You are always on my mind...
Ok so I bought this piece of gear last year (november), and ever since have been in a love/hate relationship with it. It being the Boss RC-50 loopstation. It is very complex, far from perfect, major quirks and annoying bugs. It does however do three loops at a time or in sequence.
I was kinda thinking of doing a review on Loopers Delight cause no-one has jumped on the task after three years (wonder why heh) so maybe my rambles on the topic may be formed into a coherent description and evaluation of this demanding, feisty and tumultuous new lover of mine. She demands 100% commitment or to be left alone. No halfass games or toes in the water...
My main beef with it is to access many of the things that it does you have to plan very carefully what you are doing. It is as if they were actively trying to stifle improvisation. Most features are accessed via menu, which requires attention, eyeballs, and hands. Things that are in use when I am playing music.
On the up side I finally figured out how to do a feedback loop so that old material dies away as the new stuff is replaced. Basically the % of volume that each repetition of the loop is given ie decay. 100% being no decay of the loop. I got the workaround on the net, so I'm not as crafty as this discovery would imply. It really frustrated me that this looper didn't have a feedback control. The DL4 (line 6) is it's major competitor and it has a preset feedback in that the more you record the more the old stuff slowly fades away. It's an interesting concept and leads to some organic music making (I've found). The rc-50 in its natural state has the "feedback" set/fixed at 100 so the material that you record just loops and loops and new material goes right over the top with no volume. Which is great for most circumstances. But the only way to evolve a loop is to add more stuff to it, or start over. Needless to say 100% feedback is a very static loop. If the old stuff is fading away than after a few minutes of adding material you could end up with something very different than what you started with. It feels like that should seem antithetical to the idea of the loop, but hey it's not.
I have been thinking about getting a DL4 so I could have a more organic loop making ability and use the the rc-50 for when I really want to "do it up"
Now that I said all that. The "workaround" is rather crafty. I'm amazed that someone came up with it. The concept of feedback in a looper is a difficult one to grasp in the first place, much less getting it to happen on something that wasn't designed for it. There are three inputs to this thing with three volume controls. There are three possible places to store active loops at any given time. There are two routes to output the incoming sound and the loops. There are three record options. The main record option is overdub. The second is replace. (Hopefully obviously) the former keeps old info as you record new info and the latter replaces it with the new info. My guitar goes into loop spot one, makes a loop, and the loop is output through output one which is fed into loop spot two at 1/4 the volume which is what is output to the amp and back into the replacing loop. So everytime the loop cycles back into its self it is a 1/4 of the volume it was the last time it went in. I haven't yet figured out if I can get more than a 1/4 of the volume so the loops last longer than a couple of passes before they fade into oblivion.
I was kinda thinking of doing a review on Loopers Delight cause no-one has jumped on the task after three years (wonder why heh) so maybe my rambles on the topic may be formed into a coherent description and evaluation of this demanding, feisty and tumultuous new lover of mine. She demands 100% commitment or to be left alone. No halfass games or toes in the water...
My main beef with it is to access many of the things that it does you have to plan very carefully what you are doing. It is as if they were actively trying to stifle improvisation. Most features are accessed via menu, which requires attention, eyeballs, and hands. Things that are in use when I am playing music.
On the up side I finally figured out how to do a feedback loop so that old material dies away as the new stuff is replaced. Basically the % of volume that each repetition of the loop is given ie decay. 100% being no decay of the loop. I got the workaround on the net, so I'm not as crafty as this discovery would imply. It really frustrated me that this looper didn't have a feedback control. The DL4 (line 6) is it's major competitor and it has a preset feedback in that the more you record the more the old stuff slowly fades away. It's an interesting concept and leads to some organic music making (I've found). The rc-50 in its natural state has the "feedback" set/fixed at 100 so the material that you record just loops and loops and new material goes right over the top with no volume. Which is great for most circumstances. But the only way to evolve a loop is to add more stuff to it, or start over. Needless to say 100% feedback is a very static loop. If the old stuff is fading away than after a few minutes of adding material you could end up with something very different than what you started with. It feels like that should seem antithetical to the idea of the loop, but hey it's not.
I have been thinking about getting a DL4 so I could have a more organic loop making ability and use the the rc-50 for when I really want to "do it up"
Now that I said all that. The "workaround" is rather crafty. I'm amazed that someone came up with it. The concept of feedback in a looper is a difficult one to grasp in the first place, much less getting it to happen on something that wasn't designed for it. There are three inputs to this thing with three volume controls. There are three possible places to store active loops at any given time. There are two routes to output the incoming sound and the loops. There are three record options. The main record option is overdub. The second is replace. (Hopefully obviously) the former keeps old info as you record new info and the latter replaces it with the new info. My guitar goes into loop spot one, makes a loop, and the loop is output through output one which is fed into loop spot two at 1/4 the volume which is what is output to the amp and back into the replacing loop. So everytime the loop cycles back into its self it is a 1/4 of the volume it was the last time it went in. I haven't yet figured out if I can get more than a 1/4 of the volume so the loops last longer than a couple of passes before they fade into oblivion.