Before I get too carried away, I’ll wrap up with a couple more observations.
I've seen nobody make mention of this in reviews, but whilst overall the ‘rang feels tank-esque in construction, the knobs feel pretty average. I was disappointed the first time I twisted one of the control knobs expecting the silky smooth glide of nice pot, but finding the looser, rickety feel of what I assume is a rotary encoder. Given the flexible nature of the controls, a pot wouldn't work, hence the use of something else I guess. It’s a small quibble, but it did genuinely surprise me.
Then there’s the volatile nature of loops. I mentioned it at the start and it’s worth mentioning again. A couple of times when I’ve had some really fun stuff laid down I found myself thinking “Gee I wish I could save that for later” What I do instead is just record it with my phone or mic up my amp and record it on my laptop, but you have to go into your relationship with the ‘rang knowing it’s a performance tool, not a recording tool. If you want to go deeper into multi tracking more than five loops and layering and so forth you need a PC. I’ll also add that being able to record loops on the RC-2 with its ten slots is both a blessing and a curse. It prevents you from working with multiple loops in real time, and it gives you a crutch to lean on if you don’t feel like being creative. The ‘rang is a blank canvas every time you power it on.
The creators also listen to the community! Version 2 of the firmware not only added all the features the developers wanted, they also added a few based on requests from the community. I’ve also discovered that the last big objection people had is actually in the process of being addressed! I’ve heard several people note that the ‘rang could use more buttons, as currently you can only assign 4 of the 10 ‘functions’ to buttons. If you have ‘erase’ ‘stack’ ‘undo’ and ‘fade’ assigned, you can’t tap a button for ‘reverse’ for example. Even more crippling is the fact that ‘reverse solo’ and ‘loop 4’ take up two of the four button assignments. Note that you CAN swap button assignments live, with loops playing though! However soon, with the release of the “Sidecar” companion pedal we can have an extra FIVE buttons to play with. (Although at what cost I have no idea, the ‘rang sure isn’t cheap as it is)
Of little concern to me, but worth throwing out there, is the fact that the pedal is not true bypass. It is however, completely transparent. It also does not do midi.
I’ll finish up with another positive though. Pedal builders take note of this one! The ‘rang cares not about your power supply polarity! It will accept negative tip, positive tip, heck; it even takes 9VAC if you like.
So there you have it. I have a couple of YouTube clips on my account, but they are more weird noises and samples than actual music so I'll leave those out for now If I up anything decent I'll let y'all know.