Boss RC-20 Loop Station

After a few tries, the Rc-20 was as easy to use as any Boss pedal. The only problem was timing. When I played along with my band it was a little tricky trying to time the loop so that it melted into the music without causeing a an off beat sound. This takes practice!

I have found that digital equipment gives any bass sound a weak kick to it. Not sure why. But the Rc-20 matches up to any other pedal out there for what it does and how it sounds. I even thought that I sounded better after hearing myself looped. lol

Come on..its a Boss pedal. They ain't kidding either when they say "it's built like a tank."

Can't say I ever needed them.

I bought it on ebay and never had any problems with it. I listen and play a lot of Trey Anastasio's (of Phish) stuff so I wanted somthing to help me recreate that sound. He loops several different guitar licks and tricks at once and does so with a Boomerang sampler. I personally think that the Boomerang sucks compared to the Boss RC-20. I would totally buy another one if I needed to. But only on ebay, they are way too overpriced anywhere else.

I thought it was pretty easy to use. You can peak into the manuel to see how to save loops and delete loops and what not to do if you don't want to lose your saved loops etc. I'm a plug and play kind of guy who never dips to deeply into manuels, programming, and advanced technology but, the pedal is not hard to understand how to operate. It can be used live with some practice on punching in and out on time. I have a solo/duo act and I use it live, but you won't be able to synch your loop to your drummer or drum machine. I use it on the songs that I do that has no drum machine. I'm giving it a 9 because you get use to setting your instrument and input levels when making loops otherwise, the volumes are going to be off on the different phrases that you might play over one another

When playing live, my setup is guitar>A/B box>POD>RC-20>PA Mixer. I use an A/B box because I sometimes lay down a bassline live, then grab my accoustic or electric guitar and start adding on top of the bass line. Getting to the subject of sound quality, I don't find it that great. I find my guitar tone degregated pretty much and any distortion comes out a little 'glassy'. I still use it live because after you overdub your 4th or 5th phrase, and assuming you have a cool-sounding loop going, you don't notice the sound degregation as much because the loops are so cool. I definitely turn some heads at my gigs with it. Also, it does introduce a little noise into my chain. Not much of a problem with an electric guitar the signal isn't as strong on an accoustic therefore you have to compensate by cranking the levels on the sampler, thus bringing more noise into the chain.

Looks sturdy to me. Don't have a backup. Right now, I'm only using it for 7 or 8 songs in my show. Not quite enough to justify getting a backup.

I gig with a bass player and a drum machine, and also gig solo. It adds to my show as a solo artist. I play blues, a little jazz, and some accoustic stuff from the classic rock era and later. The looper allows me to change the dynamics of my solo act. I can give my voice a rest and do some instrumental stuff, I can put my accoustic down and play around with my electric guitar and a bass. I can even do a whole song with drums with this machine. I said earlier you couldn't synch it with a drum machine and you cant but, what you can do is send your drum machine through the looper, and if you punch it out at the end of a phrase, you now have your drums in your loop and you can easily overdub bass and guitar over that once the drums are in your loop. Another thing that sounds good and gets people's attention is when I lay down a haunting bass line, overdub some delta blues chords over it with my accoustic, then add some slide guitar with delay. Real spooky sounding. You can overdub a harmonizing slide phrase over everything else and on and on. You can really create some stuff with it without the stigma of using backing tracks or midi sequencing because you can do it all live. I've been having mine for about 2 months and haven't begun to exhaust all the possibilities of this thing in a live situation. I would have to get another if something were to happen to this one.
I haven't tried any of the other loopers so I can't really compare this one to another but I'm pretty sure this one has far more sampling time than any other. There's plenty info on the sampling time and how it can be used in the other reviews so, I won't go into detail about this. Overall, I find it very useful.

I don't like to read manuals, but this is the first one I had to read. To learn basics like saving and deleting loops, and what the auto start function does.

Honestly I'm a looping maniac with no money. So this is the only loop pedal I've ever owned and I can't compare but this is what I know:

The GOOD: Great sound and easy to use. Gives you the option of having a mic and an instrumemnt plugged in at the same time. Allows control of the level of the loop, and current input.

The BAD: You can't mess up. If you loop somthing bad over the first loop, then you're screwed, you either got to suck it up or start over. It doesn't give you the option of choosing which loops you want to play and which to not. Once you've added something, it's added, and you have to stick with what you got. The guide (which is a cheesy drum and cymbal) is useless, it was basically put in their for people who bought this to practice learning the guitar.

boss builds them like bricks for a bomb shelter.

don't use it.

