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RC-20, first impressions



I picked up a RC-20 Thursday evening and just spent a
couple hours with it.

The manual is fairly well written, a surprise. It is
brief and occasionally nebulous but understandable. 

Looping is a breeze. You press the left pedal and when
finished press it again. If you want to overdub you
use the left pedal yet again, on and off as needed.
The right pedal stops the loop. If you hold down
either pedal for 2 seconds you erase the loop. You can
play loops in reverse but the button is small and
behind the main pedals. You can buy a footswitch for
it and the step through loop selector. Roland has a
specific pedal they recommend which is optional. The
unit comes with six AA batteries, a wall wart is
available for $20 more. 

I paid $269 for it. It wasn't worth finding out if
there were better prices, save $20 and wait until the
next batch hits the stores?

The construction is pretty good, it isn't built like a
Line 6 DL-4 which is a tank but it is fairly heavy.

If you want to freestyle you can, Boss makes much of
the quantizing feature which works if you think in
terms of math. I'm not knocking it but to me it sounds
unnatural if you hit a loop and hit a good endpoint
only to hear it "corrected." You can defeat
quantizing. In fact unless you set up time signatures
and tempo you won't be able to quantize.

There are three modes, instrument/microphone, the mic
input is quarter inch with another quarter inch input
for instruments. The CD/MD input is a mini plug. When
using the CD/MD input there are controls to change
frequency response to "flatten out signal." I haven't
tried it yet but my guitar sounded good. There are
input volume controls for instrument and mic inputs
but not for the CD/MD.

Other controls include output volume, guide tone
volume (if you want a metronome pulse you can turn on
a guide to keep in time providing you set one up.
There is also a rotary control for the 10 loops and 1
one shot that the RC-20 can save.

There are small buttons for reverse, tap tempo, write
select, exit (if you decide not to save), auto start
and mode. Auto start only works with tempo based
loops. You can tap tempo the speed and again, you need
to set these kinds of loops up. The mode button
toggles you between normal, center cancel, and flat
amp simulator. Center cancel, to quote the manual,
"Sounds localized at the center (such as vocals or
guitar solo) will be erased from the sound being
recorded."

Haven't tried that, don't think I have a need to. I
haven't tried the flat amp simulator either, will
expand when I do.

So how does it sound? Well, pretty good actually. Some
have complained of a hiss. My setup is either a Carvin
LS127T, Fernandes Revolver w/sustainer or Schecter 5
string guitar (tuned in 5ths, low string is at open A
on a bass up to high C# of a 6 string guitar) clean
there was some change in timbre, the most on the
Carvin, with any kind of distortion no difference. So
in terms of sound quality I'd say good, Line 6 is very
good, it's also a 14 second looper vs a 5 1/2 minute
looper.

I compared output to a Boomerang+ and the Rang was
harder to tame but far more usable to my tastes.

Here are some areas I think the RC-20 would be useful:

1. DJs or keyboard loopers. You can push on the pedal
comfortably plus if you are beat concerned you can
catch the beat and lock step it if that's your thing.
Even if I used it with my synths I think I'd go
freestyle. However, it's there and as long as you
aren't doing complex timings it works. Problem, no
tempo display, dumb move but for a sub $300 5+ minute
looper it's understandable

2. Guitar loopers. I love the Rang, I use it all the
time but I find myself running to a recording source
when I have a good loop, I can always reuse it later
if I save it. It's not a great solution though and at
gigs it's even harder if not impossible. But you have
10 loop memories available and a one shot, so you
could save something you like. There are some catches
though. First, you need to have the memory. Second,
the loop is written to a memory buffer, if the buffer
is higher than the amount of memory required to save
the sound it will not save, nor can you overwrite an
old loop. You have to delete the loop memories.

3. Vocalists, voice work. It has lots of time and you
can save what you do and even work it out where you
can reuse what you save.

4. One person bands. If you can deal with mono output
you can do a lot with this pedal. I haven't tried it
but I think you can use all inputs. An easier way
would be to use the effects section of a mixer. Either
way it can be done.

Positives: lots of loop time, memory slots, battery
powered (25 hours alkaline), reverse and loop advance
switches

Not Sure: many of the interesting controls require
pushing of buttons or twisting knobs, if you use it as
a floor pedal this, at least for me, is awkward. If
you use it as a tabletop unit it is easier to deal
with but is lacking for off the cuff loopers, it would
have been interesting if Boss made a secondary switch
available for looping/ovedubbing, redundant, yes, but
it would have solved a lot of problems.

Negatives: if you want to loop on the fly and use the
RC-20 as a pedal you will be bending over a lot if you
want to use some of the features. Optional
footswitches necessary for reverse trigger and loop
cycling which is wherever you start the trigger, so if
you're on loop 5 it advances to 6, etc. No slow mode
which would have been very cool.

Additional initial thoughts, I didn't notice much or
any padding of loops, you can't edit the loops you
make in any way other than volume on the pedal. If set
up well and you know your setup you should be fine, on
the fly volume control with a built in volume control
would have been a nice feature.

The thing to remember is this is a sub $300 looper.
For it's cost you get a lot of playback time, don't
ask me the sample rate or frequency range, Boss isn't
telling. I suspect 16 - 24k sampling rate. I'd be
surprised if it's higher. If saving your loops matters
this is a good unit to check out. Remember though,
you'll still have to back up what you save as there's
only 10 loops available to save.

Still, I like the RC-20 so far. I can phrase train as
well, never would use it, won't bother with it. It is
probably designed for bass and guitar players although
it can does offer modes to record line sources, they
call it CD/HD. I haven't tried it yet but don't expect
much, probably nice for drum beats and spoken word.

I tried a Korg Karma and Waldorf microQ with guitar
loops and was impressed with the quality. I did not go
past 4 or 5 overdubs so I don't know how far it can go
in that direction.

Well, I hope this was helpful. I will try to follow up
as I spend more time. I will be gigging with this and
the Boomerang. The Rang will be my primary looper.
It's kind of early but I still prefer the Rang for on
the fly looping and ease of use. 

Bruce Satinover


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