Boss RC-50 Loop Station

Ease of use is a bit hard to critique. There aren't alot of pedals out there that have as many features as this. The more features, the more "use". But I will say, that this unit for me was alot easier to navigate than the Electro-Harmonix 2880.

The only thing that I don't like about the RC-50 is the type of pedal that it is. I'm much more accustomed to the switch-button type footpedal on the Akai Headrush and EH2880 Foot Controller. The RC-50 pedal screws up my timing a little bit, but I'm hoping this is just something I need to get used to.

Great!
I've been an Akai Headrush user for a while now, and with that unit, there is a loss of sound and volume as you keep layering loops. With this unit, the sound is clean, and the mic preamp, which the akai headrush does not have, is quite usable.

I've been accustomed to Boss products in the past, but mainly their stomp boxes, which as everyone knows, are built quite tough. The casing on the RC-50 is quite rugged, but given how much I paid for it, I treat it as a fragile item.

On the other hand, I'm looking at the EH2880 right now, and the built quality on this unit is quite poor. I understand about the vintage/analog look that EH is known for but my EH Big Muff is even built a little better than the 2880.

I haven't needed to call them yet. But I will say, that when this pedal first came out, there was, what everyone seemed to call a "latency" issue; its more like a little hiccup issue when recording the first loop, and Roland/Boss has fixed that issue by providing a patch on their website. And yes, the patch does work. I downloaded it the day I bought the unit and updated the software.

I do have something to say about the software update and hiccup. The hiccup on the first recorded loop is there because the unit is making the rhythm of the phrase the priority vs the sound of the phrase. So the new software patch basically allows you to set on the RC50 whether you want to prioritize rhythm or sound. I set mine to sound, because I've been working with live loops for a while that I'm comfortable with my timing, but the rhythm priority is not really a glitch, its more of a setting that Boss thought would be helpful for the RC-50.

I gave a 10 in this catagory. The pedal is very simple to use (of course, I've owned a gt-8 processor for some time now, so I am used to the menus etc.). Some people say the manual is confusing, I just find they repeat themselves a lot in it. There are a set number of functions (single/multi, forward/reverse, etc). Once you know these basic functions, what they do and what function you want-it is pretty straightforward.

Pristine says it all! What you put in is what you get out-even after multiple overdubs on one phrase. Yes, as other people have written-if you change the tempo of a loop-it sounds a little choppy, so if you're doing something pre-set and tapping tempo along w/the band-the choppiness will come out. For rhythm guitar parts, etc it would be hard to detect, but for say drums-the cymbal hits etc would stick out a bit more.

Yes..........very dependable. It's sort like a lighter, smaller version of the gt-8 in design, and I've banged the gt-8 all to hell, and it keeps on keepin' on!

Haven't had to deal w/them yet...no rating here.

I play rock/funk/jazz/blues or whatever else I'm hired to play. On my own, I'm exploring the more avante-guarde side of things, and this machine helps me realize whatever it is I'm trying to do. If I want reverse-I got it, or say to hear only the direct signal, while the other two loops are playing, I can build a harmonized loop on say #3, and nobody would know it was being built until I turned it up. Some people have complained about stuttering or something like that-basically, for the first loop in multi-mode you need to have perfect timing. After that it's cake. I don't really use it too much in single mode, except for more on starightforward recordings, where I build up multi guitar layers, then usb it into my project on my DAW.

The RC-50 is my first loopstation, so I have nothing to compare with (except my trusty old powerbook installed with Ableton Live), I am a keyboardist by trade but used to handling other gadgets and instruments too (indian pump organ, kaoss pad, moogerfooger, kalimba etc.). I plugged the RC-50 straight in and it worked very quickly, no fuss at all. Editing patches was dead easy, and overdubbing too - no glitches or hitches.