This pedal is created for beginners who want to practice, but it can still be used for some great looping. THE BEST PART ABOUT IT IS THAT IT IS A CHEAP AND RELIABLE LOOP PEDAL COMPARED TO THE EXPENSIVE ALTERNATIVES, SUCH AS BOOMERRANGS. I give it a nine because it gives you a lot for your money, but if you're serious about having fun with looping, than save up for one that is more useful, that's what I am doing right now.

Very simple if you have a good sense of time. I only wish there was a way to save by stomping and not bending over. And the fact that the sound stops during a save is annoying.

Doesn't mess up the sound TOO much. There is a noticable amount of high end (treble) loss, but not bad. I usually EQ the amp to compensate. The sky is the limit in terms of sound layering. The loops retain a pretty good spectrum of lows, mids and highs. Not quite CD quality, but much better than mp3 quality I'd say. I use a Boss OC-2 and EH Q-Tron in front of it. I like to drop a bassline out of the OC-2 to start sometimes. The octave effect seems to sound better through the looper than it does live! It's also fun to feed some analog delay in at about 500ms. Loop the intro for "where the streets have no names" then I can fill in the other parts over the top.

I've owned many Boss pedals over the years and I never had a problem.

Keller Williams got me into this whole Looping thing. Check him out if you need some looping Ideas. I think this pedal is priceless as a practice machine. Especially for lead playing. A good loop forces you to jam over yr own playing. It's like having a really tight repetitive band playing with you. I wish I had this thing when I first started playing. I would probably be a much better lead player for it. The RC-20 is also priceless for solo musicians. You can really make some jaws drop if you use this at an open mic.

Loopers in gerneral require a learning curve to get used to. After you get experienced, they're all relatively easy to navigate.

Here's the deal. I own 2 Loop Stations (yes they get used)and a Jamman, and I have owned a Line 6 Delay Modeler, a Headrush, a 1 MB Boomerang (years ago), and I recently traded for a 4 MB Boomerang +. I know, I'm a freak. Anyway, the Boomerang + had this annoying electronic pop when I engaged the play/stop button (after a loop was recorded into it). What a disappointment. I actually tried 2 different Boomerangs and they both did it. The Boomerang sounded fine, save for the popping noise. Needless to say, they both were returned (I'm getting a H-K Tube Rotosphere instead). So... what's the point to my story? The Loop Station isn't perfect but it does the job, is more reliable, sounds as good, and is smaller than a Boomerang. The Loop Station doesn't sound as good as my Jamman, but offers more loop time and is way more durable (I won't take my Jamman out of my house since it's basically history if it breaks). I feel the Loop Station is better than the Line 6 (more loop time, but less options overall- I have plenty of delays) although the Line 6 doesn't sound bad at all. The Loop Station blows the Headrush away on all counts. I hope my ramblings help any of you considering getting into Looping. The best thing is to try them out, consider what options you want/need, and let your ears be your judge.

I have 2 Loop Stations, over a dozen Boss pedals, a V-Wah, a VF-1, and a BR-864 and have never had one problem.

Never needed to deal with 'em. Now that's great customer support.

The Loop Station is a great piece of gear for the money. My only wish is that it could be used in stereo (like the Jamman or Digital Echoplex Pro). I'd even trade some of the 5+ minutes of loop time. Or better yet, I don't use the rhythm guide tones nor do I need the quantize function so I'd gladly trade those features for stereo (are you listening Boss?) I like its size, sound quality, and its reliablity.

At first, I thought it was extremely complicated, but after a good read through the manual, it made perfect sense. Very simple to work now.

I play a rickenbacker 4003 through an ampeg cube. I don't do loops on the fly ... i make them all at home, and play them direct to the PA (i.e. i don't ever plug my bass into this). If you've ever plugged this thing in direct to PA, look out: the hiss is deafening ... it was easily fixed, though, by putting an active direct box (Behringer) between this and running an XLR to the PA. Now, it is so quiet, and the loops are unbelievable! Sounds like thay are coming directly from my computer.

my whole pedalboard is boss ... i slam my feet down on the whole board for fun. indestructible.

haven't had to yet ....

This is a good match for the dubbed out brit-rock post-punk stuff we play ... maybe we should just hire a keyboard player. Either way, I have two enhancements that i would find very useful:
1. After recording the loop, being able to change the pace of the original sample, and storing the new pace. obviously, you can change the pace of the original loop on the fly, but you can't change the stored pace.
2. a visual adjustment of the pace ... i.e. what if i just wanted to speed the loop up 2-3beats per minute ... i have to tap everything.

... my problems are all with manipulating the pace .... i think the quantize feature is amaxing, by the way ... i ahve no idea why people wouldn't ifnd this useful.

