Re: Need help with RC-50

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:
> I have a musical student who wants me to teach him about
> his RC-50.
> Unfortunately, I don't have too much experience with this unit.
>
> RC-50 users, would you kindly answer a couple of questions I have about 
>this
> unit?
>
>
> 1)   Are all the synchronized three loops always the same length?
> 2)  If not,  can someone direct me to how to use this unit to create
> different lengthed (albeit
> synchronized loops)?
> 3)  Does the RC-50 do double or half speed manipulations of the loop
> 4)   Does the RC-50  have any kind of feedback control of loops?
> 5) is there any way to have two loops synced and a third loop random in
> legnth
> 6)  Does this unit have any UNDO features.


Below I'll translate some chosen parts from an RC-50 review I wrote in
Swedish a couple of years ago. For quick check on details you can
always have look at
http://www.looproom.com/looperchart.php

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com


First thing to do with the Loop Station is to make up your mind about
in what mode you want to use it. In Multi Mode you can work with three
possible loops in parallel. You can treat these three loops as
different channels, i.e. sending them to separate outputs in order to
use different effects on them. Or you may want to sum them into the
main stereo output of the RC-50.

In Single Mode only one loop channel can play back at a time. No
parallel loops here, but you may jump between the three loops to go
"verse-chorus-breakdown", as a simple musical arrangement. Of the
seven big kick buttons three are exclusively attached to the three
loops. In advance you can set it to either immediately jump to the
start of the new loop or to make the switch at the end of the playing
loop.

Having only three possible loops doesn't restrict the number of layers
you can overdub. Any loop may take as many overdubs as you wish.
Button one has a multiple functionality; first time you kick it it
goes Record, second time you kick it the looper goes Play (recording
stops, loop point is set and the caught audio starts looping back).
Third time you kick button one it goes Overdub to let you add more
layers to the loop.

If you miss a cue or play a bad note you may want to hit the button
for Undo. This peels off the last overdubbed layer form the loop - no
more. You can never go further back in time than the last layer. If
you kick the Undo button a second time it is interpreted as Redo and
your bad note merrily enters playback again. This restricted Undo/Redo
functionality can be used creatively for background variation while
you play over the looper with an instrument.

The classic looper function Multiply can be achieved by using many
channels. Instead of multiplying a shorter loop into a chain of clones
while overdubbing you should turn of the RC-50's Loop Sync and put it
into Multi Mode and record on two channels.

The machine then offers a good quantizing so loops of different length
play together without drifting apart. Here's an option to explore poly
rhythm and contrapunct.

The elementary looping function Feedback is sadly lacking in the RC-50.

The USB port may come in handy for those that have a computer based
home studio. Pop in a USB cable and use the computer mouse to lift
over loops as wav files in both directions. The RC-50 can not take
over as the computer's soundcard though.

The RC-50 offers MIDI Clock Sync in and out. But it can't calculate
the tempo from a caught loop - you have to set a tempo first and then
follow that tempo when playing to record the first loop. Tempo can be
set by tapping the beat on a Tap Tempo pedal and this works very well.
You can change the tempo while the music is playing but be warned that
it sounds terrible! The time stretching algorithm doesn't seem very
efficient. Start out at the correct tempo and stay at it to get the
best sound out of this machine.

(originally written in Swedish for FUZZ Guitar Player magazine)