Boss RC-50 Loop Station

ok here is my third review ,ease of use is a 1, whata turd of a product, I am sorry but they really didnt think this out well,its har as hell to get it to sync to samples and that is just overdubing?!?!!

excellent soudn quality,about all they did right,dosnt sync via midid worth a darn, they should have done stmpte and midi clock,lamers, they dont knwo anything about looping or how to buold a decent unit sadly, they got bad advice, the whole looping principle is lost when using this unit.specifically, the entire midi sync section doesnt work worth a darn, a boomerang would tear it apart as a free stand9ing looper, it hardly syncs to itself and that is in overdubbing on the same track, LAME!!!!

I am returing it, even if I lose $100 in restocking fee, better than wasting more time with this turd or a product. Its such a shame I had such high hopes for it and they cant even copy lexicon's 20-30 year old design for syncing to midi clock which works without a flaw. now that is super lame!! When i tried to sync from acid, the lexicon just kicks butt and syncs perfectly every time!!, the rc-50 was totally non functional, haha, I mean one second it would loop at 120 then next couple of beats 75 then 150 then 80, pathetic!!!!!!!!!!!!! STEAR CLEAR of THIS $500 doorstop,IT GIVES LOOPING a BAD NAME!!! Why couldnt they get someone who knew something about looping help design this?!?! instead of someone immitating and getting it wrong!!! toally dissapointed, no digusted!!

lousy support ,1 update so they could get a few flawed units out the door

ok, after a long time with this turd, I basically have a $500 door stop, usually when I get a new piece of gear ,it makes me play more, this thing makes me play less, I have other looper s that totally rock, I wish they had consulted a real looper like myself when trying to build thi unit, becasue they got an imitation of a decent looper, it syncs to nothing, hardly itself,I mean, that is totally weak, my lexicon jamman looper rackmount, now that unit SYNCS!!!! totally easily with no thought, but the midi jack are for looks,lame

ok, I want to revise my earlier review, ok, the deal is this, it is a gereat stand alone looper, but forget syncing via midi,but I did find that internally it can be a really great looper, I mean the loops snc to each otehr no problem,but for drum samples i use a PC software like acid,ableton,etc...,it jsut wont sync to it, but I have to admit it has some amazingly col sounds if you sync internally,in other words as a stand alone looper.I just did some recordings and am amazed at the sound quality.I was totally less thrilled with recordings where i tried to sync to an external source though,but that aside and it's really a great sounding looper for tangerine dream type stuff or fripp/belew king crimson stuff,but that is the catch, internal sync only,midi sync is sad tempo wise and the guide is ok for practice only, sounds like a $20 crap drum machine (my digitech rp-50 for $39 soudns better).but you could load in some drum samples.

ok, again, forgt using it to sync to anything but itself, it is then that the unit shows its stuff I have fouund. The sereo sound samples sync to them selves great. so, it i unqiue in a way. I wanted to incorporate it into my exisiting looping setup that syncs to middi,software,etc..no way wont work. but by itself it does then work really well and can be used for some really cool looping stuff. so, i wont return it for this very reason.Also, by itself the soudn quality in recordings is great, when i try to use it with my exisiting loopign gear ,it sucks and sounds lousy. when i say alone, i mean run your instrument/effects into it, but dont ty to sync it with a drum machine or software,it jsut dosnt work for that.,interesting.I have to admit I made some really cool recordings that are super clean with jsut this unit (no drums), i could nto do that before becasue th loopers i us are a bit noisy,so this fits the bill.hmmm, I am dumbfounded by this revelation. It's actually cool to have a pure rc-50 track ona looping album ,as most of my recordings are drums,bass,lead guitar,loops etc..., so in a way the rc-50 is quite a simple device and a very cool one if you don;t try to force it to do what it jsut cant do (like syncing to external devices via midi,you casn check this by trying to sync and then hit the tempo button and look and see hwo the tempo fluctuates instead of being steady).

this unit frustrated me to no end until I sat back and jsut tried it as a standalone looper and then the potential of it came out,it is growing on me . so if you jsut bought one of thes and cant work it nto your sstem, dont get rid of it jsut yet, try working with it by itself and you will find that it is vey cool. Man, for movie soundtracks it is just perfect!!! you know ,like brooding pantymelters and so on.....haha

they will never fix the midi sync issue in my opinion and I guess I expected too much in a way, but by itself as the sole looper it does do some awesome things. so, I wont return this unit as I had planned.

