the case, but I have one myself, and it does the thing. Very basic to use and pretty cheap. 

What's you need is the original Mellotron as made famous by the Moody Blues.  Wikipedia.org: Mellotron

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Hey, that might have been me. I have a Digitech Trio. It’s billed as a band creator in that it can add drums and/or bass. I have an older version.

In reply to Everybody :

Thanks!

In the end (okay, the middle, I still don't know... anyhow, last week) I actually Cleaned My Desk Thoroughly, unburied my Guitar Pod, found the power supply for my pedals, and installed Ableton Lite on the newer laptop.

Cleaning my desk was good on its own merits as there's plenty of other stuff I should be getting done at the computer, but I've still barely touched a guitar and haven't looped anything.

I did just sign up to go back to piano lessons when a spot opens up, so I've got continued diffraction of focus going for squirrel!