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RC-20

Hi,

First time poster, though I've done a fair amound of lurking on the
archives on the web.

I'm not really a looper yet, but am hoping to get into it quite soon. Most
of my performances are as a solo singer-songwriter playing acoustic guitar.
My primary use of a looper would be to create grooves and backgrounds to
solo over. There would be more to it than that, I know, but that's the main
use.

The LD4 looks great to me, with all the features and flexibilty I would
need, except for the 14.4 second maximum on loops. So I've been intrigued
by the RC-20.

I tried it out for a while at Guitar Center today, with the clerk hanging
right there, since they had just got one unit in and he was very interested
himself.

Having up to 5.5 minutes for a loop is a HUGE plus. I'm not interested in
using any pre-recorded loops, so I think I could clear those out and have
the entire memory available for a live loop.

But there seems to be one main drawback as far as I can tell. With the LD4,
when you are recording a loop and want to set the end point, depending on
the switch you use you can have the loop start again either in play mode or
overdub mode, a nice flexibility.

But with the RC-20 it seems there is not that same flexibilty. You set the
end point of the loop and have it restart by hitting the left switch. This
leaves you with the loop playing, like play mode on the LD4. To get into
overdub mode you have to hit the same switch again. I imagine with practice
one could get this sequence down pretty well, but you'd never be able to
get to a mode where you're overdubbing right from the re-start of the loop.

This seems like it would be a real pain. I'd love to know there is a way
around this.

The other thing is the lack of the function the expression pedal adds to
the LD4 of controlling the loop level.

The question is whether the much longer loop time compensates for this. I'm
thinking it might end up doing do for me. But if someone could tell me I'm
missing something about how to go right into overdub mode, that would be
great...




Tim Helmen
Debut CD "Room For Cream" available June 2001
info at http://TimHelmen.com
tim@TimHelmen.com