Ch0jin
December 17th, 2009, 02:11 AM
Well I finally got my Boss RC-2 yesterday and man, I'm convinced everyone needs one of these. For less than the cost of some drive box's you can get something that will definitely improve your playing. For the uninitiated, the looper records a "phrase" which can be a chunk of music from 1.5s to 16m long and then plays it back so you can jam over the top. You can also overdub just by stomping on it so you can easily record say, a chord progression, then bass, then clean guitar, distorted guitar, anything really. It's the ultimate practice tool I reckon. It's got a bunch of built in drum beats that -try- to match tempo with your playing too. I say "try" because it's a bit hit and miss. A better way is to pick a beat and tempo first if you want drums.
A couple of minor gripes about the RC-2 though (bearing in mind this is probably the cheapest looper you can buy).
1. It has an AUX in for recording phrases, but no line/headphone out to make it easy to record jams to PC.
2. There's an LED that flash's in time to the beat, but I'd much prefer one that indicated the start/end of a recorded phrase whilst playing back.
Apart from that I love it! If you like playing along to jam tracks like me, then have a play with a looper next time your in a guitar store. It's a major cliche of course, but it does make learning fun. Playing chords and then playing lead over them, trying out bass lines etc.
I am going to put together a switch pedal for it though, just for the slightly improved ease of use. The only hard part about that is finding some decent momentary NC switches...
Anyway, here's a quick video of a jam I put together a few minutes after plugging it in, it's -that- easy to use.
Sorry about the TV in the background and the low quality, it was literally a quick test before dinner that got outa hand :) I recorded a basic chord progression first, then slowed it down and dubbed a few lead lines and clean sounding fills over it.
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I have it as the last box in the FX loop. That way loops are unaffected anything in my front end. Seems to work OK.
A couple of minor gripes about the RC-2 though (bearing in mind this is probably the cheapest looper you can buy).
1. It has an AUX in for recording phrases, but no line/headphone out to make it easy to record jams to PC.
2. There's an LED that flash's in time to the beat, but I'd much prefer one that indicated the start/end of a recorded phrase whilst playing back.
Apart from that I love it! If you like playing along to jam tracks like me, then have a play with a looper next time your in a guitar store. It's a major cliche of course, but it does make learning fun. Playing chords and then playing lead over them, trying out bass lines etc.
I am going to put together a switch pedal for it though, just for the slightly improved ease of use. The only hard part about that is finding some decent momentary NC switches...
Anyway, here's a quick video of a jam I put together a few minutes after plugging it in, it's -that- easy to use.
Sorry about the TV in the background and the low quality, it was literally a quick test before dinner that got outa hand :) I recorded a basic chord progression first, then slowed it down and dubbed a few lead lines and clean sounding fills over it.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2tDCXHIBWcU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2tDCXHIBWcU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
I have it as the last box in the FX loop. That way loops are unaffected anything in my front end. Seems to work OK.