I am using a little Mackie 1202 VLZ mixer and feeding the Loopstation from one or both AUX outputs. As long as I have some idea about the source level, my recordings sound great - I have had no artifacts or noise (although with a pump organ or miked up Kalimba, theres bound to be some..)

I am using it gigging and in a theatre where I am sampling the actors, while layering sounds from the Kalimba. Tried with computer first, but I much prefer the Loopstation, although it requires my shoes off! (So no dirty feet any more at gigs :))

Bought it at my local store, they are pretty supportive and I know they will help me out should something happen. But Boss/Roland C.S., really haven't got a clue!

The loopstation solved a problem I've been having for years - namely recording my keyboards etc. live while layering and mixing. Now I have left my powerbook to do the studio and office work, while the Loopstation from now on will follow me on every gig. Solid, great fun. And I did read the complaints about the manual before I bought the machine, so was prepared for the worst but it actually worked for me (maybe because I am not a native english speaker..?) For me only thumbs up!

It's a Boss.

The few times I've called they've been very helpful.

OTHER GRIPES:

Boss doesn't offer a carrying case for it. As far as a solution goes, I would try a hardshell paintball gun case. They start at around $22 (Brass Eagle) and go up to about $50 (Rufus Dawg-with removable shelf) and look like they are made for it. I ended up buying the Gator mixer case 1224 ($60) which allows me to use the original foam packing inserts on the ends and have enough room to put cables underneath, music folder on top, some space for a few other items, and a handy large pouch on the outside. My only problem with it is that is has a big GATOR logo on the side in UF colors (I'm an FSU seminole).

I am a classical guitarist by trade, but also have played in a bossa nova guitar, a flute and guitar duo, in addition to being an electric guitarist who plays and teaches. I bought this thing to relive my bossa duo days and be my own duo partner, in addition to recording other duo parts that would enable me to play more corporate upscale gigs.

There's no way the memory alloted to this internal hard drive will allow me to do all of those pieces, let alone put any kind of percussion of my own due to the lacking quality of the mic input. I generally put about a 20-60 second loop for each phrase (three phrases for each patch/tune). I have put about 14 tunes into it and it only has enough memory for about 7-10 more, which is probably enough for most people, but I feel that I probably have a bit bit more repertory than the average gigging guitarist.


Boss designing a machine that has complex menus, a very poor manual, sound quality that isn't any better than the RC-20XL, a phantom powered mic input that makes a quality mic sound like ass, and a need for at least twice as much memory if you're going fill up all 99 patches. But the unit does allow for a gigging guitarist (especially a duo

It's a Boss.

I've called them a few times and had no problems getting thru. They gladly asnwered all of my questions.

Boss designing a machine that has complex menus, a very poor manual, sound quality that isn't any better than the RC-20XL, a phantom powered mic input that makes a quality mic sound like ass, and a need for at least twice as much memory if you're going fill up all 99 patches. But the unit does allow for a gigging guitarist (especially a duo style guitarist) to have the flexibility to play out with your virtual self.

I wish Boss would create the RC-20XL with three small pedals across the front, 50 patches, an LED screen, a phantom powered mic input that sounded good, with at least 70 minutes worth of memory. That would be the ultimate looper in my humble opinion.

If you're into doing loops live, stick with the RC-20XL, unless you really find a need to have more memory and like to deal with user menus. If you're trying to create a song index that you can improvise over, I would suggest buying an MBox or even save your money and get a Digi002 Rack, and create loops via Protools and record them to disc and gig with a CD player. You'll be gigging with better sound quality, while learning a software interface that's much more useful for other things, and be allowing your feet to do less during a performance, especially since the chances of having the same amount of sections looped each time is fairly high. Plus you'll be using a CD player instead of this thing on the floor (and not have some jack-hole step/spill a drink on it).

