Boss RC-20XL

I've been looping for over ten years (playing for 30) and the Loop Station is as easy as anything similar to it. Whatever tone/sound you put into it is what comes out.

I have an RC-20 XL, 2 RC-20s, a looper in my Line 6 M13 (pretty good), a Damage Control Time Line (good looper but the delay is so good and using the looper requires reconfiguring some settings so I rarely use this for a looper), a DD-20 Giga Delay (hardly ever use the looper, too short, too much work to set it up + I have Loop Stations). I used to have an original Lexicon JamMan (awesome but it got too old I'm sorry to say; also only 32 seconds of loop), a Boomerang, a Line 6 Delay Modeler, an Akai Headrush, and the big Boss RC-50 (which sounded good but was screwed up in that it had too much going on; good idea though and maybe they fixed the bugs).

Like I said, the Loop Station is as easy to navigate as any other looper out there,

I don't know where all these negative reviews are coming from (which is why I am posting this reveiw). I got my first Loop Station around eight years ago (and it still works fine). The other two I own sound exactly the same and both also work great. It may not be as organic sounding as the Lexicon JamMan (not the Digitech one) but it's not too far off from it either. I've been using it live, for recording, in a band context, solo, and it always sounds great. Whatever I put in comes back out without any signal loss. I use mostly Takamine acoustic-electrics and Fishman Amps along with a bunch of effects and the Loop Stations handle whatever I throw at them. What I am getting at is the tone and sounds quality of the Loop Stations are excellent.

Read above.

Don't know.

I have three, they all work, have always worked, sound great and what else needs to be said. I've had bunches of Boss pedals and multi effects over the years. Now the only Boss gear I still have is my three Loop Stations, a Giga Delay, and an old VF-1 half rack multi effect processor. Nothing against Boss effects I just like my Damage Control pedals and Pigtronix Envelope Phaser and Moogerfooger Low Pass Filter better. As far as loopers go, you can't beat the Boss.

It's not about "getting a good sound" as this is all about how you play, and what you play into it. The modes were problematic and took a while to learn how to use, although once leaned you can get very good results.

I used this pedal with a keeley modded Boss BD-2 and a vintage MIJ Boss DD3 at the time, going through a cream coloured Fender Hod Rod w/1x12 C12N Jensen speaker; my guitar being a JJ Retro w/standard p/ups. Although this was a simple and often very nice sounding setup, that's mostly due to the amazing amp, now sold. The looper did not work very well with the Blues driver and it made it sound quite metallic and sharper that it actually was somehow. It did however work extremley well with clean tones and with delay. If I ever got a looper pedal again my only choice would be the EHX 2880 looper, as this seems FAR superior a lot of ways.

I used it a lot without any problems, I only owned it for 6 months.

A good pedal, but bear in mind this is digital, and also not as organic, warm or easy to use than some others out there.

Very easy to use, press the left pedal once it starts recording, press it again it will stop recording and begin playback, press it again and it will record and over dub, hold it down it will delete/undelete the most recent overdub. Right pedal stops playback, hold it down and will delete the loop, can also be used to set the tempo. There are other things to get to know but those are the basics.

This pedal can sound great, the recorded singal coming out sounds the same as what is going in. However I also get that annoying squeak/whine in time with the tempo indicator. I have found that it is at its worst when running off the same power supply as other pedals, on its own it is greatly reduced but turning my amp all the way up and it is still there. It is ok for just playing around but you wouldn't want it on a recording. I am going to try getting some high quality shielded cables to see if it helps.

No problems so far

Appart from the weird noise, I have another problem with this pedal. I assumed when I bought it that when you use it in tap tempo mode it would automatically quantise the loop, but that if chose not to the recording and playback would depend on when press the pedal, this is not the case. Unless you program in the time signature you are playing beforehand (in the same way you would in tempo mode) it will assume you are playing in 4/4 and quantise the loop accordingly. This is pretty annoying that you have to work out what time signature you are using and fiddle about in advance rather than giving you the option to control it completely with your feet. Just to be clear there is no setting on this pedal where the loop recording is ended and playback begins when you press the pedal, instead it will always calculate when it thinks you should have pressed the pedal.

This pedal could have been great.

I was up and running with my first loop in under 5 minutes. It's worth your time to follow the manual and do the first few loops using the tempo/beat feature. This causes the quantize function to kick in-and results in a clean, usable loop. It takes a fair bit more practice to cleanly punch in and out of a loop without missing a beat if you don't use the quantize function. The manual is pretty basic: read the fine print or you'll miss something important. For example, the fade out function is not in the index, but is found under "stop mode" on P. 23.

I bought this for solo performance with high end acoustic guitars. I use this with both my Goodall and Charis guitars. Signal chain: on board Baggs IMix > Boss loop station > tube preamp > BBE sonic maximizer > Genx Benz acoustic amp. Other reviewers have complained about noise. Either they had a defective unit, or, bad signal in = bad signal out. I heard the crystal clear, beautiful tone I always get from my guitars. Layering harmonics and riffs over the loop resulted in exactly what I'm looking for. Going 5-6 layers deep results in a rather dramatic crescendo. Hit the reverse button and you'll think you're Phil Keaggy! [Well, sort of...]

So far so good. It's pretty well built.

No experience.

I play only acoustic fingerstyle singer song writer stuff. This pedal is what I've been dreaming of. Been playing 33 years. I demo'd this against the Akai Headrush [noisy and short memory] and Digitech Jam Man [more bells and whistles, but tone not as good]. I can't imagine using up the 16 minutes of storage with my playing style: I don't save loops very often. If I did, however, I wish this thing had a memoory card that could be upgraded. This and usb connectivity is what the Jam Man has over the boss. Awesome creativity tool.

Fairly easy to use, the manual explains the pedal fairly clearly and you can start layering loops in under a half hour.

The actual looped sound of the guitar is fine. However, there is a barely audible rhythmic beeping sound (like that a digital alarm clock would make), coupled with some hiss, that increases as you turn up the INST volume knob. Like the other reviewer who experienced this problem, I use a lot of pedals in my signal chain. However, I experience the beeping/ringing sound even when the only pedal I'm going into is the RC-20XL. It may be possible that there is a defective batch out there. Regardless, it's very annoying and makes it impossible to use the loop station for recording. It's unfortunate, because the sound of my guitar is not diminished much by the pedal, but the beeping/ringing tone throws it all out the window.

Other than the audible beeping/ringing tone the pedal makes, I've not had any problems using the pedal. I depend on it.

I only just emailed the company to find out if my pedal is defective and if it's covered under warranty. I will update my review once I hear back from them.

I play mostly improv stoner metal. I use a 1971 Orange 120 into a 4X12 cab. Variety of guitars, mostly Gibson SG or Fender Telecaster Deluxe. Furman pedal board, BBE wah, MXR delay & Smart Gate, Digitech Whammy, Arion tubulator & flange, ZVEX wooly mammoth, EH Worm.

If my pedal were lost or stolen, I would try out other loop pedals. I might consider getting the smaller Boss loop pedal (if it didn't have the ringing/beeping sound problem). Overall, the pedal helps me make music, create sonic textures. It is slightly difficult to set up rhythmic loops in a live setting that will be in time w/ what the drummer is playing. But mostly I use it just to create atmospheric sounds, or for practice guitar runs at home.

The manual is clearly written and very usefull.

In my opinion the sound is perfect only when you are playing in a clean tone. When you switch to overdrive tone the situation gets a little messy.

I agree with other users that for practising purpose at home is the perfect tool (if you learn to use it quite well), but for live performances is the worst one.

I bought it from the net. I have never upgrade it and I don't think it will be nesessary.

I like the sound that is coming out from the pedal and also two pedals that it has are very usefull for me. I don't like at all the sound of the drums. Moreover I can connect it with my CD-player and that gives more options.

Pretty straight forward for a looper. Everything is laid out well and easy to use. I'm not sure how to change the time signature but I haven't looked into it either. That's the one thing that isn't obvious from a quick glance.

I got this as a replacement for a DigiTech JamMan and I am much happier with the RC-20XL's sound quality. With the JamMan, once you finished overdubbing and the phrase started playing back, the transition from "live" to "looped" was really noticeable. To me, the Boss pedal's playback is much more "lively" and natural.

And to me, when the Boss looper gets to the end of the phrase, it seems to do a better job of restarting the phrase smoothly. The JamMan actually sounded like a CD skipping back.

Boss is known for their reliability.

Never dealt with them.