ok, just did a track with rc-50 with just loops turned the "guide aka cheap ass drum machine good for practicing" sound off and just loops with no external midi /tempo syncing to other units except within the unit and man, it is totally awesome~~ I was about to return this pup,but I see some uses for it.It doesnt replace my main looping stuff (which does sync),but is a great alternative to it as a stand alone looper, i can live with that as I could never loop with no drums as I would always get a hiss or a mono sound.if your not set in your ways (as I was) ,the rc50 can be a really cool device,but you have to adapt to it and nto the othe way around.

the boomerang completely dogs thsi unit, it is so easy and musical compared to this pedalbaord. Though, its really nto that tough tofigure out, but has alot fo useless bells and wistles

excellent,though i cetianly cant say i heard a difference beteen the mono and stereo options

roland and boss stuff is good

total crap, they only sell the crap, the actual engineers are in japan

the midi implementation is a total disgrace, the thing wont sync to sqwat!!! not even with midi clock. Not only that it varis the midi clock tempo, useless!!! This is why I bought this and then i find out it DOESNT WORK!!! They need to erdo the midi implementation totally. what a bunch of boneheads. I would be happy to loan them my lexicon jamman rackmount looper, now those guys new how to sync to midi!!! Midi sync works great ,but the rc-50 is a turd, the midi jacks are for looks basicly. I was really dissapointed!!! Why didn;t they jsut rip off lexicon and copy their midi implementation,it works great, suprised at how lousy the midi sync was, returning unit because of this, I wish the rackmount jaman was still made, it worked, midi was spot on, so hwo could booss screw this up this badly, LAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if I wanted a standalone looper I would get another boomerang at least those are simple and sound musical and amazing!! and of course for syncing they only usd midi clock and not MTC!?!?! lame again!! bascially if you want it as a stand alone looper its decent, but any midi syncing ,forget it its crap and doesnt work,also it loses sync and worse you need a start midi message for it to sync, what kind of idiot thought that one up, totally lame,its going back,I wasted days on this turd

I had the Boss RC-50 Loop Station up and running and could use most of the basic functions less than thirty minutes after bringing it home. There are a lot of set-up and playback options, though, which will likely take some time to master, but tossing some sound on it and using it for a loop is pretty easy. Due to the complexity of this beast the manual is pretty intensive, and I would strongly suggest downloading the Workshop booklets from the Boss website. They're much more straight forward about how to jump in and start working this thing, while the owners manual will provide the fine details about the nuances of setting this up to meet your personal preferences.

I see that others on this site stated it's not capable of doing certain things (like change patches while playing), but if you spend enough time digging through the Owner's Manual and Workshop booklets you'll see that it can indeed do these things.

The sound I'm getting after running all my gear through the RC-50 seems to be, for the most part, basically the same as it is without the looper hooked up. My main instruments are a Fender Strat or a Fender acoustic-electric 12-string run though a boatload of Boss and Electro Harmonix pedals, then into the RC-50, then either into a Fender amp (usually an FM212DSP) or directly into a mixing board. I also run my Korg synth and some electronic drum machines through the RC-50 and everything sounds pretty clean. It doesn't eliminate the usual amount of buzzing I get from using so many pedals, but it doesn't add to it either.

While I can agree with thoses that find the variety of drum beats a bit cheesy, I also think they give you a nice variety to work with and many of them are very usable as building blocks from which you can add more complex percussion patterns. I keep a Boss FS-5U remote switch hooked up so I can easily turn the guide pattern on and off, which is a feature that can also be easily re-assigned to one of the on-board foot switches.

It seems pretty tough as do all Boss products, but at the same time it's pretty lightweight and for $500 I'd be pretty nervous about letting it get banged around too much. It'd be nice if they made, or even included, a nice protective carrying case for this thing.

Even though I own at least a dozen Boss pedals I've never really had to deal with issues through their service department. I do know that there are English-speaking people available by phone if I need them, which is more than I can say about many other companies.

I actually went out and bought the Boss RC-20, but after using it for about a week I could already see that I wanted the most deluxe version of this thing that Boss makes! All-in-all I'd say this is the coolest, most creative, most useful effects pedal I've every purchased. It was worth every penny, especially considering that most other decent pedals are still almost half the cost of an RC-50. If you have the desire and ability to be able to layer multiple musical ideas, or if you're generally just a creative person, then don't even think twice about it, just go pick one of these bad boys up.

I found the user manual well made. The Workshop papers they have online is a very good complement. You need also the internet to figure out things that are not documentation, especially limitations of the unit.

No issues.

No problem up to now but I'm just a casual user.

I delt with them through e-mail. Always responded promptly. Although they are very Company oriented. For example they won't say that something is a limitation or makes a feature useless, they will say that "there is a slight delay".... As far as I know, in music, a slight delay is a major problem!

