The Line6 JM4 Looper (it’s a ‘Looper’ like you’re a ’shirt-wearer’ - not the most succinct descriptor) has some incredible toys built inside of it. A great way to practice and just plain have fun and jam out is to practice and play guitar against one of many prerecorded, built-in drum tracks. Over 100 separate drum tracks are programmed into the JM4 - and they’re not midi (like Super Nintendo game music) . They’re actual studio recorded toe-tapping stay-up-late jam tracks. And the performing drummers aren’t slobs off the street, neither. Carmine Appice, Gregg Bissonette, Steve Turner, and Simon Phillips provide their decades’ worth of professional skill to Line6 drum tracks. Carmine Appice I know right off the top of my head without referring to wikipedia, because he spent the 80’s and 90’s with a number of awesome hard rock bands.

I’ve uploaded snippets (approximately 20 second .wav files will open in a new window) from 5 drum tracks to give you an idea of how cool they really are:

Getting the drum track out of the box and into your amplifier/speakers is a snap. Three steps, really: (click the images for a larger version)

Step One:

Press the Songs/Drums button (shown by yellow arrow on the left) so that your screen looks like the screen indicated by the orange arrow (middle). You may need to use the left/right directional pad (smaller circular button indicated by the yellow arrow on the right) to make sure that the DRUMS tab is highlighted on the screen.

Step Two:

When you turn the large rotating knob (indicated by the yellow arrow on the right) you will scroll through the available drum tracks listed. Note that there are three numbers on the left side of the drum track names  - these numbers indicate the beats per minute (BPM) that that particular drum track is recorded at. Want a slow, smoldering bluesy drum track, or one that doesn’t blister along at a rate too fast for you to play along with? You’ll wanna stay under 100 BPM probably. Lots of great drum tracks for that. Also, by default, JM4 will play a few second sample of what the drum track is like.

You like the sample you heard? Ready to play?

Step Three:

Hit the second footswitch button (indicated here by the yellow arrow) that’s marked ‘Play’. Your selected drum track will begin. And it ain’t no midi 80’s Commodore 64 bleep fest. Quite often the drum tracks start off with a count off, or drumstick clicks. Close your eyes and you can imagine Carmine Appice is there in your garage, whaling away at the skins all for you! What an awesome investment in your guitar-playing future you’ve made!

Hit the same silver footswitch button to bring the drumming to a stop. Take a breath. Stretch fingers. And… begin again.