Boss RC-20XL

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.