RC-500 Loop Station Compact Phrase Recorder Pedal Review

Great Sound and easy to mod controls

I find for what this pedal does, it's easily modified to work your way. Use an external switch to provide 5 buttons, or program the three onboard to do what you want them to. Record two tracks or use the 2 for verse and chorus. Totally customizable clean sound and rugged. What else is there?

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Finally!!!

I've used many different loopers and have always had to deal with at least one point of disappointment with them all. I just got this looper and havent dove into everything yet BUT to get real separation between the A/B inputs and outputs is exactly what I've always been looking for. I use 2 amps and have a ABY box in front of the looper so I can select either amp or both at anytime… read more and I can record a loop through either amp at any time without having to bend down and adjust anything, amazing, finally after 15+ years of using loopers someone made one right. Great Job Boss! now just reissue the FZ-2 and life will be perfect....

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Silent footswitches/buttons

This looper is excellent - very pleased with the functionality, and the sound quality is very, very good. MIDI sync with my drum machine was super easy. The footswitches/buttons on this pedal are silent - which I very much appreciate (no scraping/clicking noises!).

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Untouchable looper

Hands down the best looper there is on the market. I have always used TC loopers to include the original ditto and the ditto X4. When I bought the Boss RC-500, I finally realized the potential of a looper. The ability to save your tracks alone is worth it. Drums, configurable foot switches, screen, midi control, superior audio quality, mic input, stereo function, I/O level controls,… read more noise suppressor, and many other options that leave all other loopers in the dust. My playing has improved more over the last few months than it had in that learning phase when I first picked up a guitar. And last but not least. The ability to create, and keep creating is most inspiring. Team this up with the boss SY-1 synth pedal and you can create some awesome backing tracks for yourself. Five stars all day long.

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Excellent Looper, needs a better computer app

This looper is really amazing. You can customize the controls in all sorts of ways. There are so many features that it can be overwhelming at first, and the instruction manual doesn't even get close to going over everything. The stereo in/outs work well. I have my guitar running to two different amps from the unit. I really like that you can assign the Loop Track 1, Track 2, input… read more signal and rhythm, all to specific amp outputs. I like to have bass lines and rhythm tracks going through one amp and all other guitar tracks going through a different amp. I like that you can set it to stop at the end of a loop, so you can press stop towards the end of playing, and it'll auto stop right on time. Only feature I can't seem to find that I wish was there, is a 'stop all tracks' and 'reset/delete all tracks'. The rhythms in this unit are also really good. Lots of preset beats to choose from and each beat has four parts, which you can turn any part on or off. I like being able to turn off everything except for a kick drum, it'll like a better version of a metronome. You can even change the type of drum kit on each beat, very cool. The only real downside is the app for connecting the RC-500 to a computer. The Boss "Tone Studio" app is terrible, it feels like it was made by Boss in the mid 2000's. Features that really need to be included in the Tone Studio App... you should be able to re-name your loops in the app. You can do this on the device, but it has to be done with a single scroll knob and takes forever to type even a short word. The app doesn't even show the names of tracks that you've meticulously labeled in the device either. There are some preset backing tracks you can download from Boss, which are nice, except the levels of these tracks are wayyy too loud. If you have your guitar at a reasonable level, then press play on the backing track, it comes through at deafening levels. It should have some auto-leveling or be able to be saved at a reduced volume. You should be able to control the settings in the app as well. Boss makes great hardware, but they should really up their investment in software.

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