Boss RC-20XL

The manual is clearly written and very usefull.

In my opinion the sound is perfect only when you are playing in a clean tone. When you switch to overdrive tone the situation gets a little messy.

I agree with other users that for practising purpose at home is the perfect tool (if you learn to use it quite well), but for live performances is the worst one.

I bought it from the net. I have never upgrade it and I don't think it will be nesessary.

I like the sound that is coming out from the pedal and also two pedals that it has are very usefull for me. I don't like at all the sound of the drums. Moreover I can connect it with my CD-player and that gives more options.

Pretty straight forward for a looper. Everything is laid out well and easy to use. I'm not sure how to change the time signature but I haven't looked into it either. That's the one thing that isn't obvious from a quick glance.

I got this as a replacement for a DigiTech JamMan and I am much happier with the RC-20XL's sound quality. With the JamMan, once you finished overdubbing and the phrase started playing back, the transition from "live" to "looped" was really noticeable. To me, the Boss pedal's playback is much more "lively" and natural.

And to me, when the Boss looper gets to the end of the phrase, it seems to do a better job of restarting the phrase smoothly. The JamMan actually sounded like a CD skipping back.

Boss is known for their reliability.

Never dealt with them.

I'm not entirely sure I needed a looper but I've been pretty happy with this pedal. I think it's been a good purchase. It's been good for practicing timing and learning about soloing, harmonizing, scales and so on. It's easy to use, sounds good and has features that competing loopers don't. I also like the second 1/4" input jack, which I use for connecting a bass or keyboard. You can't do that with an XLR input.

most effects can figured out without an instruction manual, but the rc-2 isn't one of them. this isn't a bad thing, but that's just how it is with this pedal. you may have an easier time getting the hang of it if you've had experience with other loop pedals before, especially if it's a boss. but for me, this was my first and it took me a good full practice session (about 2 hours of messing around?) to fully understand how the pedal worked - and maybe a day and a half to remember it all. it's just a dense pedal, so there's a lot in it, but it all makes sense.

this is the main reason why i thought i should write a review on this pedal - to make mention of the noise issue i've been getting. this pedal will spit out exactly what you put it, without any alteration to the tone of the original passage played. HOWEVER, on top of what it plays back, there is a really high-pitched digital ring that is always there (whether it's playing back a passage or not). and of course, if you've got overdrive pedals in your chain of effects, that ring will be amplified when those OD effects are on. i'm not sure what other people's effects setup is but this issue may have something to do with it being at the end of a chain of multiple stomp boxes with the power distributed in a daisy-chain fashion. i know many reviewers have expressed that this pedal produces no undesirable noise whatsoever, but perhaps their setup is different. but regardless of that fact, i can't be the only person with an effects rig set up the way mine is set up. i'm not sure what to try in order to remedy this issue, but i'm hoping more people who have this issue will at least make it known.

very strong. but i'd be more careful with this than, say, one of my other boss effects. it just seems like it might be more fragile on the inside.

the reps were unfamiliar with the issue...so they were not able to help me too much. but they were friendly.

overall, it's a neat pedal that can be extremely useful in live or at-home situations. but i'm still trying to figure out this noise issue i've been having with the high-pitch ring.

If you read the manual, everything's laid out pretty clearly. The pedal has a fair amount of functions (switching between loops, switching guide tracks, yadda yadda) which are simple if you take the time to learn with the pedal.

Timing the loops to sync up properly and sound like natural playing through the cross-over between loops is a learned art, but if you take the time (a few hours, and at the price I can't imagine you wouldn't), you can get it right pretty close to 100% of the time.

Sound quality is almost irrelevant to this kind of pedal. As has been said, you get out what you put in.

I've noticed a very slight hiss while erasing a loop. If you're playing, it is unnoticeable.

The drum guides kind of sound like shit, but it's not really meant for performance. They are also too loud when compared to the guitar level. The lowest setting seems to be on par with 12:00 to 1:00 on the "level" knob for the loop with the volume on my guitar knob turned up.

I've had it a few months. It's solid. Boss makes good housings, which is good because loop pedals, but nature, need to be stepped on a lot.

Haven't had to deal with them.

