BOSS Rc-505 Loop Station

Product Information

The contents of this article are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, whether mechanical or electronic, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers. And via USB, you can integrate with computer DAWs and use BOSS Tone Studio to import/export WAV loops. I’ve long been a fan of the large round pads used for recording, playback and overdub; they make perfect sense at almost any level of intoxication. There are a raft of significant improvements but, for me, the longer sliders and track FX buttons proved an instant hit for live performance. And if you aren’t satisfied with the factory content, you can import your own MIDI grooves via Boss’ Rhythm Converter software.

Subscribe to the BOSS Newsletter to get the latest articles, videos, and news about your favourite BOSS products. Whenever a track is playing, hitting that same pad invokes overdub again, and if you make a mistake, it’s easy to undo or wipe the whole track ready to go again. As before, reverse is an option and this is joined by double‑ or half‑speed modes, with the option to transpose the pitch tape‑style. Enigmatic beatboxing behemoth Inkie demonstrates exactly how he created his eerie track “Switcher” using the RC-505mkII. Assignments can be a bit daunting to set up (and to remember), but the workflow rewards are worth the effort.Though much of the layout remains familiar, the five loop tracks have grown in length to accommodate longer throw faders and an extra button, splitting the old Edit into separate FX and Track (select) buttons, the first of a number of performance-related tweaks that help push the creative efficiency of the RC-505 MkII. Great care has been taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this article but neither Sound On Sound Limited nor the publishers can be held responsible for its contents. Pushing and turning an encoder increases the amount of adjustment but, for some parameters (such as delay times that go up to 2000ms), it can still take quite a while to reach the value you want. With the RC-505’s large selection of built-in effects, it’s easy to enhance your sounds as you perform. Also, it is possible to process loops on your computer to drop back into the looper, or move loops to different tracks.

The idea is you develop a track until you’re happy, set a Mark Back point, add further overdubs and then toggle between the marked state or overdubbed state.

A deluxe looper which can’t decide whether to live on the floor or the desktop – it has footswitches and a 7” hi-res multi-touch display. Each of the RC-505mkII’s five stereo tracks now feature customisable FX and Track buttons, for on-the-fly tweaking and control over individual loops.

The original was no slouch but in this model, the sound is cleaner, the I/O more extensive, the sliders longer and the effects better. As an interface the RC-505 MkII can work with your DAW and other apps with MIDI control on the side. Neither the original RC‑505 or the MkII are typical loopers, so their feature sets are difficult to match exactly. Two external control jacks are also available for connecting footswitches or expression pedals, and each has its own dedicated set of parameters.Personally, I’d be tempted to replace those encoder caps with rounder ones, but, as you can probably tell, I’ve reached the nit‑picking stage. Neck aches aside, it’s so much faster adjusting four parameters at once, and the new Edit buttons mean that tweaking before effect activation is actually quite slick now. After an initial exploration, you soon realise the value of storing a few empty patches as templates. Six dedicated on/off buttons—three each for Input FX and Track FX—can be loaded with your favorite effects, while grab-and-go knobs let you tweak parameters such as filter cutoff and effect depth in real time.