I'm not entirely sure I needed a looper but I've been pretty happy with this pedal. I think it's been a good purchase. It's been good for practicing timing and learning about soloing, harmonizing, scales and so on. It's easy to use, sounds good and has features that competing loopers don't. I also like the second 1/4" input jack, which I use for connecting a bass or keyboard. You can't do that with an XLR input.

most effects can figured out without an instruction manual, but the rc-2 isn't one of them. this isn't a bad thing, but that's just how it is with this pedal. you may have an easier time getting the hang of it if you've had experience with other loop pedals before, especially if it's a boss. but for me, this was my first and it took me a good full practice session (about 2 hours of messing around?) to fully understand how the pedal worked - and maybe a day and a half to remember it all. it's just a dense pedal, so there's a lot in it, but it all makes sense.

this is the main reason why i thought i should write a review on this pedal - to make mention of the noise issue i've been getting. this pedal will spit out exactly what you put it, without any alteration to the tone of the original passage played. HOWEVER, on top of what it plays back, there is a really high-pitched digital ring that is always there (whether it's playing back a passage or not). and of course, if you've got overdrive pedals in your chain of effects, that ring will be amplified when those OD effects are on. i'm not sure what other people's effects setup is but this issue may have something to do with it being at the end of a chain of multiple stomp boxes with the power distributed in a daisy-chain fashion. i know many reviewers have expressed that this pedal produces no undesirable noise whatsoever, but perhaps their setup is different. but regardless of that fact, i can't be the only person with an effects rig set up the way mine is set up. i'm not sure what to try in order to remedy this issue, but i'm hoping more people who have this issue will at least make it known.

very strong. but i'd be more careful with this than, say, one of my other boss effects. it just seems like it might be more fragile on the inside.

the reps were unfamiliar with the issue...so they were not able to help me too much. but they were friendly.

overall, it's a neat pedal that can be extremely useful in live or at-home situations. but i'm still trying to figure out this noise issue i've been having with the high-pitch ring.

If you read the manual, everything's laid out pretty clearly. The pedal has a fair amount of functions (switching between loops, switching guide tracks, yadda yadda) which are simple if you take the time to learn with the pedal.

Timing the loops to sync up properly and sound like natural playing through the cross-over between loops is a learned art, but if you take the time (a few hours, and at the price I can't imagine you wouldn't), you can get it right pretty close to 100% of the time.

Sound quality is almost irrelevant to this kind of pedal. As has been said, you get out what you put in.

I've noticed a very slight hiss while erasing a loop. If you're playing, it is unnoticeable.

The drum guides kind of sound like shit, but it's not really meant for performance. They are also too loud when compared to the guitar level. The lowest setting seems to be on par with 12:00 to 1:00 on the "level" knob for the loop with the volume on my guitar knob turned up.

I've had it a few months. It's solid. Boss makes good housings, which is good because loop pedals, but nature, need to be stepped on a lot.

Haven't had to deal with them.

For practicing solos and improvisation, it's great.

There are some things that would vastly improve the device, however.

1) There's no way to delete just the most recent layer of a loop. Meaning, if you've set up a bunch of layers, and you add one that you don't like, it's on there for keeps--like paint on a canvas.

2) Playing a loop and then stopping and starting another is pretty jarring. Sometimes I fade out of a loop by turning the level down by hand. I wish there were a way to attach an expression pedal and fade out. A volume pedal after the device would work, too, but it would also lower the volume of your guitar. Having a second device (Ian Williams of Battles does this with Akai Headrushes) would let you start a new loop so that deleting the old one would still present a level of coherence between the two. But that's expensive.

damn easy. no problems in getting a perfect loop. sometimes good, to play by internal rhythm.

this is why i am writing this: have a look at the rating for the RC-2. i have had it before the RC-20XL and - the same quality! what goes in will come out. a 9 cause the drums are not really usable (ok, sometimes i use THE one of those).

best

i do like their online pages.

learning and experimenting - this is what i bought it for, and it does its job.

Need some time but then it is a clear winner!

No hum, no hiss. Great sound

Built like a tank

No need for one. After all it's Boss

I bought this used, but it was in mint shape (the previous owner was stymied by it, I think). At first, even though I had been give a "primer" in it's use by a friend who uses one all the time, I too found it daunting. Then after about an hour I had pretty much mastered it. I love this thing. It is idiosyncratic, the way it operates, so you have to really get down with learning it and "let it train you" somewhat, but the pay off is worth it. I also hooked up a 1/4" stereo Fender Vib/Rev pedal and a non-latching keyboard sustain pedal to it an voila, all those functions are easily foot controllable as well! Boss makes special switches for this that come out to around 75 bucks for both but if you have comparable switches at home try them out. probably one of the trickiest things to figure out is the correct time to stop and start the recording with the pedal in order to get a satisfactory loop that will work the way you want it to time-wise, but this is a talent you have to master through use, the box itself is very predictable and once YOU learn how to do it right you'll get good results. Using the timed loop with quantization will yield better timed results. I'm not the biggest fan of that "click" sound you play along with, but it does the job perfectly. I'm trying to do everything with this box, from setting up 3-5 part loops for songwriting and to play drums with, to making ambient Bill Frisell -like loops on the fly, to making psychedelic reverse sounds to add in where appropriate. It does them all, and with the extra pedals for scrolling up and down through the 11 memory locations and the footswitch for reverse you can really get a lot done without the dreaded "having to bend over". The manual explains everything but like most manuals it probably doesn't explain it 100% exactly like you would like to have it explained, again, like any good box or keyboard or whatever, no matter how intuitive there is the matter of YOU having to acclimate to IT. Go for it, you can handle it!

Good sound quality, doesn't step on the signal/tone. i use it with a variety of telecasters, les pauls, gretsches, danos, etc etc into vintage fender tweed and blackface amps. I wish some of my boutique stomp boxes, which I often love, could achieve the quality and reliability of the Boss line. If I had the balls I'd go ALL BOSS, but they have a tendency to cancel some of their cooler boxes, like the stereo Trem and the VB-2 vibrato and the parametric EQ....wTF?

I have had some Boss boxes go bad and have them repaired, but rarely, and I drag them all over the world. I expect this one will be no different. I'm still not a fan of their tuner, but apparently everyone else is.

When I needed something fixed, they fixed it. Also have gotten good tech answers from them.

I guess unless it became a part of your overall style a box like this could be in danger of being something you only dragged out once in a while, but I expect to get some good use and fun out of it. I love making up a song in it with 4 or 5 overdubbed parts and playing drums with it or lead over it, makes sitting around with yourself practicing or coming up with ideas WAY more fun.

I've read plenty of reviews (on this site and others) stating that the user was boggled by this thing at first attempt. I would say that the most fundamental funcions, i.e looping, were immediately accessable without reading the manual. I took mine out of the box, plugged it in, and looped like. . . well, like a mad-looper. Any functuions that i had diffuculty "getting" were outlined clearly and concisely in the included manual. And the only reason those functions took some time was because I am not hip to much of the Boss lingo. It was a matter of their labeling alone, which is neither good or bad. It's simply arbitrary terms for the unit's functions. Seriously- how some of you couldn't get it rolling is beyond me. I should add that I've only owned this pedal for a week, and I can operate the unit to full capacity.

Sound quality- well, here is my current set-up: Gibson SG standard or Fender Telecaster > DOD FX80B compressor > Vox Cooltron Dual Overdrive > Boss Loop Station > Vox AC30CC2. The bypass is decent, the loop quality is decent, but nothing will sound as true as guitar > amp, if for no other reason than the addition of extra cables for the sound to travel through. That said, there definately is some sound quality lost, but not much. I don't expect anyone listening at a live performance would really notice unless they're a gear head. I don't see myself using this too much for gigs anyway. I bought it mainly as a practice tool.

This is a Boss product, and so far so good. After a week it's been fine. The build quality is such that I could use it as a weapon to thwart a ninja attack. Based soley on my past experiences with Boss products, Boss should build tanks- they'd be indestructible.

I'm sure they're really nice folks. Hopefully, I'll never have to find out.

I love this thing. As a practicing tool and creatice device, this is probably the best investment you could make. It's already improved my playing as well as present me with a new creative pallette to work with.

The 16 minutes of sample time is nice. I typically layer about 7 instrument tracks on one patch during a performance. Editing and ease of use are intuitive, except for erasing patches. I don't have a manual and I can use every function after one day of use. For guitar and analog instruments this is a great unit. The layers tend to fade when multiple layers are stacked on top of them. If you are a one man band as I am, you might want to wait for some improvements. The biggest issue for me is that I cannot get it to accurately reproduce arpeggiated synth patches. I play them and the tempo feature freaks out. The unit locks on to your tempo while recording and holds it. This is great for instruments with an analog attack, but not so good for smooth digital signal. The tempo feature freaks out on the arpeggiated patches from my Kurzweil K2500. I was trying to record an arp2500 patch into the unit and it couldn't seem to lock on. It would reduce the patch and cut out all of the quieter subtleties of the sound. That said I am still happy that I bought the unit and will enjoy playing analog instruments through it. I do wish that the reverse function was foot controlled and it had multiple ins and outs.

What you put in is what you get out, until you layer half a dozen patches. Great for up to four layers if they have a hot signal. Not too digital sounding.

