I was going to sell this thing. But! Now I've figured out a way to use this thing in a really cool way.
The little stutter going from "record" to "play" always bugged the shit out of me. So, a few friends came over to play this weekend and we connected a Yamaha DD55 to the RC-50. The RC-50 was the master. This seems to be the only way to use sync with the RC-50. No matter, as it works great like this. The DD55 (a hugely under-appreciated device) syncs to the RC-50's tempo. No more stutter as the loops are perfectly set.
Now the DD55 with somewhat decent sounds can played by a drummer or percussionest with a basic click track to guide them and the loops on the RC-50 never drift like with a real drum set.
The click track can be on the DD55 and be a basic hihat, or conga. Or it can be on the RC-50. Either way, it can still very musical. This weekend we are going to experiment with different wav files imported into the RC 50 as rhythm guides. Also, we setup the DD55 to trigger BFD which sounds as good as any drum set.
This could be the we gig from now on. Fewer mouths to feed, smaller stages are now available and setup is easy and quick.
The only concern is hearing the initial guides. So monitoring is key. So far it seem very doable. We have a gig in few weeks that we are going to do this way. Ill let you guys know how it went.
MFC