For practicing solos and improvisation, it's great.

There are some things that would vastly improve the device, however.

1) There's no way to delete just the most recent layer of a loop. Meaning, if you've set up a bunch of layers, and you add one that you don't like, it's on there for keeps--like paint on a canvas.

2) Playing a loop and then stopping and starting another is pretty jarring. Sometimes I fade out of a loop by turning the level down by hand. I wish there were a way to attach an expression pedal and fade out. A volume pedal after the device would work, too, but it would also lower the volume of your guitar. Having a second device (Ian Williams of Battles does this with Akai Headrushes) would let you start a new loop so that deleting the old one would still present a level of coherence between the two. But that's expensive.

damn easy. no problems in getting a perfect loop. sometimes good, to play by internal rhythm.

this is why i am writing this: have a look at the rating for the RC-2. i have had it before the RC-20XL and - the same quality! what goes in will come out. a 9 cause the drums are not really usable (ok, sometimes i use THE one of those).

best

i do like their online pages.

learning and experimenting - this is what i bought it for, and it does its job.

Need some time but then it is a clear winner!

No hum, no hiss. Great sound

Built like a tank

No need for one. After all it's Boss

I bought this used, but it was in mint shape (the previous owner was stymied by it, I think). At first, even though I had been give a "primer" in it's use by a friend who uses one all the time, I too found it daunting. Then after about an hour I had pretty much mastered it. I love this thing. It is idiosyncratic, the way it operates, so you have to really get down with learning it and "let it train you" somewhat, but the pay off is worth it. I also hooked up a 1/4" stereo Fender Vib/Rev pedal and a non-latching keyboard sustain pedal to it an voila, all those functions are easily foot controllable as well! Boss makes special switches for this that come out to around 75 bucks for both but if you have comparable switches at home try them out. probably one of the trickiest things to figure out is the correct time to stop and start the recording with the pedal in order to get a satisfactory loop that will work the way you want it to time-wise, but this is a talent you have to master through use, the box itself is very predictable and once YOU learn how to do it right you'll get good results. Using the timed loop with quantization will yield better timed results. I'm not the biggest fan of that "click" sound you play along with, but it does the job perfectly. I'm trying to do everything with this box, from setting up 3-5 part loops for songwriting and to play drums with, to making ambient Bill Frisell -like loops on the fly, to making psychedelic reverse sounds to add in where appropriate. It does them all, and with the extra pedals for scrolling up and down through the 11 memory locations and the footswitch for reverse you can really get a lot done without the dreaded "having to bend over". The manual explains everything but like most manuals it probably doesn't explain it 100% exactly like you would like to have it explained, again, like any good box or keyboard or whatever, no matter how intuitive there is the matter of YOU having to acclimate to IT. Go for it, you can handle it!

Good sound quality, doesn't step on the signal/tone. i use it with a variety of telecasters, les pauls, gretsches, danos, etc etc into vintage fender tweed and blackface amps. I wish some of my boutique stomp boxes, which I often love, could achieve the quality and reliability of the Boss line. If I had the balls I'd go ALL BOSS, but they have a tendency to cancel some of their cooler boxes, like the stereo Trem and the VB-2 vibrato and the parametric EQ....wTF?

I have had some Boss boxes go bad and have them repaired, but rarely, and I drag them all over the world. I expect this one will be no different. I'm still not a fan of their tuner, but apparently everyone else is.

When I needed something fixed, they fixed it. Also have gotten good tech answers from them.

I guess unless it became a part of your overall style a box like this could be in danger of being something you only dragged out once in a while, but I expect to get some good use and fun out of it. I love making up a song in it with 4 or 5 overdubbed parts and playing drums with it or lead over it, makes sitting around with yourself practicing or coming up with ideas WAY more fun.

I've read plenty of reviews (on this site and others) stating that the user was boggled by this thing at first attempt. I would say that the most fundamental funcions, i.e looping, were immediately accessable without reading the manual. I took mine out of the box, plugged it in, and looped like. . . well, like a mad-looper. Any functuions that i had diffuculty "getting" were outlined clearly and concisely in the included manual. And the only reason those functions took some time was because I am not hip to much of the Boss lingo. It was a matter of their labeling alone, which is neither good or bad. It's simply arbitrary terms for the unit's functions. Seriously- how some of you couldn't get it rolling is beyond me. I should add that I've only owned this pedal for a week, and I can operate the unit to full capacity.