In the first 2 days of owning the unit I discovered 2 limitations that prevent me from using the unit for some of the songs I want to play with it.
1. The minium track duration is 1.5 second. So if you have a bridge that is shorter than that, it will add time to fit 1.5 seconds.
2. There is documentation that shows you how to switch patch while your playing. In reality, there is a delay when it switches, so it's of no use because of that pause. So this unit, by itself, is limited to 3 phrases per patch, can't switch to another patch without delay.

I've never used a pedal of any kind... ever, and I had this thing up and running in about 30 minutes. Granted, it will take many months to figure out how to use the bazillion gadgets that come with it, but right out of the box, I plugged it in, stepped on record, and started jamming with myself.

The sound is incredible. I run everything (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, mic) into a Mackie mixer, then out to the Loop Station and back to the mixer in stereo. I literally create a whole band all live. You get exactly what you put into it. Drum patterns are good and flexible. Preset back up tracks are great for lead practice, if you're not getting good sound quality, it's not the loop station.

Only had it about 6 months, but anticipate good reliability.

Never dealt with them.

I play multiple styles but mostly classic rock and acoustic mellow stuff. Been a musician since I was 10, about 30 years. If I lost this I would have to replace it, it would be like losing a loved one. If there was one thing I wish it had, it would be more jacks to plug in mulitple instruments, but that's what I use my mixer for.

The little glitch everyone talks about is the one second mute when you first begin playback. I found this to be easily overcome by continuing to play over it. I use this Loop Station live with complete confidence, and highly recommend it.

So yes... it gets complicated after 20 minutes, but that's only because there are a ton of options.

Look people, this is bottom line, the best looper on the market. Do you know how much money KT Tunstill has made off of "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree?" She used an Akai E2 Headrush which is a child compared to this monster...

Taking into account all the problems that everybody mentions here, I would probably give it a 6, BUT, and thats a big but... After learning how to use this machine, you'll know how to use all of Boss's pedals. Thats a pretty worthwhile skill to have, because most people starting out should be useing Boss pedals. There simply is no other option.


And 'whatever' to the manuel being too hard to read. The manual constantly repeats itself and you can't blame the manual for not having the skills to use the equiptment.

I use the reverse function all the time. The reverse starts after you've completed your loop, and normaly I would say 'Lame' but the fact that the audience can see you playing a solo, and the hit the pedal, and walk away from your gear as everything is played in reverse, makes up for this fact. If you don't get laid after playing this out live... you just simply need to stay home and practice more. My girfriend cost me 2 grand a month, while this thing only costs 500 bucks and a few cups of coffee.

Some on board effects would be nice. The guide is the worst guide I've ever heard. The samples are lame, the choices are lame, there are no options, and it took me 1 year to figure out how to get rid of the guide. You have to direct to an output that your not using. So if your playing live using your 2 main outputs, put the guide out to your suboutputs and the stupid thing will go away.

I read the manual everyweek, at least 3 times a week in the sauna before I work out. I kid you not, I just figured this out.

The first show that I had, it crashed. I was tried in vain to get it to work while my cheesy back up singer kept asking me what was going on. The bar owner started yelling at me and the crowd started to yell... 'Boo....'

I collected my gear, ran out through the kitchen, and thought I was going to get beat up. I'm not even kidding.

I'm still gigging with her, but that night was the worst performance night of my life. Total Technical Meldown. Thanks Boss. Thanks Roland.

But... alas.. I love my RC-50, and I would be crushed if she left me for good.

I work next to ROLANDs call center. Their employees eat at the same food court I eat at for lunch. I go to the salad line. They go to the greasy burger line. I order juice. They order chilli-cheese fries.

Customer Support for Roland is fat blonde women who drive Daewoo cars. Do you know who Daewoo is? Thats Korea's car company. They are undoubtably the worst car company in the world. Rolands support center is all fat, dumb blonde women lame enough to purchase the worst cars in the world.

The only reason why they get a three is because they have a lot of phone numbers. I know that the peole on the other end are all air-heads, but the illusion of customer support some how does it for me.

I'm a straight forward acoustic looper. This is the best product on the market for looping. If you want something better, then you have to use Ableton Live. Thats computer based, and I don't swing like that.

I've been playing for 10 years, and I only use Boss Gear, except for my vocals, which I use a Digitech Vocal Live 4. Dont' laugh at me you stupid techy's. If you tweak your Digi-tech gear, its easier on stage than your fancy TC Helicon Corvette vocal processors.