It's a boss!

Hope to never need them. I haven't in the 15 years I have been using their products.

This is a good match for me to play with a band. To do my one man band I will need some upgrades or a laptop. This should do it in theory, but the lack of response to digital signal isn't going to let that happen. It is alot of fun to use for creating bass and guitar parts. I am going to wear out the inputs by constantly switching between bass and guitar. If you are a guitarist looking for a cool toy to create textures I don't think you will find a better option out there. I may just have to give up on the synth idea and use my other boss effects to create similar sounds. I would definitely replace this if it were lost or stolen though I might go for the rc-50 for its hands off approach and the ability to have three patches available simultaneously. I bought this because the rc-50 is also mono and just doesn't support its potential.

Really easy to use. Straight out of the box it's pretty straightforward. As other players have mentioned - once you've read the manual you're up and running. It's a great starter loop device - I'm only just getting into it (can't be bothered finding yet another rhythm guitarist) and it's worked live and in the studio so far. I've already figured out the quantize button and, for my money, this FX works best on Auto Start. Tempos are pretty easy to set up too. Hooked up with an FS-6 and I'm in looping heaven!

There is a slight loss of tone. I use this nearly at the end of a GT8 loop (just before reverb) and you can notice when you first hear the loop. However, seeing as I'm looping so I can overdub then that's not that much of an issue - the rest of the band make up for the slight tone loss.

I would have liked to have seen this with stereo outs (I play stereo out to two amps - VOXAC30 and Spider112) though - IMO that would have sorted the tone loss. For that reason I've set the assigns on the GT8 so that I can cut the Loop out when not in use - instant stereo again. If you're playing in mono I can't see this being an issue at all.

It's Boss. I expect it to last a long time and to do what I want it to do on command.

Never had a problem with Boss gear.

It's pretty good. I'm sure the RC-50 is totally fab but this will do me for a while I think.

This unit takes a little time to find all the features and only has two pedals for real time use. The manuel was OK. I did not purchase this as a on stage pedal but more for practice and an idea recorder.

I am very happy with the sound quality for my purposes. I do think it colors your bypassed tone though. Again I use it for practice purposes and live to check my front of house tone. I have owned a boomerang and a Line 3 DL4 and I like this unit more due to the ability to save things the looped sound is better than the boomerang which has problems with clipping and input volume. The DL4 loops are too short and you cannot save anything. I know they are different products in thems of features but the RC-20XL does the best for what I need.

I think boss pedals are built like a tank and road proven. Although I only have this boss pedal due the tone coloration of the pedal bypassed.

I have not dealt with them.

I am in a original funk and jam band and this pedal allows me to record song ideas throughout the week. I use a dumble clone, Warmoth Strat, Briggs Saturn Deluxe, Tone Junkie TS9, Voodoo Labs Ground control pro, micro vibe, TC G major, etc. I use a lot of pro gear and this pedal is my favorite looper. Again I have owned a DL4 and a Boomerang (I have actually owned 2 boomerangs including the latest version). I wish it had another button to swich between loops but I think that I could get a momentary switch to do that on this unit but I do not have room on my pedal board. I use HC reviews often so here is my 2 cents.

For the first hour and half of having it i was very confused, but now that i know how to use it it is good.
The manual is full of instructions, and if you actually read it you will understand the unit.
The only problem that i have found so far is when using the loops on the CD that came with it, it is really hard to time the push off the pedal to make it loop.

I have found that my tone is more distorted when using the unit.

After having the pedal for 1 and half months, the pedal randomly broke and needed to be rreprogamed by boss.

When the pedal was sent to boss to be repaired, it took them two and a half months to get it back to me.
Boss are good at making pedals that work and are reliable, but when one breaks they don't know what to do.

I play alot of improvised jazz, and this pedal is great for doing that sort of thing. I have never used it anywhere besides at home, but i dont imagine it would be good onstage.

This thing is pretty easy to use (at least at a most basic level). Anything more then recording and overdubbing can be looked up in the manual no problem.

Ok, so heres where the problem lies... this thing sucks tone like no tomorrow. My setup is as follows: Tele->Tonebone Trimode (true bypass, so it's not the problem)-> RC-20XL-> amp. when I unplug the looper and go through the trimode the tone is way, way better. The pedal also renders the tone control on your guitar useless, and i didnt notice any changes whatsoever when switching through pickups.

so, I will never gig with this thing, but for home use and practice, where tone isnt the biggest thing on your mind, its absolutely great.

haven't had it long enough to say.

...

Overall, this is a great looper. It does what it says, and is pretty easy to use (especially when you use the auto-start). If it didnt suck tone so much (or if it had true bypass), I would definitely give it a higher rating.

Borrowed my friends RC-20XL to try out because I wanted to buy the little brother, the RC-2, coming out soon.

The RC-20XL comes with a CD of loops for you to sample, but I found it impossible to catch the end of a loop. Always a bit too much or too little. The problem seems to be the footpedal; it's action is OK if you want to switch a stompbox on or off, but it's very difficult to predict at which point of that not inconsiderable travel distance it's going to actually switch. The old AKAI Headrush has a far more positive switch action and is much better for this type of application. Boss have simply used their stomp box type switches here. Not good.

Sound quality seemed fine. I didn't have it long enough to discover any odd glitches or clicks others seem to be experiencing. The flat amp reverse simulation is a clever addition.

I can depend on most Boss gear, but I cannot rely on getting the loop when I need it.

It has a guide click for you to play along with, and if you want, it will quantize the end of what you play to the click if you cannot hit the footswitch accurately. That's fine for practising at home, but trying to record some riffs I'd recorded on a portastudio for a gig just proved impossible.

Quantize only works with the click, so the only reliable way to catch the end of a riff is to sync the click with the recording.

But getting the click on time with recorded material nearly drove me mad, no matter how carefully I tapped the tempo (both with foot switch AND panel button), it always was off.

Summary:
There is no tempo knob for fine tempo adjustment and there is no way of trimming a loop, and catching the end of a loop reliably with the footswitch takes more skill than I possess, so for my purposes it's near useless.

Guess I'll pass on that RC-2.

It's fairly simple to use. I think the instructions could be better. They're good, don't let me misguide you. I found some mistakes...that's all. I think the TAP TEMPO should be a dial knob, or technically speaking, a potentiometer. To me, the whole tempo setup is odd, useless, the tones suck, and a pain in the ass to use. You have to hope your tapping intervals are right on the money! But close enough for praticing.

Sound quality is fine for what I use it for. Playing at home, making loops. Which means strumming chords so I can pratice solos. At the same time, learn more scales. It's a great learning tool. I don't play out with it, and probably wouldn't. It has a built in TEMPO, or metronome. The sounds suck. Everyone will agree to that

Here's what I ABSOLUTELY HATE...there's isn't a power button. That's right, no way to turn it on or off. OK, so now you're in a situation where you would have unplug the unit, and take the cables and re-cable everything to bypass that unit. You can leave it on the whole time, no problem. BUT...here's the problem. The INST (instrument) Dial controls the volume of your guitar to your amp now. And it has a gain effect. So turning it up increases gain, not only the volume!! I HATE that. I don't want this thing altering tone in anyway. So for now I'm dealing with it. I have a pedal board, so I can't just unplug and re-cable very easily. When I want to get just tone. I plug in direct. Sure would be alot easier like the rest of my pedals to stomp on them to turn them on or off. And what about if you're using batteries? I don't get it.....

Seems solid. Well constructed. Nice and Heavy. Looks good. I was going to buy the RC-2, that's the single pedal version, but glad i don't so far. I wouln't gig with it personally. I'm not a one man band. But I don't see a need for it if you play rock-n-roll. Get a rhythm guitarist instead. I think it's too new of a product to get a good response for reliability. maybe the owners of the non XL (the RC-20 original) users could help.

Well, I thought that BOSS would have an email address for support. I wanted to know more about this invisible power knob. They don't have one. I think they gave a telephone number and a fax number. But I work during business hours. And this day in age, everyone has an email address. Owners of store bought products that have them registered should have email support. VERY DISAPPOINTED :(

If I'm playing other people's music, it's Alice in Chains, The Beatles, AC/DC, John Lennon, and tons of others, but those are my influences I would say. Been playing @ 6 years. I have a AM. Deluxe Strat, an Epiphone Les Paul, MArshall 2555 head, 1960TV cab, a Fender Frontman 25R ( cheap amp but I can't get distortion out of my Marshall at lower volumes...and sometimes I need to play through headphones while my girlfriend is sleeping. I have a few pedals, a crybaby wah, chorus, flanger, delay, and an acoustic simulator. If it were lost or stolen, probably get another. I love what it does, makes loops. I stated what I hated above...no power knob. love 2 seperate pedals. Great music making tool. A necessity for all trying to get better soloing. Wish it had a power knob, if it did, it would be perfect. A drum machine, and wow, it'd be the best thing ever.

