RC-600 Loop Station Looper Pedal Review

Invaluable Practice Tool - Not For Live Use

This is by far the best looper I've owned. I've played extensively through the the RC-10R, RC-500, Pigtronix Infinity 2, EHX 1440, as well as combo delay/loopers like the Keeley Eccos, Strymon Volante and others. The key to the RC-600 is the separation. Being able to send the signal to 3 different amps is key to the best sound. Like, bass to one amp, rhythm guitar to another amp,… read more lead to a 3rd amp. I consider loopers an invaluable practice tool. Specially this one. ' That all said, there's no way I would use the RC-600 live beyond a small coffee house gig where errors don't matter too much and you can joke around with the audience when your looper misfires. Yes, it has crashed on me multiple times. I understand that a firmware update can "fix" this. However, my biggest gripe is that this looper does the same thing that the RC-500 does even after multiple updates when recording more than one track: You never know if the looper is going to close the second track at the right spot. What I mean by this is, you lay down your first track and define a length for the loop. Then, you go and start to record a second track to match. If you hit the button to close that loop exactly at the time it's supposed to close, it will NEVER close the loop and keep going a little longer and end up misaligned. I found that the best way to have it close the second or third tracks correctly if to hit the button to close during the last bar of performance. If you are too early, like a few bars before closing, or too close to the end of the loop, it will not close the loop properly. Even so, the looper still messes up half the time. Sometimes it will close at the right spot, but misalign the track and you end up puzzled for a few bars trying to figure out what everything sounds off. At which point you have to hit undo or erase that second track and play it all over again. Yes, I've read the manual and I understand how the looper works. What I'm describing above is something the RC-500 does too. Frankly, the firmware SHOULD be smart enough to close the loop on the very last beat PERIOD. It's the most intuitive way and the most musical way of playing. It should be… PLAY… And boom! hit that button at the spot where it goes back up to the top! But no, the RC-600 isn't smart enough to figure that out. Trying to figure out that you have to tap a switch a bar early before closing the loop to subsequent tracks makes playing the passages a lot harder. Regardless, I intend to keep playing the RC-600. One thing it's definitely improved over the RC-500 is that outputs do not bleed into one another, something that plagues my Rc-500. I still have my RC-10R and my RC-500 as I sometimes use them when I want a more simple setup. I'm not happy with the flaws of the RC-600, but because it's such an invaluable tool for practice, it's worth the money as it will make me a better guitarist - not to mention, it's a lot more fun to practice with this than without a looper. The other alternative is using a DAW for practice, but the setup is always more complicated and more time consuming. That said, I'll be rearranging my studio soon and I may try the approach of using something like Ableton Live and a large MIDI controller and see if I can achieve something similar or better. It's too bad that you can't really trust this piece of equipment for live shows though.

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Super disappointing

Very disheartening to see Boss going the same way as other tech companies, releasing incomplete products and counting on patches and firmware updates to fix all the bugs. I've used the boss rc 50, and 300 basically since they came out and I can't recall a time that any of them just up and crashed on me. Not once. The 600 just crashed three times during one gig tonight. In addition… read more to being completely unreliable, if you're trying to sync it with other things via midi (drum machines, etc), they made it so if you turn loop sync off, tempo sync also stops working... essentially if you want to sync the tempo via midi, your loops have to be the same length or else its a mess. They won't start in the right place when you switch between them, they'll jump in mid way through. Its very very dumb. Its not a bug or a misunderstanding of the functionality. They changed the way this works with the rc-505, and I can't believe they carried this design over to the new floor looper. There's not room to go into more detail about this in reviews, just go check the facebook groups and and or forums for the loopy sync / serial mode issues and you'll see people discussing it in depth. Maybe they'll at least get the crashes sorted out with a patch but people definitely deserve fair warning that this is basically still in beta and not at all professional gear.

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I Want To Love This Looper...

Unfortunately, within 6 hours of setup I've unexplainably lost use of a switch. Sweetwater service rep was fantastic but after troubleshooting we were unable to determine the issue other than it seems to have just arrived defective (obviously not ideal, but keep in mind that in May 2022 this is still a relatively infant product in age). They're on backorder for 4 more months (took… read more 4 months for mine to be in stock) and Boss is unable to replace it in a timely manner. I like everything else so far about the unit, but from sourcing others who own it and online, it seems like there are just TONS of minor issues (glitches, hardware/software not working as functioned, etc.) that need to be addressed. I will make use of 2/3 of my board for the time being. This is going to be a "must-have" someday for live loop performance, the potential is screaming with how versatile this station is. But be warned: you may encounter issues upon use (Boss debuted this model in 2021) and you will not be the first, nor last.

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Flawed masterpiece

First, RC-600 users should go over to the Roland site and pick up the recent 1.1 firmware update, which resolves a lot of the early bugs described in previous reviews. As to the functionality of the unit, Roland has thrown everything including the kitchen sink into this baby. Superb sound quality, a massive selection of effects, extensive I/O and routing, MIDI sync and control… read more capabilities. I can't think of much you'd want to do with a looping device that the RC-600 is not capable of. Operating the unit with the help of four knobs, a few buttons and a small LCD does present significant challenges though. I'm expecting many days of practice before I have my head fully around the RC-600. My main criticism is the build quality. This is not the Boss quality you expect from say the GT-series or even compact pedals. It's a metal box, but pretty thin and flimsy feeling, the knobs and buttons are plastic and wobbly, the unit's complexity calls for a bright OLED display but instead we get a pretty fuzzy looking LCD. Boss's new pedal switches have a mushy feel and are hard to locate. I have this next to some Strymon pedals, which have far superior switches. So that's disappointing, get a decent case if you're planning to take it on the road. Despite the shortcomings its the best and most complete Boss floor looper yet, and the compact size compared to the old RC-300 is very welcome. Overall I'm still quite pleased with my purchase.

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Needs upgrade to software

I have been looping 26 years plus with every looper made. I'm not new at this. That being said, I agree with the other problems mentioned. Tracking not starting from beginning unless aligned with master track or start/stop press to realign. Also setting tempo to input delay effect with tap tempo. Can't figure that out. I did sell my RC300 and VL3 extreme and now use the RC-600 as… read more my mainstay but have to work around the problems mentioned. Please Boss...listen to the ones who made you what you are.

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