Boss RC-20 Loop Station

Fairly intuitive and well laid-out. Kind of like any boss pedal in that sense. Editiing and storing was relative easy and

I use a '79 Strat equipped with Seymour Duncan Antiquities through a reissue Vox AC-30TB (Blue Bulldogs) and a '73 Fender Deluxe Reverb. Pedals: Vox wah, boss volume, boss super phaser, boss analog delay, hot cake overdrive, old proco rat, diaz tremedillo, boss rv-3, and a digitech 2-sec delay.

I found that the rc-20 was clean and quiet and doesn't alter the sound in any way. i use a morley A/B/Y switch from the last of my pedal chain to split the signal to the vox and to the rc-20 to the deluxe - thus isolating the loop.

some cool features are that you can store loops in it's memory, you can bring in loops from a microphone, instrument or even a prerecorded sample from a cd player. you can also easily change the tempo of a prerecorded loop on the fly and you can overdub with your loops on the fly - and you can footswitch your loops in reverse!

Built solidly like any other boss pedal. I would definitely replace it if it were lost or stolen.

N/A

I play alternative rock. My band has been incorporating loops into our music more and more lately. I had a Jamman, but it was limited by 32 seconds vs 5.5 mins, being a rack mount unit vs a compact pedal, and having no storing capacity vs storing uo to 11 unique samples.

Here is what I thing would improve the unit:
If it had a dry output in addition to the affected output. If it also had delay built-in. This unit is a looper/sampler, period. At around $300, it's fairly limited in scope, but it does what it does extremely well.

The RC-20 is a loop station that does not generally modify the sound, that is, unless you uses the quantize function to either speed up or slow down the sample. When you speed up or slow down the loop, the sound degrades, but it is still passable.

As far as creating loops - it does a very good job. Stomp on... stomp off... Reverse.

The strangest thing though is using the quantize function. First, you tap in the tempo. You must watch for the red light to tell you where the 1 is, all other beats are green. If you do not record to the end of the measure it will grab whatever is needed from counting backwards to complete the sample.

As the previous reviewer said, you can store up to 11 samples persistantly. If you add the optional footswitch, you will be able to step upwards to trigger new loops, but not down.

I use this with a Line6 DL4. It doesn't seem to add any noise. Sometimes when you use the batteries the sound will fade in and out. It's doesn't do that when you use the power adapter - so my suggestion is to get it.

Not as sturdy as the Line6 DL4, but it feels like it's built to last.

This can be used basically for any type of music. I use it as a woodshed tool. Type in a tap tempo then enter a phrase to practice scales/arpeggios solo riffs and soloing.

I probably would not replace it if it were stolen because I have the Line6 DL4, which does have the ability to loop.

I think that it is better than the Boomerange, simply because it A) costs less. B) Has more sampling time. C) Has persistant memory. D) It's smaller.

The only thing that I wish it has was a little bit of delay, but other than that, it's a fine piece of equipment.

With a little help from a friend at the shop and about 15 minutes with the pedal at home I was into my first song. Manual average.

Out of the box, hooked up a Music Man Silhouette (3 single coils) to the RC-20 direct to my '57 Tweed Princeton. A bit noisy, but start playing and it blends right in. No effects with it yet, sounds great clean, the Tweed didn't know it was there.

Boss should be good, but it's only 12 hours old. I'll play out with it next week.

Never dealt with them.

I play a bit of everything. Tend to improvise. Been playing for about 10 years now. If it were stolen I'd be bummed, just got it. Already feel like I've got a rhythm guitarist in the house to play/practice with. So far my favorite pedal in that it allows you to create, not just another sound.

I give this a 8 because it's not intuitive at first. I look through the manual and you should be able to figure it out. For comparison, I would rate the loop function on the Line 6 DL-4 as a 10.

Bonus points for having 5.5 minutes of total recording time!!! You can split this time up any way you want between 11 different "loop tracks". I loved the DL-4 for ease of use, but only 14 seconds was sometimes a little restrictive for my song styles. Bonus number two--you can save your loops in non-volatile memory! For someone like me who loves to compose with loops, this is a blessing.

Contrary to it's advertising, this is NOT a tool for playing loops live in the sense you might think. You can record/play/overdub a loop live like with a DL-4 or a Jam Man, But playing multiple loops is not easy. The "play once" feature is reserved for only one of eleven memory location, which totally sucks. If you want to play multiple loop patterns, you have to pre-record them in the sequence you want to play them into adjacent memory locations. You can use an external foot switch to trigger it to play the next loop after the first one hits the end. However, the looping is infinite. If you want to play loop one once, then stop, and play another loop, forget it.

If you want to do lots of overdubs on a single loop a la Les Paulverizer, then this is a easy to use, very cool tool for that purpose. The two pedal configuration is very simple to record, then play a loop, then start overdubbing very quickly. You can set a tap tempo for the quantize function or just use the tap as a metronome guide. Setting the time signature and tap tempo are simple functions which are very handy for practicing.

After about an hour and a half, I had 99 percent of the functionality nailed down. This is not brain surgery.

My setup is simple - Ovation shallow body 6-string or Standard Strat w/ EMG SA pickups into a GT-3, straight into mixer and out to a monitor. The loop station is in the FX loop of the GT-3 so I can move it around between different effects for different songs.

The sound quality is just fine, but the folks at Boss did something stupid with this unit. The instrument input has a mid-boost EQ on it to simulate a guitar amp. The only way to avoid this is to use the flat amp setting, but then you have to plug your input into the 1/8" input meant for a CD or minidisc input! And it's only a mono unit, so they lose a point for not having stereo outputs.

It's a Boss pedal, and I've never had trouble with any Boss gear. This is one of the new double pedals, but it's built like a tank like all the Boss units.

Never had to deal with them, but I will call them with some questions on this unit.

Overall this is good tool for practicing and composing. I play lots of ambient/new age and use a guitar synth in addition to my basic setup. I have only had it a day (I got the first one in the store!), so I have some tinkering to do before I decide to keep it forever. If you are one of the people who bought a Line 6 DL-4 JUST for the loop recorder but were disappointed in its limitations, then the RC-20 may be worth the extra 50 bucks to you. If stereo is important to you, don't get it. If you want to have the ability to record and overdub a nice long loop live, then this is a good buy. If you want a neat tool for practicing with a nice metronome feature and a cool composition/improvisational aide, then this is also a good buy. If you want stereo, or you want to be able to record and play different loops with a one shot capability on the fly, then you may have to wait for something else to come along (maybe the Electrix Repeater?), or invest in a big $$$ sampler. For the cost, this is a good value.