Although the bulk of this review is negative, I will say that I have had some true fun with it on a gigging and teaching level. For the pieces I'm playing (one layer of bossa nova or rumba) I'm finding the general sound quality and varieties of the beats to be quite adequate for my needs. I'll keep it for now, but as soon as I complete the same amount of tunes on my Protools rig, I'll be dumping it on Ebay.

This is my second review for this same product. The RC-50 WAS like a dream for me, for about the first month of use. Then I started experiencing intermittent out-of-sync issues. The unit has become very unreliable and I never know if my phrases are going to sync up or not. This has caused extreme embarrassment in live situations, which is where I use my unit about 99% of the time. Also, the STOP feature does not always work immediately when the pedal is depressed.. Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. It has established a mind of it's own. This has become devastating for me,as I have designed my entire show around this device.... Roland.. are you listening? This issue HAS to be fixed. Does anyone know of an upgrade?

sound quality is EXCELLENT, when it works.. but it does not matter how it sounds if it is unreliable. THe audience remembers what is BAD about the performance more than they recall what is good.

can NOT depend on this unit.

I am calling support tomorrow.. Will come back with my answer on this.

I perform a variety of jazz, blues, R&B, pop soft rock. I use the Bose PAS, Taylor T5 and mackie 12 mixer.

This thing is way easy to use if you figure out what mode you want to play in, but figuring out what all the modes do is the most difficult part of this gear. The manual is typical Boss, half translated and sometimes frusteratingly redundant in its descriptions of what buttons and fuctions do.

this records at near CD quality, and i cant hear any tone degredation after recording a phrase. The pitch correction on the tap tempo could use a lot of work, its decent if youre in a noisy band and you need to match tempos, but i would never use it recording it sounds like the processor is really struggling to keep up (it sounds like an old record that skips). it dosent add any noise that i can tell. I give it an 8 because of the tap tempo pitch correction.

havent gigged with it yet, but its a Boss. Its built like a tank.

I play midi guitar in an experimental indie rock band. This is perfect for our improv bits as we all love hearing a wall of sound with a drum beat. I play the Boss GT-8 and the Roland GR-33 stereo into a BBE 362 and then the looper stereo into my Roland Jazz Chorus 120. my main axe is a custom strat with a mexico neck. I got this pedal because its the only one available in stereo, and currently is the end all of all loopers under $2000. I wish you could assign the outputs individually instead of paired like they have it. and i also wish it had knobs above the phrase level knobs that were for real time panning for those of us who dont want to go get another expression pedal. and i also wish you could turn reverse on with your feet without an additional footswitch. Other than that, this thing is perfect for practice at home or in a live band or as a one man band.

OK...to clear up some baloney. After reading these reviews, I went to Guitar Center and tested an RC-50. My only reason for testing and not just running home with it was the pause, the "LATENCY" issue I saw in a few reviews. If the machine hesitated before starting a loop, that would make it a very expensive paper weight. So I sat down and tried it....there it was, a full second or more of dead silence before the loop played. WHAT!! How could they let this slip. But then as the loop came around, there it was again...hmmm. That's not latency, thats the tempo count waiting until beat four to end the loop. If you set the loop for 120 bpm, and you don't play a full measure at 120 bpm, it stops recording a signal when you press the pedal, but ends the loop after beat 4. This has to be because of the multi phrase recording, if the different phrases don't line up exactly, it would be a mess. So when you record, you must first set the beat, and stick to it. I bought it anyway, the sound quality really is better than any other harware looper out there (I also own a Boomerang and JamMan, tried others). So, just to be clear, this is not a software issue...someone wrote they actually called Boss about this and brought the "latency" issue to thier attention...um, there is no latency issue...duh.