Superficially, not difficult to use at all...it's essentially a simple tool. Maybe too simple (read later). The manual's decent...you'll be looping in no time.

Problems with use mostly involve audible drop-outs when saving a loop and switching between saved loops. Firstly, when you're looping, the point is to get a continuous sound...when you save a loop you've created the unit stops playback, saves, then needs to be re-triggered to playback. Absolutely unacceptable in performances...you need to have some sort of material going to cover the interruption.

Sound quality is pretty fine, though I think the recorded phrases can sound a little thin. Takes a bit of tweaking and practice to find the correct mix between playback level and mic/instrument input to avoid feedback and to get things to sound continuous (ie like they belong in the loop). Bare in mind that you're recording, and if you mess up or play a little too loud/soft then that's how it will sound. The Undo function is fairly useful in this regard, but if you're performing live, it's too late.

The "guide tones" seem pretty useless to me even though they're presented as a major feature. It's a built in metronome, that's all...useless live or in recording. There should be a seperate headphone out for this, but it's mixed in with the loop. Stupid. They sound like cheap onboard MIDI sounds, and there's a different sound for the first beat of the bar; there should be an option to turn that different beat off, but there's not. MOST CONCERNING is that even when the level is set to OFF, I can still hear it faintly in the background...try recording that and putting it through a compressor and it's clearly, if very softly, audible. No good!

Sure, it's reliable...use a power-supply instead of batteries to be safe. Pretty rugged construction too - it'd be difficult to damage this.

When first using it, had some trouble getting a decent level out of it, and was a bit worried that it wasn't putting out sound consistently from one session to the next. It doesn't put out line level sound (which is a little surprising), so I'm treating it at mic level. Sounds good now, just make sure you know your settings.

I hit the ceiling of creative possibilities after at most 2 hours of use. As soon as you create your first loop, you establish the loop length, and any overdubbing will occur WITHIN that loop length. IE you can't create a 2 bar beat, then overdub a 4 bar chord progression, nor can you overdub a 1/2 bar loop layer...you're stuck with 2 bars.

16 minutes of looptime sounds good...but the more you layer the bigger the sound gets and eventually adding the sounds together WILL result in distortion. Depends what you're playing...I start hearing clipping after about 6 layers of clean beat-boxing with my voice. Less if I'm layering guitar. And I don't even want to think of the mess if you're using delay or reverb...

The reverse function can generate some great sounds.

I work with various styles...this is most suited to electronic music. But, saw KT Tunstall use it to great effect on the Tonight Show, and a man called Son of Dave (member of Crash Test Dummies) does fantastic stuff with it live.

Not useless, but I use Ableton Live with a Behringer FCB 1010 and can do much, much more with that; I've also written a simple patch with MAX/Msp which does exactly the same as this. But if you're not prepared to lug a computer around, or get into computers at all, then this unit will actually do fine as long as you're really smart how you use it; keep things simple. There aren't many similar units out there at all. If you're after a phrase trainer (eg to practice guitar solos or something) then you'll find those built into most new multi-effects pedals these days. The list price on the RC-20XL is around $350...worth it only if you really want it and put it to good use...expensive if it's just a toy.

I'm probably going to sell mine on.

Very easy to use as almost all of the control functions are printed on the pedal. Plug-and-play for sure, but there are some deeper functions (ie not on the pedal itself) such as fading out, etc that can easily be looked up in the manual.

Quantize is a little hard to use, but by no means a necessary feature -- it's also really weird to actually hear the looper fight you rhythm wise.

Overall, very good. It feels like it loses a little something, but I can't say for sure.

I put all frequency ranges through it, so no worries there:
6-string bass >> GR-20 guitar synth >> Digitech Synth Wah >> Big Muff Pi >> Opto Stomp compressor >> GEB-7 >> DD-6 delay >> Pulsar tremolo >> RC-20xl >> amp.


I've had a weird problem: I get a constant fast click whenever I record directly (the looper going straight to recording device). I've never heard it on the amp, but I've quadruple checked, and it's definately the looper.

Built extremely sturdily, but never attempt a gig without a power supply (not that you would). This thing eats batteries like you wouldn't believe.

Also, it has some problems with very short loops (< ~3 sec), but it's rare that one would use a loop and not a delay for a loop that short.

I talked to BOSS about the aforementioned clicking noise and they too were stymied. They had a few suggestions and that warranty would cover it if I couldn't figure it out.

A great loop station. Easy to use, good sound, and 16+ minutes of savable/usable loop time. Really excellent. Makes solo playing and song writing oh so much easier. The whole one-man-band bit is much more doable.

I took this looper out of the box 2 hours before a solo gig, played with it for 45 minutes and took it to my gig that night. I had a couple of goofs but that was user error not the product. I have played with only one other looper effect and that was line 6's delay modeler. The boss blows away the line 6! I have sine preset some phrases and will eventually fill up all the phrases except one so I can still loop in real time. The real time loop is really what I bought it for. I used th xl last week with my duo and set the rythym with the looper and played the bass line while my partner played lead. Lot's of fun!

I haven't used this with my electric yet but have been using it in line with my Alvarez stage acoustic with a line 6 modulation modeler. I keep th xl last in line for obvious reasons. Chorus & delay come thru fine. I had to fine tune my delay a little, but that was it. I have not used an amp with the xl, just straight thru th PA.

I do use it without a backup. I think it's a dependable piece of equipment. If it died on me at a gig, I would just do my old solo thing because those leads will not sound right without any background music.

NA

If this were lost or stolen, I'd definitely buy another. It's too much fun and on those night when my voice is a hurting, I can cut 4 or 5 songs out of my gig just from the real time looping. If I put a rythym & a bass line down and then add a lead to it, I have now come close to almost doubling the length of the song and that's cool!

I've spent a lot of time with loopers. (Boomerang, Echoplex, Original JamMan...) so I knew what I was looking for. I think this is no less complex than any other unit to get familiar with. I can read, so the decals on the pedal are easy enough to get you started. The manuals look very well written. I read through it once before I ever plugged in. Of course I'll be referring back to them from time to time. It was easy to get a good loop started and sounding good. I don't like having to hold the clear button for 2 seconds, which seems like an eternity for a looper like me. BUT I will get used to it.

At the end of the day I wanted a looper that records, overdubs, and corrects mistakes easily in a compact unit. Done!

I'm using this for several guitars. I'm not going to get into that. I wanted to see what happened in a "bench test" and here are my results:

First, the levels. The input and output level are very important to me. I got rid of my Boomerang because it's just way too noisy and too wide. Too bad, it's a good product. The input level on the RC-20xl is perfect right at 12 o'clock, which is what I had hoped for. The output is for the LOOP ONLY, not the "live" signal from your guitar. Again, much easier to set than the Boomerang. I haven't had to mess with the knobs once they were set. That was a problem with the 'rang: the foot roller was too touchy.

Second, the noise. All Boss pedals have a buffered circuit sucking your tone, regardless of whether the effect is on or not. The question is, how MUCH tone is it sucking. Well, to my ears, I couldn't hear a difference when I A/B'd it with my true bypass box from loop-master. I am not trying to knock anyone here, but if you have noise, it's not from the RC-20xl, or it's extremely minimal and you have a noise issue somewhere. It may be your cables, amp, ground hum or whatever. I use all George L's cabling and I perceive no signal degradation in any way from this unit. I have to give it a solid 9.

I think this will be fine. Boss single stompboxes are... you know the story. This just looks like 2 Boss's side by side. Solid pedals for stomping. The prices have come down a lot on these due to the JamMan and RC-50 coming out, so if it breaks it won't be as painful to buy a replacement.

Never had to deal with them. I guess that's a good thing, but still no opinion.

If noise (or lack thereof) is #1 on your list, this is the way to go. It's silent when the effect is on and off.

This gets the basic job done much more effectively than it's competitors. I don't get into the extra features all that much, so this is more than adequate for me. I actually think it is quieter than the Echoplex. Is it the quietest? It has to be up there near the top.

Looping is one of those technologies they keep reinventing, although the apex really has already been reached. It's more about the creativity of the artist now than the available technology. So in that case, and since it does what I want in it's most basic form, I give it a 9.

Such thing should not be sold.
The recorded sound is not good, not even 44kHz which is a shame!

But even more : it adds noise to your sound.
Whatever tha cable lenght is, in your loop or in front of the amp, it adds noise.
I think it really is not honest to sell something like that.
If your amp is not a crappy one, or if your a bit attentive to your sound, don't even touch this...

I just wanted to modify the post I already did. I gave 5 to the sound, it diserve 2.