I think the RC-20 is very easy to figure out once you have glanced over the manual. I got mine yesterday and was able to start using it in 5 minutes or less.

I guess the best I can say here is you get what you put into it. I have a clean guitar and get a clean input I have a noisy one and can get noise. If it sounds good going in, it sounds good comming out!

I got this second hand and it was missing some silver labels on the knobs. I was not at all reluctant to buy it because it is built like a horse and rides like one too ;)

I checked them out and Boss rules

If I lost this one after just one day, I would have to get another. I looked at the Boomarang pedals but they were too cheap in my opinion. Not built as tough. I play rock and contemporary music. I have 7 guitars and 2 amps. My main gear is a 95' Les Paul Standard with a TSL 100 Head playing though 4X Green Back Marshall Cabinate. I have some Vintage 30s that also sound awsume but that is another story. My sugestion is to record loops before you gig if you don't have timming problems with your drummer you can record the loops with him or alone if you don't have a drummer. Then when live, just do the loop live and then hit the pedal to keep it alive while you add lead or picking or more cords etc.

This pedals pretty easy to use, given an understanding of it's limitations. Good manual and straightforward setup, but it seems this pedal could easily do more with some simple changes in design.

It's a little noisy. My guitarist has one that's noisier and i've heard some that are really clean, so who knows? I use it with bass and some other effects but it's at the front of my line just behind my tuning pedal. It's touchy about the recording levels of the input and out put i've noticed, but it doesn't seem to color the tone of my bass to any noticeable degree.

Very reliable, i primarily use it a sampler, in the sense that i make ambient melodic loops, no beginning really, just single notes from arpeggios, feedback, harmonics, all mishmashed and over dubbed and reversed so it sounds like, i dunno, notes breathing, i guess. It's never crapped out on me.

NA

I wish this pedal had a few things. The click track should be much less aggresive, and there should be a headphone out that has an output signal with a click track, so you can use it live and sync up with a drummer with out that ridiculously loud THOOM THOOM THOOM CLICK coming out your speaker. The mic input should be XLR. Also, it would be nice to be able to use the tap tempo pedal to set time signatures instead of that tiny little button. Of course, more Time is always great, and it would also be nice if there was a way to scroll up and down through the memory banks with a footswitch, instead of just sequentially up.

easier to use than headrush and line 6
just as easy to use as boomerang
not quite as eay as jamman
can't say about echoplex digital pro
i've owned all of the above but the echoplex
you don't need the quantize or rhythm guide features (they're a waste)

what you put in is what you get out
you do need to feed the loop station a strong signal otherwise the sound can be slightly choppy
as long as the signal in is good and strong the signal out is good and strong as well
i use my loop stations (i have 2) with tech 21 trademark 60 and bronzewood 60 plus a bunch of pedals and results are as good or better than what i used to get with boomerang or line 6 and way better than headrush and jamman is better but you only get 32 seconds
don't know why there's so many low ratings, it has not been my experience

i have a plethora of boss stuff and have never had a problem

i've been looping since 1998 and have owned 2 loop stations, a boomerang (older model), line 6 echo modeler, akai headrush, and lexicon jamman
as of now i still have the boss and the jamman loopers
i like the sound quality, the smaller size, the ability to store loops if i want (even though i don't usually), and the 5+ minutes of available time
i don't like the quantize or rhythm guide features
loop station works great live and in studio, is great for solo jamming and practicing
i'd get another if need be (although i would at least check out the new version of the boomerang)
the only thing i like better about the looper on line 6 is ability to add delay while in loop mode (but you only get 14 seconds)

This pedal is crazy easy to use. There are volume knobs all over the place and two simple pedals for playback, overdubbing, stopping and tap tempo. It took me five minutes to learn how to use it, but it can create things as complicated as you like.

It plays like its goin directly to the amp. No added sound, except when i plug a mic in...but that's because my mic is hella shady.

This pedal is savage. It hasnt failed yet, but it is fairly easy to erase the entire memory when turning the power off...But it wouldnt ever crap it its just too damn beastly

The Boss website, and everything included with the pedal were all helpful and should i ever run into trouble it wouldnt be that hard to get help

I've been playing for a couple years now, but this isn't a pedal that is specifically for beginners, or pros. I was debating between the Line 6 DL4 and the RC-20, but in the end i got the RC-20, because it is great for practicing alone, jamming, and even for playing live. If it was stolen or lost i would be so sad i would probably cry for a while, then sit in the corner for a couple months then sell my soul to raise enough money to get another one. IF you can get a good deal on it, its definately worth it, but retail is pushing it...at least for my budget. It would have been nice to see some effects other than reverse on it, but nevertheless it is still a ritriculous pedal.