Boss RC-2 Loop Station

Misses so many tricks that I have to score it low. The drum parts are pre-programmed at different tempos, so you have your guitar part idea in your head, and you have to step through drum pattern after pattern each at a different tempo. Eventually you find a suitable drum pattern by stepping one at a time always from #1, turn the knob to tempo, adjust the speed of the beat, and hit the pedal to record. I will DEFY anyone to still remember what they were trying to play by the time they have gone through this sequence.

The auxillary in for a second pedal is also badly thought out. it could be set up to do so much more. This is supposed to a PERFORMANCE bit of kit, yet there is only one level of UNDO. Why can you not overdub and then deduct the overdubs one at a time to get right back to your first track?


I can't fathom why the engineers didn't put more effort in on the software. The hardware has the potential to be wonderful, but the interface is illogical and unnecessary limited.

The AUTO setting is pretty good, and guesses the tempo with good success, however this is not perfect, and I'm not personally a fan of leaving things to auto, I prefer to have the control. This is the knub of my complaining - I feel that the pedal tips over to where the pedal tries to dictate by which method you work. The musician should do this, NOT the technology!

Another gripe. You are in the studio and have a brilliant loop you want to sync to the multitrack. How do you sync without MIDI??

The pedal quite is clear if driven at appropriate level, and only heard through a practice amp, but be careful of pushing it with other pedals. Its input can be distorted like many pedals, but the distortion is unpleasant sharp and harsh.

Into an amp, noise levels are not bad for a digital device, but it is accompanied with a very feint hiss.

Plug it into a decent studio input, and the better quality circuits of a desk will reveal what the guitar amp can't. It is noisy, and for some reason rolls off the low end frequencies, giving a harsh trebbly feel that needs EQ to correct, but as any sound engineer will tell you, its impossible to put lost frequencies back...

Usual bomb like construction from Boss. I can't see how something this complex could be made more rugged..

Manual - Rubbish. Direct from china translation that doesn't even look like it was proof read by anyone English.
Never tried boss support

I play Blues, Punk, Rock, Metal and Folk and have played bedroom guitar 25+ years as well as dabling in electro, drum machine programming and playing bass, Kazoo and Stylophone.

This pedal is brilliant for practice, and allows you to jam with yourself if like me, you are something of a billy-no-mates. Great for sharpening up musical ideas etc.

If it was lost or stolen I'd probably shop around and might end up with the Akai Headrush if it made any more logical sense to me.

Summing up.
1) It isn't a good studio tool, lack of MIDI and too noisy
2) It isn't a good performance tool, unless you like to be embarrassed in front of an audience because you pressed the pedal once rather than twice.
But it is GREAT in the bedroom for practice. I can only assume this is what BOSS were thinking. I love it even with its faults.

its reasonably easy to get loops going but to learn all the litle details takes time due to the usualy confusing and badly arranged boos instruction manual

i think the loops sound preety good there is a drop in fidelity but its nore an observation than a complaint, the drums are cool

boss are pretty good in my experience

never used em

its an amazing learning, teaching and performing tool. practising those boring scales/modes?? put down a chord to play to it trains your ear and makes it all "relevant". songs like hotel california, nothing else matters, stairway come into there own coz you can lay the chords down and solo away and then improvise till your blue in the face, for song writting its a must!! got a chord progression you just stumbled on? lay it down till later when yuou got time.this is an amazing tool every player of every level should have. i believe its as important as an amp and a guitar?

Not right out of the box easy but not to bad. Tutorials on the web help. Manual ok just set the knobs and go. Auto will start recording when you make a sound on the instrument. Drum tap memo is cool. This little thing uses some power so get an approved adapter for it if necessary. I don't have a working fire detector in this house waiting for the adapter to get here.

It is not noisy at all. I use it with my Vox Valvetronix and/or My Superchamp amps and my Strat, Tele and P-Bass. The sound is great you get out what you put in, phraser,distortion, tape echo and stero chorus are in my chain.

Only had it a day but not cheaply made, looks and feels solid.

Never dealt with them.

A little Pricey once you add the power adapter and/or optional pedal. Goes through batteries like pork through a puppy. I guess somthing that powerfull would, it just looks small.

At first i had problems making heads or tails with the manual, got lost in all the warnings and do's and don't's but when i went out on a little trial and errorwalk by myself i soon enough discovered the ease of use of this little red *****

I go straight into a Vox pathfinder, or sometimes through a little delay device of mine, sounds just fine to me, what you put in you get out!

