Has anyone tried a Boss RC-2 loop station?

Larry Behm · Post by **Larry Behm** » 2 Mar 2008 10:11 am

A young guy at church was doing a single and using one, pretty amazing.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... B&ZYXSEM=0

Larry Behm

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 2 Mar 2008 10:50 am

Larry,When I was in Phoenix a few weeks ago I went to the Guitar Center and the salesman demoed it for me,He had about 6 overdubs going in very little time...quality was very clean sounding.It looked easy to work?I was impressed.Stu

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 2 Mar 2008 3:25 pm

Hi Larry,
I'm a fan of Looper pedals, although I favor the Digitech JamMan over the Boss units, (because they have more features that I am interested in).
They are great fun for jamming at home, and a really great rehearsal tool.
I see guys using them as a gigging tool, even as the whole basis for their live gig, but I haven't used one at a gig.
I might use one for some Allman Bros double solos in a JamBand trio I play guitar in.
I got mine locally on Craigslist for $180.
fwiw, You could try one out from Guitar Center with their 30 day satisfaction trial (better get that part in writing:)).
Pete B.

Rick Hinton · Post by **Rick Hinton** » 3 Mar 2008 2:20 pm

I have one for acoustic gigs, but.....haven't had time to read that 44 page manual yet...

One of the cool things about it is that you can hook up a FS-5U or a FS-6 pedal, and use them to control tempo, stop etc.

I got the bug to get one when I saw a buddy in Nashville do "Sultans of Swing" acoustically, did the who solo live and used the loop function to provide the rhythm.

I think the only thing that the bigger loop pedal has over this one is the reverse feature. All in all, not a bad deal.

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 5 Mar 2008 8:34 am

My wife uses one to do solo gigs with her cello (check out Christine Gunn) and she likes it pretty well. The main thing that's lacking for her is that it's OK quality for the playback, but not great. She's looking for something with better quality recording.

Pete, is the Digitech any better quality?

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 6 Mar 2008 5:34 am

I have the next one up, the $250 RC20XL. I love the little guy, though I've only used it for practice (so far). I can load up some (11) guitar tracks and/or droney stuff to use as intonation guides for my steel practice and fretless bass intonation guidelines, or bass parts, or.... It's pretty much replaced BIAB for those functions - I mean why wouldn't I want to make my own rhythm tracks, it's good for my six-string practice. It's got an aux in, so you can loop CD sections or computer feeds to learn licks, like a CD trainer device.

The two big advantages the second pedal gives you are that you can erase a botched track or overdub instantly just by holding down the right pedal, and you can use it to tap in a tempo. I rarely do that, but for live playing I could see the advantage. I know Dave Easley uses the RC20XL for solo steel gigs, but he's non-human anyway...

The hardest thing is to time your taps to start and stop the loops so there's no glitch, the pedal will quantize (mash) the beginning and end together anyway but it sounds better after a month of trying than after a day, for sure.

The quality of sound is largely influenced by what you feed it, natch. I take an "effects loop out" out of a mini-mixer into the MICROPHONE input on the pedal, not the instrument in. Then it goes back into it's own channel on the mixer. I wouldn't think of NOT (somewhat) compressing the recording signal feeding a poor little guy like this, it's not a studio board or something.

It's still somewhat bright and transistorized-sounding (Boss

), but feed that back out to something with warming tone controls and it's O.K. Plugging a guitar straight into the instrument input, then out into an amp sounds pretty awful, but hey what would you have to have done 30 or even 10 years ago to get this? It'll do a lot more than I've taken advantage of, I do have a spare amp footswitch hooked to it that'll cycle through the 11 channels but I've not yet exploited that much. It's great for trying out harmony and recombinant ideas that you can then re-record on better stuff, sort of like how a POD gives you ideas for effects that you then fix up with analog toys later.

Loren Claypool · Post by **Loren Claypool** » 6 Mar 2008 7:34 am

I guess to complete the sequence, I have the RC-50. Prior I had a pair of RC-20s. The RC-50 allows for three sync'ed or unsync'ed stereo loops simultaneously. One of the most important factors I've found in determining sound quality is setting the input and output levels. A weak input signal with the output signal boosted to make up for it is not good. Although I haven't done this with the RC-2, I suspect it is the same in this regard as the 20 and 50.

One trick I employ for recording is to use the guide with quantize on to "record" a blank loop of a prescribed length, i.e., 22 beats at 90 bpm or whatever is appropriate for the song. Once the loop length is established turn the guide off. Now you've got a perfect length loop with no quantize issues at the loop end points.

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 8 Mar 2008 8:55 am

I wanted to buy the RC-50 when it first came out, but the salesman talked me out of it.
He said, if this is your first looper, the RC-50 is too much to take in/on (not the case with Loren, as he mentions above).
I do like the "stereo" factor that the RC-50 offers.
I will probably be ready for one by the time they come out with the RC-50XL!

The Digitech JamMan offer 99 loops (as compared to 11), and can record up to 24 min right out of the box, and up 6.5 hours of loop storage with a 2GB CF card (I am still using the original CF card, as most of my loops are less than 1 min).

Concerning the tone, I have no issues with the tone quality of the playback, wether going directly out of an amp, or through the small PA I use here at home. To me it sounds exactly like what i just played.

I think pretty much all the complaints I have heard about all of these units, mostly tone quality of playback, and "I can't get it to land on the beat" are operator errors easily corrected by simply reading the manual a coupla more times.

I also bought the footswitch that allows you to select the next loop that you want (which can be a higher or lower loop number).
So basically, I have about 10 songs that I have created loops for, for practice purposes. Each song has 1-4 loops associated with it. I think I have only used the first 20 of 99 slots so far. This thing also has a USB port to store/edit loop files on computer (I haven't done this yet, maybe someday).
So using the footswitch, you can solo over different segments of a song, in any order you like, basically untill the power goes out.

I have used the RC20 and RC20XL also, and they sounded fine to me, too.
I thought the Jamman was the one to buy though, as it had the most features at the time.

Funn Stuff!
Pete B.

Eric Darby · Post by **Eric Darby** » 6 Apr 2008 7:57 pm

I use a Jamman also--the abilities to undo screw-ups, and export the loops are handy (I record and transfer everything to my computer using it...). Sound quality is good enough for me, as long as I remember to set the input volume to get max volume without clipping. I bought mine used for what the little Boss goes for new--the guy didn't have the patience to figure out how to use the Jamman, so it was like-new.

And that's the trick--it took me a a few days before I could run it smoothly in a live situation. If I don't use it for a few months, it takes me a practice session to get used it again. Most of that's my problem, not the machine--I don't play with a band very often, so I'm lousy at keeping a steady tempo, and the Jamman (like any looping pedal) requires you to do that for it to repeat right. A friend of mine who does hip-hop and beatboxing tried it out (he's used to matching an electronically-perfect beat); he picked it up in ten minutes and was laying down layers of rhythm and harmony.

Hope that helps!