If my RC-50 were lost or stolen I would buy another one that night. I would post flyer around the neighborhood with her picture on it saying 'have you seen me' and I'd offer a reward of 1 thousand dollars.

I bet none of these lamo's who gave her bad reviews even realize that they can make loops on their computer, and then import the beats into her.

What do I love about her? Well, I like the way she looks at me across the dinner table. Sure, we fight sometimes, and sometimes she just can't stop repeating herself over and over again. I hate having to turn the power off to cool her down, but I love her.

I don't compare this to any product cause all the other loop products suck. The only thing that is better are computer based products. The industry is going that way, but for pro-audiophiles like myself.... RC-50 is the best.

Dending how familiar you are with gear of this nature (and manuals in general), It is fairly easy. You can miss minute cursory details if you go too quickly. s an example, I always edit loop;s at highest bitrate/sample rate to try and compensate for what I perceive to digital audio deficiencies. The RD50 only accepts 44.1khz/16 bit samples period. That cost me one day of headscratching, swearing, etc etc. Fortunately, the guys at tech support were unbelievably patient and competent in solving my boneheaded mistake. Kudos!!

As goes digital in 44.1khz/16bit, all you could expect.

Been great so far, have used GR33's for years. Reliability should be just as good....

see #1

Nothing out there is as complete a package. There are loopers with more features (The Oberheim/Gibson looper comes to mind as I had 1), but none as compact and powerful in this price range. Had an akai headrush and a jamman before, but this jusyt has too many bells and whistles for them to compete.

PETER'S REVIEW ADDENDUM:

I just returned this thing. it's really tiresome to use when playing with an actual drummer. it seems much happier when utilizing the internal loops. it's just such a pain to create perfect loops in a live setting. (my bassist had less of a problem with it, but he plays extremely repetitive parts that sound kinda like loops anyhow). also, whenever i hook it up to my pc(windows xp), it crashes it when i go to disconnect.

one thing to keep in mind is that your amp will start muddying things up pretty quickly- again, this wasn't an issue at practice volumes, but it quickly became a nightmare when looping various overdriven textures. i'd have the loops go out to second amp if i were seriously considering trying to use it live. again, because his bass tone is pretty clean, this was less of an issue for bass.

again, the issue is, can i rely on this thing to give me a proper loop without being stuck following its metronome?

the boomerang probably makes more sense for a guitar player in a live setting. it's much simpler and you can get at everything with your feet.

btw, i tried the jam-man just now, hoping it would be better. it's noisy and it eats tone. and it's even worse at doing loops in proper time without the metronome.

This thing had me cursing like a truck driver the first 20 minutes. I tried using the quick start section of the manual, but between the Rolandese explanations and my utter impatience, i found myself just kicking the poor thing. I jumped ahead to the meat of the manual, and things started coming together. It's actually really simple to operate and get great results from, once you get the hang of it. i'd love for the record button to record so long as i'm holding it down, and then stop when i lift my foot. it took a bit of time to get used to switching it on and then off, but i guess it'll become second nature. the loops are helpful and sound pretty good, too.

changing tempo on already recorded phrases gets hilarious results- i was hoping it would be useful in live situations, e.g., if the drummer slips off beat. even the minutest changes made everything sound pretty weird. hopefully they'll do a software revision.

it's getting a 6 because it's difficult to operate without the manual.

the sound quality is pristine until you start doing a bunch of overdubs. i started with an old tape echoplex, which provides for stacking. this is way cleaner than an echoplex, and the degeneration sounds pretty cool anyway. the built-in loops are pretty cheesy-sounding, as they should be. forces one to get off one's ass and make some good loops!

i got it to screw up. i was pressing all sorts of stuff just to see if i could crash the thing, and i succeeded. ah, digital.... i crached the line 6 delay during a store demo awhile back, and the damned thing wouldn't pass audio until it was reset- i passed up on it, not stageworthy. the rc-50 was more kindly, and didn't mess with the straight signal- only the loops died.

i'm not entering a reliability rating because i just purchased it. let's see what happens to it on the road- i'm already considering wrapping it in plastic so that an accidentally spilled drink won't fry it.

the fact that it's upgradeable via usb means there's already some decent customer support going on.

I play in a loud 3 piece- our new record's got lots of overdubs, so something like this became a necessity. I was looking at the Boomerang, but I didn't like the fact that it has no stored memory. I'm annoyed that the tempo function is basically useless, unless I want to go Sun Ra on everyone. I'm also disappointed that there's no provision for adding internal memory.

Other than the aforementioned grievances, this thing does what it's supposed to do, and it does it well.