It's Boss, 'nough said

Far as i know, this little trickbag stays with me, it's the most fun anyone can have with their clothes still on. it's a tad expensive, but worth every hard-earned

My experience amounts to hours over a few days, more of a first impression. Although easy to make a loop out right of the box, understanding how to utlize the options and syncing correctly is not particularly easy. Like alot of Boss's modeling stuff, it's designed for a bedroom tweaker, I can't imagine anyone using these features live. Perhaps I have an anti-Boss bias, but the logic of this lay-out and controls is simply beyond me, unnecessarily tricky and just odd... The other looper I've used also has its challenges, so I guess it comes with the territory. But, not having a memory card to hot swap is just stupid, like so 1990's. and that's a major downgrade. I use it with a HD battery only, which I do with most of my pedals, especially the vintage stuff, so no hum.

I have to slam the pedal on this one. The combined signal of the loop and what you're playing over it is too much for any of my amps. By knocking down the trim and signal gain in my chain I can get a useable loop that I can work over, but it's sure not at all the way I'd be playing live. In other words, with your gear fully wound up for live conditions, I don't think you could use this pedal in front of the amp - like whatsoever. I haven't tried moving the pedal into the effects loop and using a prerecorded loop there, that might be the answer. But, and a big butt, your loop sounds great playing by itself, and once you start playing over it everthing gets shadowy and kinda drops out, you keep boosting the pedal output or your guitar to get each to cut through. It's a mess. Again, this is a challenge for all loopers on the pedalboard I guess, but I thought this would be more useful than just a practice toy.

I'll give Boss it's due, never seen one fail.

The manual is pretty lame, but I have seem worse. At least the grammar and organization is OK.

I'm disappointed, it's just another toy. My expectations were pretty high and maybe it's just unrealistic for a pedal device with such a small footprint to offer useable loops with hard driven amps, perhaps it needs it's own amp. I'll probably dump it on eBay in a few months.

"Harmony Central is including the following information for completeness, but *strongly* advises against any kind of do-it-yourself modifications involving power supplies due to the potential for serious hazards or injuries. Take the unit to a qualified technician for any repairs or mods. Also, be aware that some over-the-counter AC adapters have the ability to reverse polarity. Again, though, we strongly advise consulting with a qualified technician before using any kind of non-Roland-approved supply. Harmony Central assumes no responsibility for actions taken against our advice."

First off, I'll say that I made a external "pedal" to plug into the RC-2, equivalent to the "FS-6" (a two button external pedal from Boss) using simple electronics skills, for about $4, and this has made using the RC-2 *extremely* easy. It's basically a Normally Closed, momentary switch wired to the left channel of a 1/4" plug. If you want, you can wire a second switch to the right channel. With this external pedal, the left channel switch controls Stop/Tap Tempo and the right channel scrolls through the saved states.

With this pedal, the Boss RC-2 is a breeze to operate, basically making it a RC-20xl. I can set the tempo, start recording, overdub and stop with single presses of my foot.

The loop quantizer function really helps get the timing on loops perfect, and works pretty dang well. Within about a day or so of practice, I was able to get the timing right without the loop quantizer (which you have to set the tempo in order to use). My only complaint with the ease of use is scrolling through the drum tracks. For some reason, they put all of the decent, normal sounding drum beats at the end of the list, so it takes forever to scroll there.

The one thing that got me to buy the Boss Rc-2 over any other brand of loop pedal was it's sound quality. There is no loss of tone compared to the other loopers out there. I really wish it worked in stereo though, but you can't find any stereo looper pedals short of $500. The drum tracks sound pretty good though. The only issue is that when you change the speed of a saved track, the sound is a bit warbled. I don't ever use that feature, so I don't really care.

