Olly’s Guitar World

This is the Boss RC-20XL Loop Station Pedal that I have recently acquired. I must say, so far I am pretty impressed with it.

The Boss RC20XL is a phrase looper.  Simply put, if you activate this guitar pedal, it will record a section of your guitar playing, whether this be a chord, a riff, a lick o

r a full chord progression and repeat it over and over in the form of a loop.

So what’s the point in this guitar pedal? And why would you want to create loops? Well when you practice the guitar or play alone, often it is hard to hear or understand how a particular lead section will sound without hearing it over the chords. Simply play the chords first, the loop pedal will then record this and repeat it. perfect for practicing and getting any section nailed.

The Boss RC-20XL will give the ability to loop up to 16 minutes of audio spanning several different channels. This means that you can compose whole songs with this pedal. Using an optional pedal (at additional cost) you can move between these loops. You could therefore record a verse, a chorus a bridge and loop through them to compose a whole backing track to a song.

Once you have recorded one part you can overdub more parts on top of the loop. This allows you build on each loop to really achieve best results.

The Boss RC-20XL can be used as a practice tool but it can also be used for live performances. Check out youtube for some songs that people have performed using this guitar pedal to see what it really can do.

Another great aspect of the RC-20XL Loop Station is the ability for your recorded loop to be quantized. This means that if you stop your loop slightly late, the pedal will alter this for you so it fits into a perfectly timed loop. No longer do you have to press the guitar pedal to the millisecond - it is done for you.

The ease of using the RC-20XL loop station is simple. Set your desired tempo by pressing the tap tempo button or  the right hand pedal in time with the beat required. You can then press the left pedal to be counted in with 4 beats. Play your loop and once complete, press the left pedal again and the loop will immediately start to play.

There is an option to add a microphone as well as a guitar and you can also add a CD or similar in to make your own loops - a cd of samples is actually included with the pedal to get you started.

i have so far found the sound quality of the RC-20XL Loop Station to be extremely good. No additional humming noise and minimal loss of tone. I managed to start using within a few moments and the easy to follow instructions quickly allowed me to get started with minimal fuss.

Of course, as with all Boss guitar pedals - the quality and robustness of the pedal means its i extremely unlikely to break -  but you do get a 5 year warranty with it - great stuff.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Guitar Gear Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.