It is usefull, but it lacks midi implementation, or an out with just the tempo (for drummers)
but the most important, IT KILLS YOUR SOUND.
Don't buy it

It is easy to start looping. Reading the manual is helpful and recommeded. The features are pretty straightforward. Someone said there is no way to play in anything but 4/4 time. This is not true. I f you hold down the tempo button you can then tap in any number of beats to set up a beat in 3/4 or whatever.

I use this on solo gigs. I have a switching box set up so I can run a bass and guitars through the looper. All effects including reverb are b4 the looper so they can be recorded as needed. I use vintage fender amps. Unit is not particularly noisy. The looper will color your sound some, but it can still sound good. If you bypass it, you will notice a difference though. The looper can take a variety of signals. It takes bass, guitars, and microphones and reproduces them pretty well. Heavily distorted guitars lose something on playback. Overall I am happy with sound quality. But there is room for improvement.

Seems rugged. I gig without a backup. 5 year warranty-nice.

never tried to contact.

This is the best thing ever for practiceing. You will lose track of time and play for hours. I have some beats fed into it so the loop is all set up. I start the loop, lay down a bass groove. Mabey some chords and start jamming. Usually I do about a 10 minute loop on solo gigs. I play some funky stuff, blues, jazz standards, and have been trying some acoustic guitar through it too. I went with the boss after reading many reviews and haven't been disappointed. If it was lost I would probably upgrade to the rc-50 although it is quite large. I might take a look at that digitech one, but am skeptical about it's quality. I think this pedal has really helped my music evolve over the last several months. Unless you want to create a crazy jumble of sound, stick with two or three layers of loop.

Fairly easy to use though the saving features to save a loop or overdub are not obvious - I still dont know what some of the feartures do
BUT SEE OVERALL RATING _ A BIG DESIGN FLAW _ NOT WORTH THE MONEY!!!!!
THE rating is not due to difficulty of use - IT is impossible to use in real time due to the quantize feature - ******WHICH can never be turned off**** Roland should refund and apologize!!!!

I havent noticed much noise - I like that it has 2 inputs I put a synth through one and the gtr through the other (Strat and various amps or recordi through a pod) and the volume controls allow you to have the input signal louder than the loop
watch out if you are using effects at the end of the path since the loop will be affected by that series of effects (If you are using a modeling amp the loop will be distorted)

I think it is pretty reliable and lasted a long time on batteries

Never called them for anything

Funk, Blues, Rock, Fusion, Mid Eastern
I am playing for 30 years and would love to start loops live with my bands BUT YOU CANNOT
$300 YET HERE IS THE PROBLEM - DOnt buy IT - the quantize function forces your loop to adjust to a specific tempo - The manual tells you that if you dont adjust the tempo the quantize function is off - THAT IS A LIE - The small print in the manual tells you that there is ALWAYS a default Tempo - therefore quantize cannot be turned off!!!
ROLAND should be ashamed of itself - all the fancy features (Who needs a reverse Loop?) and I cant use the thing live!! I am a skilled player and when I start a riff I want the riff repeated EXACTLY as played - I should be able to get that for $300 - I Will have to sell it and buy the line 6 (though limited it repeats what you play) or upgrade - I dont know if the JAMMAN has the same issue but if it does I wont buy it
WHEN ARE THESE GTR TECHIES going to consult REAL Musicians - I am pissed and so is my band!!!!

This thing is so incredibly simple to use it's unbelievable. Especially the recording auto start so you don't have to step on the start button at exactly the same time as you start playing your riff to record. The manual is very easy to read and makes perfect sense. I only need to use it for reference though because the RC-20XL is so self explanitory by itself.

I run mine out to the PA system with my backing guitar loops pre programmed and with both my amp going into the PA and the RC-20XL going into the PA I can't tell the difference in sound because it records it so cleanly.

I've only had one and I beat the crap out of it so it's definitely a top quality road dog, unlike the crappy switches inthe Jam Man that I broke in 2 days.

The people at Roland/BOSS are the nicest people to talk to. I can't get the time of day from any other company, and the Roland people are just a quick phone call away.

I play heavy music and this thing is great for filling in the open area when I need a background guitar player while I'm playing a solo. If it were stolen I would definitely buy another one without a doubt. My favorite feature is the real time tempo stretching for the loop. If the drummer is a little fast I can tap the tempo in real time and it will stretch the loop without changing the pitch. This thing kicks the crap out of the Jam Man for overall sound and quality, and you don't have to buy extra memory cards to make the damn thing work, just plug and play right out of the box. Now I can't wait for the BOSS RC-50!

abbastanza intuitivo....ma alcune operazioni necessitano del manuale

lo uso principalmente x loop con chitarra x esercitarmi su basi di accordi x cui nn mi interessa la qualita audio che sinceramente nn mi sembra eccelsa come prhase trainer ho notato che nn puoi rallentare di molto la frase....

onesto ma mi aspettavo di piu.....

It's easy and not so easy. You have to read some pages in the manual if you want to know what thas that button do with the shift etc...

A cable pluged in on the loop station and than directly to the amp. Man, you can hear quite clear the loss of quality when it is being looped, especially the high freq. But don't worry, it's good enough for performing and even recording.
Anyway it can be an advantage if you think that the thing that you record it will became not so bright for background loop.
Anyway the sound is very acceptable! I already saw a lot of great musicians from Jazz and experimental stuff performing and recording with this thing.
I don't believe that loop station from digitech it would be better. They say a lot of good things about it, more time, more sound quality, etc. But I doubt the quality of it!

Until know I think so, no problems at all until now. I just have for a week or two.

I miss some things on this station, the metro only gives you the chance to perform in 4/4! If there is possibility to change it, I haven't found it yet.
And 16 minutes to record is time enough to do what ever you want. If you are were expecting more, you've should a proper record machine and not a loopstation. This is for playing live and for recordings. Not to record at home first and then perform it live!!!
This box is very easygoing, it lets you to do whatever you want. It only depends in your imagination!

I don't give a 10 for 2 main reasons, 1st the quality of the sound which is not the best and 2nd the 4/4 metro that is always the same.

Easy enough - but NOT enough features. Only 16 minutes of saved loop time - and even less if you fill up all 10 storage locations. Returned it and got the Digitech JamMan instead, which can store up to 6.5 hours of loops on Compact Flash media, 99 loop storage locations, USB to PC compatible, an XLR mic input, can use stereo headphones AND comes with the power supply! You can read the white lettering on the blue JamMan chasis compared to the white/silver-ish lettering on the RC20XL's red chasis.

Sucks - NOISY - NOT CD Quality. Get the JamMan instead with CD quality 44.1kHz sampling rate.

1 year warranty sucks. Digitech provides a full 6 year warranty for the JamMan.

sucks. Very limited (almost non-existent) customer support. NO email support - NO toll-free phone support - NO user forums or tips - NO real usefull information on their website.

It can't be lost or stolen - I got rid of it. I expected more from Boss/Roland being one of the grand-daddies of electronic musical gear - yeah, they have "some" decent products, but the RC20XL isn't one of them. For the same price, You'd be a lot happier with the Digitech JamMan (the RC20XL on Steroids!)

This pedal is very esy to use. The guy in the showroom spent a few minutes with me before and when I got it home I was looping right out of the box. I'm sure if I read the manual I could do more with it but so far I'm having plenty of fun with the basic loops, reverse, guitar input, mic input, save, erase and undue functions. I just recorded some C and G chord strums, with a simple melody over it. Then added a harmony melody, it's hysterical...too much fun. It's been looping playback here for 20 minutes, cracking me up.

sounds freakin great. not noisy at all. I'm using it with a Roland Micro Cube, Fender Stratocaster and a Shure mic. The loop I just made sound like a goofy country thing but I've had it sound bluesy and also funky. My favorite musicians are the old blues guys...howlin wolf, albert collins, lightnin hopkins, hendrix, elmore james, albert king, etc. and also acdc

Maybe stereo output would be nice. But on the other hand, the mono really requires you to make your loop layers very distinct harmonically....kind of like brian wilson's work with the beach boys in mono.

It's only been out of the box 2 days, so far so good.

the guy who sold it to me was cool, low presure sales guy at Guitar Center

I play blues and simple stuff, and I try to play jazz but I really can't do it well. The looper is great for blues, very easy to lay down 12 bars and get it to loop perfectly.

I've been playing for 16 years. I own a Gibson Buddy Holly acoustic, a Flea ukulele, a sony 4 track minidisc recorder, a baby Taylor, a Carlo Robeli resonator, harmonicas, blues tool harmonica rack, some mics and some other stuff in the closet that i'm not sure of.

I think I would have to get a replacement if this looper was stolen

I love the fact that it loops easily and you can pile as many loops on as you want. I hate that I have to use a this instead of having my own band (but i've never been good with a band).

my favorite feature is that it runs on batteries

i compared it to the digitech looper, but that one doesn't run on batteries. I chose this one cause both my Micro Cube and this can run outside in the park with batteries.

I does indeed help me make tuns of music.