So, knowing what I know, I can offer this advice: the Boomerang is the best for straight up, single looping when sound quality isn't an issue, the RC-50 for muli track, pre recorded looping and full performance features with the highest quality audio signal, and the Jamman falls somewhere in between with better sound thean the 'rang and easier push on/push off looping than the RC-50 but with far less capability.

a ten, for what it does, and was MEANT to do...(again, duh).

it?s all very easy to understand, but there are still too many things to press to get ready to loop.( sync etc)

fine

the main reason that made me buy this new toy was that it could be synced with a computer or groovebox but this function stinks! when you sync it up and then press tempo on your loop board, you will notice that the tempo changes all the time, not that much, but enough so that the sound quality on your loop sounds pretty bad. I can?t understand how boss could put this machine out there it syncs as bad as a tape recorder. this is the year 2006 gentlemen! Hello? Another really anoying thing about this machine is if you have both your microphone and guitar connected. Imagine a beat going 120 bpm. you know your sync dosen?t really work, but you could still set your tempo manually ( no sync) and record an empty loop and then record over that, then you would be in sync cause the tempo wouldn?t change. but the volume of the drum machine has to be on while recording to keep the tempo locked. you can send drum beat out of the sub output and your guitar f.ex out of the main output, but if you are also using a microphone out of the sub output, you are forced to listen to the annoying drum beat..... now you?ve been warned! apart from these (pretty vital) mistakes, the rc-50 is a really cool toy, and is an exellent way write new songs and zone out for hours!

This unit has very many features, which is a blessing and a curse. For example, there is Loop Sync, Loop quantize, Tempo quantize, MIDI sync... just trying to figure out which does what can be confusing.
The unit has two primary modes: Single mode and Multi mode. Single mode treats each phrase as a loop, switches between loops. Multi mode treats each phrase as a track within a single loop. For me, Single mode is the only function of interest. I use my computer for multi-track recording, and I find the RC-50 to be a poor substitute for that.
Ableton Live on a notebook computer with a MIDI controller would be a much more powerful live multi-track tool than the RC-50. Check out Kid Beyond's website to see how powerful Ableton software is. Though this is so, even Ableton can't seem to get single mode loop recording and playback in a live band situation right. If you want to create your loops live, on the fly, it seems that the best tool to use is the Boomerang.
If you want to record a bunch of loops at home, and play them back during a gig, why not just use a Minidisc player or one of Roland's samplers, such as the SP-808?

Excellent. 24 bit stereo looping... this sounds better than any other looper I have heard.

Too new to tell, but Boss usually lasts forever even after being abused.

Excellent. I called, they answered.

Right now this pedal is useless to me. When recording a single loop, the unit cuts off the first second of playback, causing the loop to be off beat. My drummer hates this thing. It seems that Roland was so busy trying to pack every crazy feature they could into this unit that they overlooked the simple function of recording a verse of rhythm guitar with a band, and playing it back at the end of the verse.
The RC-50 also cuts off the beginning of the loop when switching the recording of one phrase to another. In Single Mode, When Phrase 1 is recording, pressing the Phrase 2 pedal ends the recording of phrase 1 and begins the recording of Phrase 2. If the RC-50 patch phrase change is set to "LOOP END", it shouldn't matter when the Phrase 2 pedal is depressed during the recording process, as the RC-50 should switch seemlessly from Phrase 1 to Phrase 2 during playback. In reality, the RC-50 cuts off the beginning of Phrase 2, causing the playback become off beat during playback.
Another issue is that if the unit is not playing back any audio, and you want to trigger a loop that is already recorded, you have to select which of the three phrases you want to trigger by pressing the phrase pedal, and then hit the play pedal at the other end of the pedal board. It would be much better if it was possible to simply hit the phrase pedal you want and it would play back. Even if the phrases are set to be "one Shot" playback, you still have to tap dance around on the unit to get it to trigger phrases.
As a result, I have gone back to using my Boomerang. The Boomerang plays back the loops in perfect sync after recording them, and the button pressing is minimal. The Boomerang only has two loops instead of three, and it's mono, but it easier to use. Until Roland comes out with a software upgrade for the RC-50 that fixes the off-beat playback problem, there is no way for me to use the RC-50 live.