Review: Practicing with an Boss RC-20 Loopstation

[hdiddy]

I wanted to write something up about this particular effects pedal that I've had for years now and I have recently dusted it off and trying it out again. Before I played bass, I used to play guitar in which I'd use this Loopstation for practicing purposes:

http://www.zzounds.com/item--BOSRC20XL

Basically everything is nearly foot pedal controlled. It has a metronome that can be set by tapping the tempo on one of the pedals. The pedal only counts in 4/4 time but you can record without the metronome as well. I think it's a pedal mainly used in the jazz realm by guys like Bill Frisell and John Scofield to set up different backgrounds in which they would layer on top of.

Now I've been applying it to my practice routine by hooking it up to my keyboard. This is better than just any keyboard as the pedal will loop whatever you play into it continously. Perfect for setting up a vamp or if you wish, record a chorus or two of a tune and then you can practice over it. It's a little more work since you have to set up your loops (although up to 10 tracks can be recorded up to 16 min total) but it is a heckova lot better than using BinAB.

Now obviously I could hook it directly up to the bass but since I have a keyboard set up I use the keyboard as I will get perfect intonation coming from an electronic appliance. I have been learning some jazz voicings as well so I get a twofold benefit there: being force to learn the voicing and then doing solo practice over said voicing so I can get a different sound in my head.

One new discovery has been intontation practice for scales. I can bang out chord tones for a particular scale over several bars and then practice my scales over said loop. Instead of having just a drone, I can now get a bigger palette to build my relative pitch hearing.

So far, pretty damn good and pretty damn cool if you don't have the $$$ to get a big keyboard. Next month I am buying myself an early bday present. Korg is releasing the next generation Triton Keyboard (a whole lot less expensive than they used to be) in which case it will render this little pedal obsolete as a practice too. It looks like it's still a bit pricey but if you can get your hands on one of these and don't want to pay big $$$ for a full on sequencer, this might be the ticket.

[EADG mx]

I do this and it's great but it makes more sense to just use Aebersolds etc

[hdiddy]

Aebersolds can be nice... only when they have the song you need to learn.

[clochard]

Have to agree that loopers are nice.
I've been practicing with the jamman, similar pedal from digitech.
Just with the bass though. As a metronome, a recorder, a play-along with your own self...
As mentionned, it's amazing for creating and performing background music. I use it in a show where I storytell with bass+synths in the background, all recorded live. Lots of fun.

[Phil Smith]

Although the loop station will work for that a small sequencer such as the Yamaha QY100 provides far more flexibility with respect to what you can do for practice purposes. You can create loops, drones, progressions, and drum parts to practice against.