I like to share some recordings made with this unit. I'll post them on this site http://mysite.verizon.net/vze359di/

two pedals, pretty simple, a baby could use it

The sound is not very good.
If you play jazz, if you just put some chords in and the do a chorus on it, it's really a cool thing, but don't expect the sound to be identical.
Boss did NOT use a 44 Khz sampling rate which I found pretty abusive, ther's nothing existing anymore under 44.1 Khz apart from this unit...
You can use it on stage, but still, the sound isn't a "CD" sound...

good until here, I have it for 6 months now, no problem

It is great, it is so usefull, it's such a wonderfull working tool...
but the sound should have been better

If you can't figure this thing out within 1 hour of skipping thruogh the manual, you should win the Darwin Award. It is so simple an educated chimp could use it.

I am using a duel amp set-up through a Keeley/Boss blues driver, Keeley compressor, Keeley modified TS-808 Tube screamer with a Time Machine boost. The amps are a Marshall studio 15 and a Peavy Basic for the low end. My Guitar is a Custom 5-string Multi-Plane headstock Celloblaster. There is not much information on how to play this guitar but I am obsessed with it and I have mapped out the fret-board
to the point of second nature. I also have two Schecter CB-2000's. I bought three of these guitars because they are not currently in production.

I have quite a few boss pedals with no problems. This, however is utilizing some higher technology. Time will tell.

N/A

I can't stop playing with this thing. It is totally addictive. I play blues, hippie jam, and classic rock. I also play bluegrass and blues banjo. I am taking up blues harmonica. I have been playing 16 years. Now that I have tried one of these I can't imagine not having one. Like others have stated, I wish it was in stereo. I would have to say as a pratice tool, it is indispensible. I feel it will make any competent musician more so.

More complicated than the Line 6 by a factor of about 5, but then again, that's ALL this thing does, so you would expect that. I didn't the manual for the line 6, but I did for this thing. It's pretty well constructed though and you'll the hang of it eventually.

Sounds good to me, some people have complained of noisiness, and I had the same problem initially but I tried increasing the volume level of my guitar (to around 9) and it improved tremendously. So make your input gain levels are high enough or you will get hiss.

Just go it, so not sure, it's Boss though, they are usually pretty reliable.

never had to deal with them.

This thing is a godsend. I was using the Line 6 for a while and it was pretty easy to use, but limited as a looper. The biggest limitation is that it's very difficult to create perfect loops. So unless you have the tempo control of a metronome, your loops will be out, then trying playing with a drummer, good luck! I saw a guy playing with an rc-20 so I decided to try it out. It's perfect! Finally, somebody got it "right". The biggest thing is that it quantizes your loops, although that is misleading. True quantizing aligns every note to fit into a specified beat map. What this does is just ship the end of your loop so it fits into a perfect length loop. It even has a built in metronome, genius! Added to that, it can store the loops, so you can spend a lot of time creating your perfect base loops, and then put everything on top of that. I create really layered loops (sometimes 7 loops) so the base loop has to be perfect, otherwise it throws everything off. I just spent tonight creating all my loops, so I have become quite familiar with the unit. One thing that through me off was that it creates a lead in bar before on the initial loop, beware of this!

Anyway, I love this thing, the only drawback is that it's not in stereo. Why, Boss, why? I had a great 2 amp stereo setup and now it's all screwed up, kind of a bummer. Other than that, this thing rocks.

Very easy to use. Manual is much better than most Boss manuals.

I can't compare it to a similar product such as the Boomerang. Overall I am happy with it. It has caused some irritations. At times, I can hear an audible click or glitch at a point where I either began or ended a loop. I also detect a digital haze coloring the overall sound. Obviously it records any and all noise from cables and pedals that are in front of it. I use 11 pedals in front of it and do get quite a bit of noise. It DOES NOT like my Q-tron, nor do my amps. The sound of the loop stastion is a bit brittle.

Any problems with sound quality are not an issue for live scenarios. It causes me stress while using it for recording, which is primarily what I do.

Seems very reliable. It does have a glitch here and there though. Very minor. All my Boss pedals have small glitches from time to time...effect getting stuck on even though I press pedal off etc...

No idea

I love this pedal. I think it would benefit from the following:
1) Stereo output. The mono out is extremely annoying. In order to get anything interesting recorded, I need to run it through a stereo pedal,various pedals and into two amps that get miked.

2) Lose the stupid click function. In its place should be a knob-controlled temp adjuster. The push button tempo adjuster is very difficult to use.

3) In place of the push button tempo adjuster should be a digital counter. Not knowing where you are while the loop is playing is maddening for recording purposes.

Otherwise, I love this pedal and would replace it immediately if it broke.

I feel Boss did what musicians really wanted eventough Les Paul was the first to play/record/overdub live with his device in the "50's".
Since the RC-20XL is out,What I really want now does'nt exist yet.Which is 3 hours total recording time with 40 phrase banks instead of 11.You could do a whole gig.

I use a Line6 flextoneIIIxl into RC-20xl to a 1966 fender pro-reverb
les paul special/plus, Fender 62 reissue strat. The sound reproduction was better than I expected.

I would gig this without a backup.Even if they made it with 3 hours and 40 phrase banks

havn't had to call

I've been playing 39 years. I'm still learning the timing of starting and ending loop. I'm 60% successful rightnow (3 months).

I bought this unit, with the visions of laying down some thick tracks and soloing over them?.SORRY.
I am running a PRS>RCxl>Triple Rectifier.
This machine can do clean on top of clean, but try and distortion and distortion and you will see that this thing craps out. I would lay down a rhythm and it would sound sweet. The problem came when I went to overdub the solo. It would either be un-audible, or if I would raise the instrument volume either from the unit or guitar it would lower and cut out the rhythm part and/or you can barely hear the rhythm layer.
I figured the best way to use this system was to Guitar> A/B switch> A to amp one(for solos) then B to RCxl> amp two (for rhythms).
Doing this will let my solos be audible over the loop since they are separate amps, however in this configuration you can not record the solo.

Bottom line, I am very disappointed and will return this unit tomorrow.
I tried tweaking the level volume and instrument volume, and came up short.

What Boss did was boil a multitrack recording studio into an easy 2 pedal looper. They succeded. It took me zero time (3 seconds) to make my first loops (some of which are still on my looper after 2 months). Once I figured out how to use the tempo track and the undo function, it became obvious to me that you can make FLAWLESS loops with a little time. Im talking stuff that movie soundtracks and really long The Cure (Facination Street) songs are made of.
The tempo track is something that you can turn on or off even after you have recorded overdubs. Pretty neat.

Very good. There's is obviously some kind of compression going on, but it is hardly noticeable. I use it through a Fender Blues Deluxe so its hard to guage just how the frequency response is, because the amp is so tonally colored. I use a Rocktron Hush noise gate with my drum machine, guitar, and bass, so even if I leave the record button on, there is no noise whatsoever.
Something that must be noted is that in a performance or pretend concert (thats me!) it is important to know that when you create loops with this, It is extremely beneficial to have a equalizer right before the input. With professional multitrackers you can record and then separate the tracks sonically afterwards with volume and equalization. With the rc-20xl, you should do this at the point you record the track because after a while you will realize that your next overdub will not be audible unless you turn up the instrument volume (inst input). So before you know it, the loop that you started with becomes completely inaudable because you have incrimently made your following overdubs louder and louder in order to hear them. I actually enjoy this, but it is destroying my hearing (especially with the digitech whammy at high pitches), and is unpleasent for an audience to endure a performence that starts nice and ends earslplittingly.

Silly question. Boss pedals last forever.

Either you keep it or you return it. Customer support is for dorks.

I play like Nine Ince Nails, The Pixies, The Cure, and movie soundtrack music. But eversince I got this pedal I have really gotten into really deep movie soundtrack music. Creating a guitar track with over 50 overdubs can create some of the most amazing sounds ive ever heard (especially horror movie sounds).
Ive been playing guitar since I was 10 and im 27 now. Been playing drums since I was 4. I had four or five years of guitar lessons between the ages of 10 and 15. After that I took drum lessons for about 9 months.
And now for the reason im writing this review, this product is changing my life and im socially becoming my music. I don't know if people will understand, but when you create a loop that you really dig, it STICKS IN YOUR HEAD FOR DAYS AND DAYS, ITS BEAUTIFUL. Its actually starting to creep me out. Right now my big favorite is a drum machine run through a Hughes and Kettener Tubeman distortion with noise gate, Severely reverbed guitars, and a Casio sk1 piano SEVERELY reverbed. And then I top it all off with some EBOW on my guitar to give it that really astronomical effect.
Guitar playing and music to me was always kind of a doodle that never really materializes into anything substantial. The RC-20xl is turning me into a socially weird musician who has loops running through his head while he is buying Pampers at the checkout counter. I can honestly say that I enjoy being a musician now without the hope of making it big. I never really understood how people could say that they didn't really care if they made it big, but I understand now because if you really get into the music, its like free love.