I've never had issues with it, and it came with a 5 year warranty, so I'm pretty confident about this.

never had to deal with them

Pretty expensive, but extremely worth it. I can be my own one man band with this thing, and with acoustic guitar, you can even make your own beats and whatnot. This is an EXTREMELY good practice tool, because you can loop a chord progression and solo over it for hours. Within a few days, I improved my soloing skills a ton. Compared to the Digitech Jamman, this bad boy may not have hours of storage space, but it has perfect sound quality and reliability that the Jamman doesn't. And honestly, I usually don't care to save my loops, so I don't mind not having a ton of space. Like I said earlier, once I made an external pedal for this, it pretty much became a Boss RC-20XL, without the reverse function, and for a lot less money. And from what I've heard, the RC-20xl's have some serious reliability issues. The only thing I wish it had was a better way to scroll through the drum tracks, like one button to go forward and another to go back. Honestly though, I usually just don't use the drum tracks at all so it doesn't matter. One complaint is how Boss way overcharges for their power supply, just because they made it reverse polarity. Seriously, all you have to do is take any 9V AC power supply that fits the RC-2 (which should be most of them) and switch the wires. Just cut the wires somewhere along the cord of the power supply, and attach the wires to the other one (eg. attach the red to the black, and black to red), and BAM you have a reverse polarity power supply, for way less cash. Make sure you insulate the wires from each other, because if they touch, it'll short your RC-2. Awesome, I love it.

As with any looper, your timing has to be just right. This unit has a quantize feature which helps.

There are many hidden features that requires a thorough reading of the manual.

After an hour or two, it's pretty easy to use.

I haven't heard any noise or distortion. The loops appear to be somewhat compressed.

This is a very cool device. Incredibly entertaining and fun. Turn a knob, press the pedal a couple of times, and you can build an amazing soundscape with just one instrument and some effects.

I have an 8-track recorder that is so complicated in comparison. The RC-2 does not get in the way of the creative process at all. If you make a mistake, just "undo" it and try again.

In just two or three minutes you can compose amazing musical themes! Absolutely blew my mind :)

okay here goes. yes you can get a loop quantized, but the quantize is not AS perfect as Boss claims it is. easy to store loops, a ***** to STOP loops. i have to hit the pedal once about a bar before i'm ready to end, then hit it again. AKAI HEADRUSH II needs only ONE TAP!

tap tempo is a ***** to use too!! and anyone, how can anyone (except me,that is...sorry^^) hear the tempo they WANT to change to while the current tempo is playing??

a good feature is that you can MOVE LOOPS TO STORE LOCATIONS, ie loop 10 copy over to loop 1. i've done this many times. just turn to the loop you want to move (loop 10,say), hit STORE ONCE, then turn the dial to the LOCATION you want to move to (say, loop 1). hit store again and it's copied(not moved, copied). excellent function that BOSS probably didn't know they were putting in there, and needed me to reveal it to them......okay sorry.

sound quality is very good. so good in fact that i use it SOLELY for my demos.
look everything doesn;'t have to be perfect stereo. i make my demos to send out to pubs with this setup:

guitar--effects---RC2----MP3 line in recorder (or line in of computer).

the RC2 is an EXCELLENT, though MONO, multitrack recorder.
HOWEVER......

their drum patterns SUCK!!! and NO JAZZ PATTERNS either.

won;t break. Boss stuff doesn't usually crap out on you. Japanese quality control.

i would never send my pedals in. i have friends/family members who have 10th degree black belts in electronics

My setup is boss OC3 w/ octave on the 5th and 6th strings only into the Fender/Boss 65 Deluxe pedal to the RC2. i pre record my jazz drum patterns at home into each slot, say, 16bar boss,slot 1, 32 bar bossa, slot 2, etc. i hit play at the show, get the groove in my head, then hit overdub for my guitar/bass part. hit again and i solo.

i am the expert on the Boss RC 2, as i am with most of their products.they could hire me for R&D/artist input, but i have trouble working with idiots. a little personality problem that i'm working/meditating on.

Very easy to use. I can't stand silly toys and mega-boxes that try to do everything, and I hate reading manuals. Yet I figured it out in about an hour of just goofing around. That's saying a lot.

This review is going to be half review and 80% preaching (joke in there...)

My history:
33 years playing on and off. Gigged, did the band thing, now just record.
Have owned or used everything, literally. Don't make my living playing music, so I can buy what I want. I'm one of those dicks who goes to the Musician's Friend site and sorts stuff according to price, high-to-low, because I'm old(er) and have no patience for toys. Only musical instruments and real tools that function properly and have fidelity and musicality.

Guitars:
Custom built hardtail Strat and heavily customized Gibson LP Studio Alpine White. Both guitars have EMGs, Sperzel locking tuners, brass and corian nuts, and the best woods and hardware components available.

