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Boss RC-20 Loop Station



I've been lurking in your web site archive, but 
I'm new to the list.  You can check me out at my web site
http://woodford-way.com...  Pretty much says it all.

I understand you're looking for an RC-20 review.  I'm not
the most qualified looper around, but a rookie review is 
better than nothing I suppose.

I bought the RC-20 mostly for practice and so far it's been
alot of fun.  This is my first interactive looper.  I usually
record into my computer to make backing tracks, which works
fine but isn't very spontaneous.  With the RC-20 I can record
backing tracks for a whole verse/chorus, rhythm guitar baseline
and maybe a some rhythmic lead work, then solo until I get sick
of it... probably old had to you loopers, but brand new to
me.

The sound quality is very good.  I haven't A/B compared it to
my CD quality computer sound, but I haven't noticed any
degredation either, except after I layer too many tracks and
it starts to clip...

There is a quantizer/simple drum machine which is both nice
and a pain in the butt.  The drum goes "snare-kick-kick-kick",
which doesn't fit any songs I play, but it's better than a 
metronome, and you can turn down the volume but I can't figure
out how to turn it off and leave it off.  The quantizer really
wants to be on.

I've used it all sorts of different ways and they all seem to
work fine including:

        - acoustic/piezo guitar into mixer through SRM450s
        - vg8 guitar into mixer through SRM450s
        - strat into fender pro reverb amp
        - bluesbird into marshall JTM-30

Saving loops works well either temporarily to answer the 
phone or put the kids to bed, or overnight when it's time
to go to bed.  You can save up to 11 loops, but I've only
saved 1.

I haven't used the mic input or the line level input. 
To use the mic input you need a 1/4 inch adapter, which
seems lame.  I think I'd use a pre-amp instead, if I ever
thy to use a mic.

There were some questions on the list about whether it
is stereo or mono.  It is definitely mono.  

The manual claims you can record 10 loops, then cycle 
through them, one way forward only via footswitch, 
as you play, but I haven't tried this.
These would NOT be on the fly loops, they would have 
to be pre-recorded.  Perhaps if you have a few rhythm
patterns you could pre-record these and use them in a 
song or maybe use 2 or 3 loops on 3 or 4 songs, 
otherwise I don't get how one would use this.

The 11th loop is a one shot deal that you can record then
play back once without looping.  The other 10 all continue
playing until you stop them.

I don't think there is any loop decay.  Once you add
something to a loop, it continues until you stop.

There isn't any undo either, so if you goof up building
your loop, your mistake repeats forever until you stop
the loop.

To erase and start over you simply hold a pedal down for
2 seconds, which works very well for practicing, but I'm
not sure about gigging.

Thats about all I can think of for now.  I hope this
helps a little, at least until one of your more
experienced loops gets ahold of one of these things.

---mark
http://woodford-way.com