Easy after a quick stroll through the manual. The bottom of the unit even has silkscreened instructions for those on the road. The only bummer is that it's only hands free with additional pedals to change patches. Although the Boomerang was limited to 2 loops, at least you could switch with your foot. You also need to set you levels well or you can have extreme volume differences between patches which can only be remedied by bending over and turning the level knob.

Much better sounding then the Boomerang which I previously owned. You need to take care in setting your levels between the instrument and aux inputs as there is -10dB of gain difference between them. It doesn't sound like much but it does require some fiddling around with to get the right balance. I like to run my keyboards, CD or DAT into the aux and build my own loops. The mic input is very cool and sounds good as well.

Built like a tank. Unless you leave it out in the rain, it should last a good long time.

Fast service unlike Boomerang who made me wait 1 month for an email reply. Roland has a nice 800 number and hip hold music so there you go...

I'd buy another one in a heartbeat as I really dig it's functionality. As a previous Boomerang owner, I put the Boss heads and shoulders above the Rang both in price, features and (most importantly)...sound!

Easy to use. Contstruction is primo. Yes, you have to bend over and turn the knob to go to another loop. So what? You've got so much memory in here (15 minutes) that you can put a whole lot into one loop anyway. I was looking at the Boomerang but it's too large and it isn't totally hands-free, either. Once again, Boss built it like a tank.

I play a Gibson Hummingbird with a Fishman pickup through this loop station live into the house P.A. Rather than make loops on the fly, I have every song in my set already saved in here so I can just switch inbetween songs. I love it. It sounds great. At first I wondered why they didn't make it stereo, but it isn't necessary. This thing rocks. Sounds fabulous. Make sure you get the XL version, though.

Totally dependable.

Very helpful team at Boss.

Great thing, here. If it were stolen I would definitely get another one.

I was hoping this pedal would allow me to become a one man band on stage. But to record "on the fly" to the 11 tracks it needs some kind of auto-write or auto-save function. To save a phrase you have to bend down and press a button. Lack of auto-save is the single reason I returned it.

But I also didn't like the reverse function. If you play a chord progression and then overdub a lead and hit the button it reverses the chord progession as well as the lead.

The manual is okay but has too many sidenotes and not enough visuals.

But yeah, it's relatively easy to use so I rate it a 7.

Maybe only slight deterioration.

Metal housing and medal pedals. Seems well constructed.

RolandUS.com has better info than Boss's own site.

I bought this pedal from Sweetwater with free shipping but since I returned it they charged me the shipping plus I had to pay $15 to ship it back so I'm out $30 total.

On stage I could only work with one loop and overdubs. You could pre-save loops to the 11 tracks and trigger them back at the appropriate time, but I think that's kinda cheesy. You might as well record a backing cd and play along with it.

It's useful for practice but it's so expensive. With the optional footswitch FS-6 ($50) and power adapter ($20) the total was $370! For $30 or $130 more I'm looking at the Digitech GNX 3 or 4 which have the Jam Man Looper built in, as well as a HUGE list of other features. Defintely check out their reviews before you even consider this pedal.

Interesting machine! It pretty much does whatever you do so bone up on your playing or it will be a humbling experience. The manual IS needed so read it. You can pretty much dope out the basics on your own but the manual will let you know how to edit a variety of functions such as how to det the stop modes and recording modes etc. This is the RC-20xl so of course the recording time is 16 minutes long. That can handle a lot of phrases,loops of patterns, or just whatever you input.

I mainly have used it with an acoustic preamp into the unit and it records quite well.I have used the output into a Mesa Boogie amp as well as directly into the board.
The sampling is 24 bit so it sounds pretty accurate. You can also use it to sample phrases,loops from your PC etc. but you lose a bit when playing back because it doesn't output stereo,mono only. I have used it with my old Roland GR-50 guitar synth to overdub bass and drum sounds to go with the acoustic material. It seems to handle it all well but you do have to hit the mark timing wise on the overdubs to get a seamless loop.
The count in or tempo click track seems hard to get the hang of for me. That's not the units fault that's my fault.The undo overdub feature will let you try again so nothings lost. The fade out method of stopping is great for those (never ending) acoustic song endings.
It will take time before I'd try it on a gig to do stuff on the fly but it seems do-able after a bit of practice.
It's not noisy,it has no effects it just repeats! Oh that's right,it's a looper!Stereo would be nice for recording from a disc etc. but for the onstage on the fly looping it's well laid out.

Dependable? It's a Boss pedal. I've got some Boss pedals that are older than most of the people who are reading this.They still work!
A backup? I need a backup set of strings.Everything else had better work.

Everytime I had a question or needed anything from Roland or Boss I have been contacted very quickly. But then I don't have many occasions to hassle them.

I've been playing Classic rock,country or whatever the customer tells me to play for the last 25 years. My gear list is ridiculous. When I move I'm burning the place and starting new.
I would buy this piece again if it were gone just so I could get better at using it. It seems to be a very intuitive piece of gear that will make learning parts of songs easier. It also will be a hoot just messing around. If you don't have a new toy once in a while why bother?
I like the sound quality and the phrasing aspect of it and I hate the click track. I'm just not used to a count in in this style. I like the fact I can sing a verse of a song or play the same into it on the fly and then solo or dub harmony vocals on top of it with out a computer and a bunch of outboard gear.
I wish it had a regular mic socket instead of an extra 1/4 inch jack.I wish it had a stereo output as well but that's really a minor gripe.
I compared it to several other devices but the extended sample time and compactness of this unit seemed better suited to my needs.
I love just plugging an acoustic guitar into the thing and playing over the top of a phrase. It makes it easier to figure out a different run or pattern when you can repeat it without the hassle of actually recording on the PC and playing it back,saving it etc. Just strum out a part then overdub another. It's just more natural to hit a pedal and start inventing a new riff etc. If you don't like it just hold the pedal down and it goes away. It makes me want to play more .I guess that's as good a reason to get one as any other.

(NOTE:this is a second posting.my first review was done in haste,skipped important points,and was basically a big ugly run-on paragraph.this one should be more useful.)

the looping part itself is easy:left pedal begins loop,right pedal stops and erases when held down for about 3 secs.
your own personal ease of use may vary from mine but i keep the manual handy(i.e.:strown among my pedals and cables)and learned quickly how to save and delete phrases.
the functions meant only for manual use have actualy become easy with my bare feet ,mind you ,i am seated in my room,not on a dark stage.

users and shop employees tend to agree that the actual sound quality is better than a boomerang.
my setup:fender tele/rat pedal/dd3 delay/rc-20xl/rv3 reverb-delay/blues cube 30.having tested 3 of these out in different stores i detected no noise,my high end hearing isnt up to par FWIW.if youre running a lot of dist. thru this however you will hear a slightly pnging noise.this noise is what i assume to be simply the sounds of the machine at work.for this price range of looper i think it is only a minor flaw.i have no acoustic amp,so FWIW ,i often run my S&P acoustic(b-band pickup)thru my blues cube and not a trace of noise is detectable.
i am not familiar with the music of kaki king,but she uses the rc20 model for live looping,this may be a good indicator of sound quality.

i think you can definitely depend on this thing ,and there is the one pro i mentioned who uses it live,of course youd have to ask her.
a guit. center person told me a lot of jazz players,especially guys with solo gigs are saying this is better than a boomerang,heresay of course but it sounds about right.
actually one musician told me he plans to get one of these just for fading stuff in and out between his bands songs(i.e.:soundbytes,soundtrack music,etc.),until now relying on a complex c.d.player,mixer configuration in a suitcase.this little box, about the size of 2 boss pedals side by side,would be much easier to use of course,and with sixteen minutes of memory(my friends all double take on that)you can have tones of loops,beats,sound effects,drones and such to supplement a band.i personally love seeing a band that seems to have a "ghost" member.

havent dealt with boss,cant say.

my previous review ,below,goes into long detail of my personal use of this device.i should add though that a friend of mine ,with no loop experience ,laid down a nice droning piece within a few minutes,we ran this in reverse, and improvised an acoustic duet over this,with one room mic picking up both guitars and my droning guitar amp.if youre tastes lean toward "free improv"give that setup a try.i recommend placing your delay pedal after this to blur and seams or abrupt cut offs ,but if you have 2 dealays ,like me, i place one in front of this to create sound of the loop itself.i hope my review has been helpful.

