Boss RC-20XL Loop Station Review

Summary

• Pros: The Boss RC-20XL Loop Station is affordable, durable, and reliable. It offers a host of useful features designed to make looping a simpler and more forgiving.
• Cons: Needs extra pedals to function well in live situations. No stereo recording or ability to save your loops externally via USB. Can negatively affect tone.
• Overall: Becoming outdated by newer looper pedals, but still a bench-mark for quality. It offers a wide range of functions in a simple, inexpensive, and sturdy package.

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• Amazon: Boss RC-20XL Loop Station
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Full Review

The Boss RC-20XL is the mid-sized looper in Boss’s older series of loop stations. It is the predecessor of the newer RC-30 Loop Station. The RC-20XL still offers a wide range of useful features in a much smaller (and cheaper) package than the massive RC-50. It also offers access to its features than the much smaller RC-2. When it was first released, the RC-20XL was an upgrade of the RC-20, which only offered 5 minutes and 30 seconds of recording time, compared to the RC-20XL’s 16 minutes.

Note: If you want to know when the Boss RC-20XL was released relative to other Boss looper pedals, we’ve made a timeline here.

If you’re unfamiliar with the fantastic world of looping, allow me to offer a brief explanation. Loop pedals (made popular by Robert Fripp and his ‘Frippertronics’) offer the solo-jammer the opportunity to build up their own backing track, repeated as a ‘loop’, or ‘Phrase’ (in Boss lingo), to jam over or add more parts to. In this way, you can build complex compositions even while playing alone. This opens up a world of sonic potential, limited only by your imagination. For more info on looping, click here.

When Boss first released the RC-20XL, they raised the bar for the competition. Indeed, it remains a key part of many musicians’ arsenals. The pedal houses two pedals for remote access, and has various dials and buttons for its more intimate features. You can spread the sixteen minutes of memory across eleven different phrases (loops). You can then recall these phrases at any time. So if you jam something out that you want to keep, you can write it to memory so it’s ready to use live.

Connectivity

As for connectivity, there are jacks for your guitar lead, microphone, and an auxiliary 3.2mm input for mp3 players. There are also outputs for your amp, and to connect optional additional foot pedals. The optional foot pedals give you easier access to the pedal’s features without having to use the menus. This is great, except for the fact that you need to purchase any external pedals separately.

Basic Functionality

The RC-20XL is relatively easy to operate, even if you have no experience using looper pedals. The foot pedals are all you’ll really need to use for an initial play around. You use the left pedal to record, play and overdub. You can also hold it for a few seconds to undo the last overdub.

So, for example, you give it a tap to start recording, and another when your phrase is complete. This will then set it playing in a loop – in my mind the opening from The Raconteurs’ Steady As She Goes is pumping away, a solid, repeating bass line ready for your next tap, the “overdub,” or second layer of your loop.

After building your loop, you slide into the opening lead part, then another pedal tap and it repeats, allowing you a bit of time to undo the last dub with a few seconds’ press and launch into the punching, staccato riff. All of that drama, from one footswitch and your guitar.

The other foot pedal is simply marked ‘Stop’. Not quite as dramatic, I concede, but there eventually does come a time to kill the sound and bask in silent pride. Even if it didn’t go so well, the ‘Stop’ pedal can also be held to erase your loop.

Other Control Features

Above the foot pedals are five dials and six buttons which provide us with access to the RC-20XL’s features. The middle dial goes all the way up to eleven, but unfortunately isn’t volume (output volume on the left, and two for the inputs on the right). Instead, it’s used to simply select a phrase. A light beside the knob will tell you if you have something saved in the selected location already. This dial is the only way to select a phrase without use of an external (and separately sold) footswitch.

The remaining dial is an important one. It controls ‘The Guide’, which sounds like some mythical wizard in a tacky fantasy film, but it’s actually the RC-20XL’s version of a metronome. ‘Metronome’ is probably too simple description, but ‘drum machine’ is going too far. Think of it as having your own personal unimaginative, one-armed drummer to dutifully whack out any one of eight beats at a moment’s notice. Working with The Guide, you can also benefit from ‘Loop Quantize’, which gives you some leeway with your closing pedal press by stretching or contracting your piece if it falls out of time.

