Quest for the Best: Looper Pedals
Overall
If you haven’t already read it, I suggest you start with my review of the RC-3. If you have, you know I’m on a quest to find the best looper pedal – the perfect combination of features, usability, and affordability.
The RC-1 does exactly what it’s supposed to do – no more, no less. You can create one loop with as many layers as you’d like. When you’re done, you can stop it, clear it, and start fresh.
What this pedal does well:
- It comes with a type of light display system that shows you what mode you are in (playback or record) and most importantly, it shows you where in the loop you are. I’ll admit, I did not think this would be useful at all; but, when you are recording a long loop with the same chord progression two or four times, it is actually quite helpful to know where the beginning of the loop is. So, this is a surprising point in its favor.
- It has a master volume knob for the loop track. In case you recorded everything with your guitar volume all the way up, no fret, you can just lower the loop level and still hear yourself solo over it.
- It seems the goal with this pedal was to make it as simple as possible and it’s fair to say this pedal is about as simple as possible. The RC-1 is a one-trick pony but, if that’s all you need, it does it pretty well.
- It’s the same physical size as any other Boss pedal so it should easily fit into your current pedalboard setup.
- It can run for 4.5 hours on a battery or you can plug it into the standard AC adaptor.
- It can record up to 12 minutes, which is way longer than I would ever need for a single loop.
- Just like other Boss products, it comes with a 5 year warranty regardless of from where you buy it [new].
- There’s only a few controls to master: press once to start record, once to stop record, once to stop overdubbing, twice to stop playback, once to start playback, once to start overdubbing, once to stop overdubbing, hold to undo last recording, and double tap and hold to stop and erase the entire loop.
What this pedal does not do well:
- If you are looking for something that can save your loop for later (for another day or another point in the song), keep looking.
- Like I complained about it’s big brother, the RC-3, you have to be listening to the loop to clear it. It’s a simple double tap and hold to erase the loop but, as far as I can tell, you have to do it during playback (which I find quite annoying). I wish you could just pause the loop and silently erase, but no. You can get around this, though, by turning the volume knob down and then erasing.
- Again, similar to the RC-3, the default mode is Record-Overdub-Playback (which I find quite annoying). However, it’s easy enough to switch it to Record-Playback-Overdub so this is really a non-issue. Here is a short video on how to customize those different settings.
- The light display system and knob look a little cheap to me and make the pedal look more like a toy than a tool. That said, they are both quite useful, so really this shouldn’t necessarily be a point against. They are a large part of what makes this pedal worthwhile.
Final Thoughts
The RC-1 is the perfect loop station for the guitarist that is just starting to experiment with looping. It’s a great way to get started looping without investing serious dough. The RC-1 could also be the perfect gift to give to somebody who has been playing guitar but seemingly has everything they need already. If all you want to do is create one loop (stacking or soloing on top of it) and then start completely fresh, this is the perfect pedal for you. If one of your needs includes saving loops to a memory bank, then I would recommend looking at the RC-3 or another more robust unit. Otherwise, this pedal is at least as effective and user friendly as its more expensive peers. Look no further for your first looping station.
Quest or Best?
A great option for the price, but the quest continues.
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