Boss RC-30 Loop Station Review
Summary
- Pros: The Boss RC-30 Loop Station offers 3 hours of recording, built-in effects, and two synchronized stereo tracks.
- Cons: Slight lag when shifting between phrases in real time.
- Overall: Boss’s latest and greatest twin pedal looper makes some significant improvements over the older Boss RC-20XL Loop Station, and is a good choice for home musicians.
- Guitar Center: Boss RC-30 Loop Station
- Amazon: Boss RC-30 Loop Station
Full Review
In 2011, Boss updated it’s line of looper pedals by releasing the RC-3 Loop Station, the RC-30 Loop Station (reviewed here), and the RC-300 Loop Station. The RC-30 Loop Station is Boss’s updated twin pedal and the mid-sized option of the three. It’s a multitrack looper with two synchronized stereo tracks and built-in loop effects, and hours of recording time. Overall, Boss offers several improvements over Boss’s older twin pedal, the Boss RC-20XL.
Memory Improvements
First of the improvements, the Boss RC-30 Loop Station allows you to record up to 3 hours of music direct to its internal memory. In contrast, the RC-20XL only allowed 16 minutes of recording. With all that added memory, you can create and stack tons of multi-layered loops with twin stereo tracks each track being independently controllable with dedicated volume faders and track-select buttons.
Creating loops is convenient with the Auto Recording feature, which starts recording the moment you begin playing your guitar, bass, keyboard, or singing, or as soon as you start a connected audio player. Count-In mode gives you one-bar of rhythm before recording starts. As with all the Boss loopers, you can easily Undo and Redo as you go, letting you undo those mistakes and get a perfect loop to save to the built-in memory.
Built-In Effects
The RC-30 Loop Station also allows you to add effects on the fly. Onboard effects include the following:
- Bend Down, which provides a dramatic pitch-bend effect.
- Step Phaser changes phase in incremental steps.
- Sweep Filter alters frequency in sync with the current tempo.
- Tempo Delay produces a tempo-synced delay effect.
- Lo-Fi intentionally degrades the sound to create a distinctive character.
Saturate your loops in cool effects without the cost and hassle of adding external gear.
Inputs and Outputs
Vocalists can plug a microphone of their choice directly into the RC-30′s XLR mic input, complete with phantom power if you wish to use a condenser mic. Sing, overdub, and make multi-layered loops of your voice, create vocal sound-effects patterns, or point the microphone at your acoustic musical instruments, or anything that makes noise and turn it into a cool loop. The USB 2.0 port lets you save your loops to your computer and import jam tracks as WAV files with ease.
Boss RC-30 Loop Station Rear View
Negatives
On the downside, there is about a 1/4 second lag when you are shifting between phrases in real time, which makes this pedal a bit more difficult to use in live situations. For example, you may want to record an intro loop phrase, a theme loop phrase, and an outro loop phrase, then shift between phrases to create a 3 phrase song. With the older RC-20XL Loop Station, you could switch seamlessly between phrases while playing over the top. Unfortunately, when switching between phases with the RC-30, there is a known 1/4 second lag, which is awkward for live performances and when recording.
A second quirk with the RC-30 is that if you are looping two phrases and make a mistake or want to start over, you can’t undo only one phrase. Undo will stop both phrases and you have to re-record your layer of loops.
Conclusion
Despite a few flaws that may effect certain musicians, Boss has come out with a very solid, new mid-size looper that will be appealing to a large audience. The drastic memory improvements mean that you can now play with 3 hours of recording and the onboard effects will be a lot of fun. Overall, the RC-30 Loop Station is a useful tool for enhancing your playing.
Boss RC-30 Loop Station Video
Does this pedal allow you to record a pattern (say in a verse of a song), stop the recording but NOT automatically start the loop, and then let you start the loop later on? Reason would be if in a guitar/vocalist setting, you want to record the chords to a verse, and then play the chorus’ chords behind the singer, and then just loop the verse for your solos.
Also, I’ve “heard” on the ‘net that there’s some delay when switching back and forth between loops.
Any responses/input would be appreciated, including whether another pedal might do what I’ve described better.
Thanks.
Yes, you can set up the Boss RC-30 to record a loop, then stop the recording without automatically starting the loop. You can then start the loop later on in the song. Regarding your second question, we noted in our review that there is an approximately 1/4 second lag when shifting between phrases in real time. If that is a deal breaker for you, you might consider the older RC-20XL which didn’t have that issue. Hope this helps.
I have a question:
The last thing mentioned in the review: I’m not sure, I’m understanding this right – does it mean that you can’t delete the last overdub while continuing playing the thing you recorded first?
Eva,yes, you can recaord a loop, then add a dub over that. If you’re not happy with the dub, press on the left pedal of the RC-30 for 2 seconds and it will undo the previus recorded dub. I’m pretty sure you can also undo the original loop you created also using the same process. You can only undo the previous created loop.
Clarifying my last sentence, you can only undo the the last created loop or dub. Ex. If you have a loop and you layer 3 dubs over that, you can only undo the last created dub. The original loop and the 2 dubs will not be undoable. I’m pretty sure you can redo the dub that was undone also by holding the left pedal down for 2 seconds.
what the boss rc30 have a reverse effect like on rc 20xl ??
The version 1.3 firmware download now has fixed the 1/4 lag previously mentioned.
Purrrfect.