Amps:
Marshall JVM410 w/ 1960A cab. Incidentally, I've owned Carvin, Crate, Randall, Roland, Line 6, Fender, Mesa, etc., etc., etc., and for my purposes, Marshall still delivers the beatdown when it comes to the pure, ferocious tone of my influences (Eddie, Jimi, Jimmy, Angus, Steve Morse, etc.)

Effects:
Boss TU-1 tuner, BF-3 flanger, CH-1 Chorus, DD-6 digital delay (two of those), MT-2 metal zone (never use it though, but it smokes) and the RC-2 loop station.

The reason I have all the little boxes, instead of TC Electronics, Eventide or Rocktron, is simple: I like to PLAY and not PROGRAM. If you are into all night jam sessions, you understand what I mean. That, plus 90% of the time, I play with no effects (just a tad of delay) because playing live, all those goofy sounds don't translate well, and certainly don't cut through the mix. Unless of course you solo for a living, like Vai or Gilbert (who are virtuosos in my book). Then have at it.

The merchandisers in our industry have successfully convinced 95% of us that you are only as good as how much money you spend on equipment. This is NOT the case. In fact, it's sometimes quite the opposite.

If you're a younger player, listen up: save your money and buy a well-crafted musical instrument (guitar). Compare them in the music stores, and ignore the names or who endorses what. This is where your ability as a viable player begins and ends.

Find the right guitar for YOU. If you can't find it, do what I did, and build it. Warmoth et al makes superior components that can allow you to custom fit an instrument to your taste and allow you to develop your style. Learn about woods and tone, spend money on good hardware and pickups, and then find an amp that fits your musical taste and needs. Bigger is not always better.

Incidentally - Fender was the first very good amp. Jim Marshall modded one and - tada! - he made the first Marshall. Decades later, some SoCal fellas modded a Marshall and - tada tada! - they made the first Mesa. Thus was the evolution of the loud black box.

The RC-2 is good quality digital, so it sounds just like you. If it sounds bad, guess what? You probably need to practice a bit more. Or get a better guitar or amp. Or both.

I use this little box constantly to try out song phrases, just to see if they stand up musically. When you're playing something, you may like it more than a passive listener because the fingering is comfortable and the passage seems to flow physically through your hands. But this can be deceptive to the player. You need a sounding board (or looper) to test your composition with your ears alone.

This little red looper is also excellent at layering solos and teaching yourself how to jump registers (or keys) within a song. Staying within key without being monotonous is challenging, but rewarding.

I've had Boss products for many years, and the only time they've ever gone down was when I used an adapter with the wrong voltage. Be careful of this. Also, don't take the boxes apart. Just don't... you won't improve the sound -- unless you're an EE and know what you're doing. Some guys can mod these things way out, which is great. However with these mods come reduced circuit life and susceptibility to short out (in some cases).

Never had to deal with them. However Roland/Boss is a huge company, so don't expect someone to hold your hand.

Several years ago I had thousands of bucks tied up in processing, preamps and effects. And at some point, I had a meltdown, and just unplugged everything and went straight into the amp. Stripping down to the bare minimum felt wonderful, was liberating, and reintroduced me to my own playing. I began to remember the joy of string bending, muting, palming, harmonics, tapping, and all the great things we used to do to spice things up before all the machinery took over.

Now I look at my little boxes as tools: hammer, screwdriver, pliers, wrench, wire cutters, etc. Each tool performs a specific function, or it doesn't occupy a spot on my floorboard. You can also look at them as colors on a palette. Used judiciously they add meaning and purpose, without taking over all together.

End of sermon.

One last thing: always start your practice sessions with no effects. This cleanses your audio palette and help tune up your ear for the music to follow.

Have lived with the RC-2 for a couple of weeks now, and I am BEGINNING to figure out how to make it do my bidding. Extremely difficult to use if you have not made the manual your friend for quite some time. The benefit of the small footprint is considerably offset by the fact that some buttons and knobs double for more than one function.

Lovely sound quality. The loops sound pretty much like they sounded when you put them in- which is high praise indeed. The drum tracks aren't flawless, but they are plenty good enough.

Too early to be certain but so far, so good.

No opinion on customer support. Not used them.

Been playing for 25+ years, and this unit was perfect for a small-town player with nobody to jam with. It is difficult to learn, but I would replace if lost or stolen. I wish it was a little bigger with a more intuitive set of controls. The sound, however, is stellar. Highly recommended.