Sound quality- well, here is my current set-up: Gibson SG standard or Fender Telecaster > DOD FX80B compressor > Vox Cooltron Dual Overdrive > Boss Loop Station > Vox AC30CC2. The bypass is decent, the loop quality is decent, but nothing will sound as true as guitar > amp, if for no other reason than the addition of extra cables for the sound to travel through. That said, there definately is some sound quality lost, but not much. I don't expect anyone listening at a live performance would really notice unless they're a gear head. I don't see myself using this too much for gigs anyway. I bought it mainly as a practice tool.

This is a Boss product, and so far so good. After a week it's been fine. The build quality is such that I could use it as a weapon to thwart a ninja attack. Based soley on my past experiences with Boss products, Boss should build tanks- they'd be indestructible.

I'm sure they're really nice folks. Hopefully, I'll never have to find out.

I love this thing. As a practicing tool and creatice device, this is probably the best investment you could make. It's already improved my playing as well as present me with a new creative pallette to work with.

The 16 minutes of sample time is nice. I typically layer about 7 instrument tracks on one patch during a performance. Editing and ease of use are intuitive, except for erasing patches. I don't have a manual and I can use every function after one day of use. For guitar and analog instruments this is a great unit. The layers tend to fade when multiple layers are stacked on top of them. If you are a one man band as I am, you might want to wait for some improvements. The biggest issue for me is that I cannot get it to accurately reproduce arpeggiated synth patches. I play them and the tempo feature freaks out. The unit locks on to your tempo while recording and holds it. This is great for instruments with an analog attack, but not so good for smooth digital signal. The tempo feature freaks out on the arpeggiated patches from my Kurzweil K2500. I was trying to record an arp2500 patch into the unit and it couldn't seem to lock on. It would reduce the patch and cut out all of the quieter subtleties of the sound. That said I am still happy that I bought the unit and will enjoy playing analog instruments through it. I do wish that the reverse function was foot controlled and it had multiple ins and outs.

What you put in is what you get out, until you layer half a dozen patches. Great for up to four layers if they have a hot signal. Not too digital sounding.

It's a boss!

Hope to never need them. I haven't in the 15 years I have been using their products.

This is a good match for me to play with a band. To do my one man band I will need some upgrades or a laptop. This should do it in theory, but the lack of response to digital signal isn't going to let that happen. It is alot of fun to use for creating bass and guitar parts. I am going to wear out the inputs by constantly switching between bass and guitar. If you are a guitarist looking for a cool toy to create textures I don't think you will find a better option out there. I may just have to give up on the synth idea and use my other boss effects to create similar sounds. I would definitely replace this if it were lost or stolen though I might go for the rc-50 for its hands off approach and the ability to have three patches available simultaneously. I bought this because the rc-50 is also mono and just doesn't support its potential.

Really easy to use. Straight out of the box it's pretty straightforward. As other players have mentioned - once you've read the manual you're up and running. It's a great starter loop device - I'm only just getting into it (can't be bothered finding yet another rhythm guitarist) and it's worked live and in the studio so far. I've already figured out the quantize button and, for my money, this FX works best on Auto Start. Tempos are pretty easy to set up too. Hooked up with an FS-6 and I'm in looping heaven!

There is a slight loss of tone. I use this nearly at the end of a GT8 loop (just before reverb) and you can notice when you first hear the loop. However, seeing as I'm looping so I can overdub then that's not that much of an issue - the rest of the band make up for the slight tone loss.

I would have liked to have seen this with stereo outs (I play stereo out to two amps - VOXAC30 and Spider112) though - IMO that would have sorted the tone loss. For that reason I've set the assigns on the GT8 so that I can cut the Loop out when not in use - instant stereo again. If you're playing in mono I can't see this being an issue at all.

It's Boss. I expect it to last a long time and to do what I want it to do on command.

Never had a problem with Boss gear.

It's pretty good. I'm sure the RC-50 is totally fab but this will do me for a while I think.