i have never reviewed gear before but others comments on here have been so valuable ,i feel that i owe it to my fellow noisemakers.this review is geared especially towards folks who arent what most call "professional" and by this ,i mean we use solid state amps,only buy stuff secondhand,use crappy microphones from goodwill,you know what i mean.i must say the rc20xl is the first pedal device i purchased new,the first one ive paid over 75 bucks for and the first looping device ive ever had.before this if i wanted an ambient background behind ,oh say an acoustic song of just voice and guitar,i would have to fuck around with delay and reverb for about 20 mins and then fade that in and out of my final mix.not only is this pedal superb for ambient backgrounds,when i do a folky song (just voice and acoustic)i run the acoustic pickup and vocal mic into the rc20.if youre really concerned about sound quality this might not work for you,but for my low-fi shit this has proved invaluable:instead of plugging guitar into trk 1 and vocal mic in trk 2,theyre both running into track 1 via the rc20,plus ,the overdub function(you will fall in love with this function)allows me to instantly dub a little extra rythm guitar and a little backup vocals as well.its like adding trk 2 and you never even had to rewind the tape,you still got 3 tracks left(assuming youre on 4 trk like me)and in some cases you may tap into a little extra inspiration that could have left you while waiting for tape rewind.this pedal makes me laugh at the years ive spent running an organ thru a tremolo pedal and scotch taping down a bass note.if, like myself ,you've always wanted to try your hand at some epic soundscaping ala eno ,yet thought you would have to buy a computer ,pricey sampler,etc. ,i strongly urge you to buy this,most places will let you try it for 30 days ,just take good care of it.people love to bash guitar center,but the rep. with me admitted his lack of looper knowledge and stressed that i should just it take home where i could try it without distraction (or 5 or 6 people playing shredder guitar in the background),and without even asking, the nice girl at the counter knocked it from 299 to 279,i even saw one at a shop for 269 after i bought mine.i guess i'm stressing all this because after i saw a portland,OR based band called NICE NICE,i had to,just had to,have a boomerang.well, i couldnt afford one,and even after extensively trying one out(a friend of mine owned one)i still didnt think it was for me,plus you never even see them for less than 400.the guitarist from nice nice even told me that his was crapping out ,unreliable,and ,in his own words "on its last leg" after owning it less than a year.i dont want to restate myself with any of this info,i simply want to drill all these points home for people(like me)on a serious gear budget,we dont have "backup" anything(amps ,pedals,those things with 6 strings on them,etc.).sorry ,in all this typing i neglected the actual "ease of use":your right pedal stops a loop,hold it down for about 3 secs it erases loop,youre left pedal starts recording a loop,hit it again to end recording and the looping begins,hit it again and you are now overdubbing.want to save a loop, switch to an empty slot(1-11),hit write button,it will flah,hit it again,the loop is saved.if youre sitting in your bedroom(or maybe even on a stage)you can work some functions meant only for manual operation ,with your bare piggies.i personally control manual volume of metro.,reverse,instrument and vocl level ,doing fade ins and outs while recording.this only gets a nine becase i havent yet learned all the stuff you can do.

most say it sounds way better than boomerang.

i cant afford a backup so i guess it gets my faith by default.

dont know.

i honestly dont know what style i am.i like these guys:devandra banhart,spacemen 3,WOLF EYES,black dice ,six organs,charlambides,neil young,joni mitchell,neubaten, and ,the legendary IRON KITE!

Looping device, so plug-in and play.
No patches, so editing there. But you can easily screw things up.
Manual is pretty good except a bit confusing in the Auto-Stop function and right pedal fade0out explanation

Good, strong, clean replication of what sound foes into it.
No noise.
I use a Fender HotRod Deluxe, and you know Fenders are clean, so if there was any noise I would hear and there was none.
I love the Reverse function to get copy some of Kevin Shields tricks.

It's Boss, so no worries.
Could definitely handle live gigs w/o a backup.

Haven't ever had to use Boss/Roland customer support

I play what some consider shoegaze and having a looping device is very helpful to fll-out your sound. This pedal does exactly what it's supposed to and nothing more or less. It will fit-in well with my analog delay and multi FX pedal and expand my playability as well. I love that this pedal can store 11 loops and doesn't lose them when the power is off (as long as they're written to memory). I have used short loops before in my 10+ yrs of playing guitar, but being able to loop an entire song or measure is fantastic! I chose this one for the multiple loop storage, sound quality, durability, price (compared the Boomerang) and size (also compared to the Boomerang).

This pedal is extremely easy to use as far as loopers go. The manual is very good at showing you the features and once you use them, it couldn't be simpler! The added features on the XL are AWESOME, thanks BOSS! With the XL you can save all 11 slots as a "One Shot" or as a loop. The fadeout feature was necessary in my opinion and I wouldn't like this pedal half as much without it. The auto-start record ROCKS, but this is where I wish Boss did 1 more thing. This pedal really needs an auto-stop record function, or some way to edit the loop after without quantizing it. Oh, and the "Flat amp" simulate is a feature that I didn't think I would use... I was WRONG, this feature is awesome. The people who made this pedal definitly use it themselves and made it simple and powerful.

I really think the sound quality of this is better than the Boomerang, at least it's much easier to dial in the gain. I was surprised at how well it sounded with my electric setup, however, my acoustic setup running into a Fender Acoustasonic SFX-II lost some depth and sparkle while using this pedal. It's not that is sounds bad, but once you hear how crisp and clean a direct acoustic to this amp sounds, you miss it when it's gone. With my electric guitar (SG to Marshall amp), it was not nearly as noticable. Like the reviewer before me said, I am a tone freak, so this may not be an issue to many of you.

I have only owned this for a few months so I'm not sure yet. It seems tough though!

Never dealt with Boss.

I will never be selling this pedal, unless it's to buy another newer version of it. The major issue I have with the pedal is that if you create a nice loop on your computer (that loops seemlessly) and record it into the pedal, you have to "earball" the whole thing and hit the "stop record" in the perfect millisecond if you want a seemless loop. This is pretty much impossible to do, but if there was an edit function to remove silence from the end of the loop (like an auto-stop) or some way to edit it, this pedal would be everything I need in a loop box. (or if there was a digital input to copy WAV files directly, it would be even better!) If you are recording loops with a beat, you won't notice it, but I'm talking about an airy sustained drone I like to use for background effects and you will hear that "click" sound when the loop repeats. All in all, I would buy this pedal if you are looking for a looper.

This is the newer model... "XL". The upgrade has 16 minutes of memory (old version has about 5 min.) and has more editing capacity. You can delete mistakes of loops that have not yet been saved. (Very cool!) Manual seems pretty straight forward

American Strat Floyd Rose Classic, G&L S-500, Gibson Les Paul, Orange AD1510. To be honest, I wasn't expecting a lot from this unit. I read the reviews of the first version and had heard that the preamp was poor and produced hiss. When I heard the XL version came out, the additional memory and editability drew me into the local retailer to check one out. Keep in mind, I'm a tone freak and all of the other 8 pedals on my board have true bypass switching. I was skeptical about the RC-20XL because it wasn't a true bypass stompbox and was reputed for noisy bypass. No worries... I'd say the XL clearly surpassed my expectations. I could not detect any noise (although I only tried it on my guitar amp and a powered PA speaker). It was as close to transparent as what I need anyway. I have an Analogman true bypass looper which allows me to bypass all of the effects in my chain and the difference in my signal (including my other stompboxes in the chain) were hardley audible if at all. I also doubted that it would accurately recreate the tonal quality of my signal through my other effects. Again, no worries. Even the crunchy overdrive from my SIB Varidrive recorded suprisingly accurately.

Only owned it for a week... can't comment.

Haven't contacted them.

I have a one person band and have been researching phrase samplers for a while. Until I checked this one out, I thought none on the market would suit my needs. Since I have 8 other stompboxes, 1 drum trigger pedal and a 1 octave foot activated bass module, my floor space is limited and I already have plenty to keep track of with my feet. Here's the good and bad of all the other ones I considered. Oberheim Echoplex: The Good: Versitile, great sounding, lots of memory. The Bad: Expensive, pedal board is too big. Line 6 DL4: Good: Small pedal board, true bypass, stereo in/out. Bad: only 14.5 seconds of memory, can't save loops. Boomerang: Good: Can control everything with your feet. Bad: mono in/out, not true bypass can't save loops, pedal board too big.

With the RC-20XL, it takes up very little floor space and you can store 10 loops and 1 single shot phrase... 16 minutes of memory (fantastic!) Some complain there are too many buttons that you can't operate with your feet. I don't have an issue with that. Start, Stop, Record, Overdub and Reverse are all I need to control with my feet and since I perform on a drum throne, crouching over isn't a big deal for me. You can even set your stop pedal to fade out (cool). I thought I wouldn't like the mono output but it worked out that it wasn't an issue. I first tried running my line mix through it to my PA speaker (drum triggers, bass pedal, etc.) but since I'm not a "real" drummer those loops were rather uninspiring anyway (no fault of the pedal) but it did recreate a very good mono signal through full frequency amplification. Since I'm most proficient at guitar, I moved it to the end on my guitar effect chain and have been very please with the results. All in all, it has completely surpassed my expectations.