BOSS RC-5 Loop Station — modern, compact looper with first-class sound quality, 99 phrase memories, 57 rhythms and optional MIDI control. Perfect for guitar, bass, electroacoustic

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It took me a minute to figure out how to work the auto-record feature. Turns out that my guitar just wasn’t loud enough for the pedal to process the signal. But it isn’t just “here’s a small looper for people who do slightly more than just annoy their families with endless looping” (let’s admit it, we’re all guilty of that from time to time). Now you could viably use the looper in a live situation as well. It might take a while to get used to performing some operations, but with a little practice it becomes intuitive. You can also always add an external footswitch later for easier control of the pedals features. You can use this to import loop phrases stored on your PC. Use them for anything you want really. What’s cool about this is that you can save a lot of loops. There’s no reason to delete things.

Thanks to the inclusion of BOSS's best-in-class 32-bit AD/DA and 32-bit floating-point processing, this pedal manages to capture your own personal sound the way you want it to be heard. How the battery goes in your Loop Station. It’s surprising how pedal manufacturers haven’t figured out a better way to connect their batteries yet. The RC-5 provides players a wealth of sonic possibilities, all without having to take hands off the guitar. Here are five powerful tips. Read more… For a better understanding of music theory, Punkademic’s Comprehensive Complete is what I always recommend via the All-Access Pass. Actually understanding basic rudiments and harmony will help your creativity big-time. 9) How To Store Many Loops and Samples on the RC-5

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Next to the display of the RC-5, there is a large knob to change the settings and adjust the volume of the loop. Below that, there are four small, illuminated buttons that you can use to switch the integrated drum machine on or off and manage the memory. As a matter of fact, I’m still playing around with simple loops at the moment. Overdubs are something I’m not super confident with, even though I use this thing all of the time. With the awesome BOSS RC-5 Loop Station you can an advanced compact looper with class-leading sound quality. Cons: If you’re primarily interested in a looper for live use, the compact size will present difficulties – unless you buy an external footswitch to make it more hands-free. Although, I’d say my guide does a better job, to be honest. As a matter of fact, it’s kind of why I wrote this. Manufacturer manuals are never as good as they could be.

Here’s what my signal chain currently looks like with the pedals I have now – notice the RC-5 Loop Station on the end The user manual provided by Boss is more of a cheat sheet than a real manual, but despite being quite short it covers all the important features of the device, which is a great testament to how easy is it to use the RC-5. But a more detailed reference manual is available, in case you want to know all the details about how the device works. Conclusion AC adaptor (PSA series: sold separately) Current Draw 170 mA Expected battery life under continuous use Alkaline: Approx. 2 hours I recommend starting with short, simple chord rhythms or a simple arpeggio and getting the hang of timing your footswitches right. You could also hit the footswitch and then count to four afterward.

This could be the handiest feature on the RC-5 because it helps people who might be having trouble hitting the record button at the right time. Instead of recording immediately after you press the footswitch, it will only record when sound is detected. Along with the sound quality, we particularly enjoyed the simplified handling compared to the predecessor model, which should not be a hurdle for most guitarists. The device is small and light, what makes it great to take with you wherever you go. Very unusual for such a small device and therefore worthy of praise is the incorporation of a MIDI input and output and in consequence the opportunity of a much more versatile use of the RC-5 even in more extensive setups. This way, the looper will record the complete sound with all the effects, and then it won’t change even if you change the effects while overdubbing. For example, you could record a clean guitar rhythm, loop it, and then switch on overdrive and delay to do a solo over that. You can use this to reverse the audio stored in the selected memory slot. You could, for example, create a spacey soundscape with multiple overdubs, and then reverse it for some fun experimentation. 1-Shots If you’re new to looping in general, it’s important to get the beat right. Count to yourself, practice your rhythm for a while, and make sure to tap the footswitch on the beat, or else your loop might sound a bit off. This is an important tip, so I’ll share it with you.

Like I wrote in my other guide on how to jam by yourself, pedals are more for creative purposes and practicing for me, rather than for performances considering I’m not a live/performing musician. Power supply with a 9 V battery or a 9 V DC power adapter (not included - suitable power supply: Art. 409939) One thing that took a minute for me to fully understand was the Boss RC-5 Display. The display, for a second, I thought was just a neat little pattern of colors to look cool, but that’s not the case at all. A cool feature that not a lot of people know about too is that you can tap the tempo button according to the BPM that you want to set it at. For instance, if you tap the button at 120 BPM, the RC-5 Loop station will set the BPM to 120. Like its predecessor, the RC-5 has a very compact and lightweight case and a mine design. It has exactly the same dimension as the RC-3 with 7.3 cm width and 12.9 cm depth, but with a height of 5.6 cm, the RC-5 is slightly smaller than the predecessor model. The weight has remained exactly the same at 450 grams and downright invites you to take the device along in your gig bag.By pressing the knob, you can change the incremental values and use fractions like 100.5 BPM. The LED will blink to reflect your changes. The new tempo will now be applied to all of your loops and samples. 8) How to Change Drum Loops on the Boss RC-5 With the fourth small (memory) button you can modify the settings for a recorded loop, among other things. If you’re struggling with getting the loop timing right, you could always just use the Auto-Record feature which I’ll talk about later in the article. 4) How To Overdub Loops On the Boss RC-5 The only downside to all of it, is an extra footswitch made this a lot more user friendly on our end, so for players really looking to tap into all of the functions, it’ll be worth the add-on expense. PROS: All of this is great for practicing in addition to creative purposes. I’ve written a guide before on how to play along with drums, and I think that’ll help you with this.