Below the Guide dial is the ‘Tap Tempo’ button. As you may have guessed, this allows you to tap out the tempo for your recording. It also serves to switch between Guide drum beats when combined with the ‘Shift/Exit’ button. There are also some alternative time signatures available if you press and hold ‘Tap Tempo’. Unfortunately, though, there is no option to manually dial in a tempo in BPM.

Additionally, there is the all-important ‘Write’ button, which moves your phrases from the RC-20XL’s temporary memory to one of the eleven phrase banks.

The Modes

The ‘Mode’ button allows you to choose between recording modes. The options are ‘Normal’ and ‘Centre Cancel’, which is used to make any vocals you record more prominent. The problem with this is that it beats your music with it’s archaic mixing hammer and leaves you with a lot of noticeable system-intervention. Both of these modes use ‘Flat Amp Simulate’, which is a preset EQ that translates well to your amp.

Combined with ‘Shift’, this button also gives you the options for endings, so you can fade out, or set the machine to stop at the end of the current loop. Or there’s always the old-fashioned way if you’re the hands-on sort.

Reverse and Auto-Record

The two remaining buttons represent the icing on the RC-20XL’s cake. ‘Reverse’ is the first, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. Hit the button, and your phrase plays in reverse. Cool if you’re into odd ambient soundscapes or delving into the glamorous world of subliminal, guitar-based, Satanic messages.

The second is ‘Auto-Record’, which sets the pedal to start recording when it picks up sound from your instrument. In other words, when you start playing, it records automatically. This button also has a dual function, so it can also be used (you guessed it, with the aid of the magical ‘Shift’ button) to set your phrases to play as a loop or in ‘One Shot’ mode, which simply plays your phrase through once. This is useful if you have sections of a song stored in various places, but you would ideally need to purchase the external pedals to get the smoothest change.

Some Considerations

Having now been technologically eclipsed by the Boss RC-30 and Boss RC-500, the RC-20XL is not the most high-tech looper you can buy these days. The memory, though sufficient for general use, is not enough if you want to use it to store hours of backing tracks, and there isn’t the option of saving phrases externally via USB. Essentially, eleven is your lot. Also, technologically, it’s worth noting that the RC-20XL only records in mono.

There is also a slightly audible hiss when you go through the unit to your amp. Aside from that the pedal does not generally affect your tone, however. It is transparent, only messing around with your sound in ways that you want it to. If you stack up overdub after overdub there is some loss in sound quality, but that is to be expected.

Positives

First, it should be noted that some users of the newer mid-size pedal from Boss, the RC-30 Loop Station, have complained about a quarter of a second lapse in sound when switching between loops, which is not a problem on the RC-20XL.

The pedal is also very user friendly, and if you have some experience with loopers it’s almost intuitive. Additionally, the manual is very helpful, and after a few minutes of being a bookworm, you’ll be back to noodling like a star. You can use the RC-20XL to improve your playing, either by soloing over an endless backing track, or using it’s features. For example, the ability to adjust a piece’s tempo could serve as a daily shred workout to gradually improve speed. It is, in a lot of ways, a vital companion for the solo guitar player.

The main issue I must come back to is the necessity of additional pedals if you’re looking to use the RC-20XL efficiently in live performance. It comes at a more affordable price than the larger RC-50, but you have to remember to tack on the cost of the additional foot pedals if you’ll need them and a power adapter (also no included). Notably, the RC-20XL can run on batteries, but that gets expensive after a while.

Conclusion

Overall, the RC-20XL is an affordable, accessible loop pedal. Although it doesn’t have quite the functionality of the larger RC-50, it is a great mid-sized looper. There are some hidden functions that you have to read the manual to understand, and you might have to spend a bit of money to get a solid live set-up. On the whole, however, the RC-20XL provides more than enough for standard looping and is a vital tool for many guitarists.

Where to Buy

• Amazon: Boss RC-20XL Loop Station
• Reverb: Boss RC-20XL Loop Station

Boss RC-20XL Demo Video