Boss RC-3 Loop Station Looper Pedal Review - Sweetwater Sound

In this video, I put my attention on the BOSS RC-3 Loop Station. This is a feature-packed looper in the standard, BOSS compact-pedal format. Three hours of available loop-time, true stereo I/O, 99 memory slots, a rhythm guide, a stereo 1/8" MP3 player input, and a USB port are all part of this amazing little pedal.

As we have come to expect with all BOSS products, the RC-3 is very guitarist-friendly. It sounds great plugging a guitar in and going straight to a guitar amp. It also works perfectly with other pedals, as you can hear in the intro of the video; I used a BOSS DS-1X distortion for the non-looped, solo guitar. The RC-3 is rock solid and stage ready, and can be powered with either a standard BOSS PSA adapter or a 9V battery. This guy is ready for any pedalboard.

Boss did a great job of making all of the features accessible on the RC-3, even though there's not much physical space available for knobs and buttons. A little experimentation and a quick look at the owner's manual and I was navigating the RC-3 with no problem. I started building a loop at about the 1:50 mark in the video and you can see that most of the features are one or two buttons away. Start, stop, record, overdub, and erase can all be accomplished with the RC-3's built-in footswitch.

The Rhythm Guide makes seamless looping easier in a variety of ways. Simply having either a time keeper or a drum pattern lets you know exactly where to start and stop playing but the RC-3 also starts and stops recording on the measure so you don't have to have perfect timing with the footswitch. There's even the option to set up a "count-in bar" so the recording doesn't start until after one measure of the rhythm guide has played. There's a variety of onboard drum patterns and a separate volume control for the Rhythm Guide. You can use it to help build your track, and you have the option to mute it for performance.

Having a USB port offers the ability to save created loops to your computer or to upload tracks onto the RC-3 for use in loops. An external footswitch can be connected so more of the features can be one-touch available. This would be particularly useful if you were using the looper in a performance and needed footswitchable access to more parameters

Whether you're just getting your feet wet with looping, or you're a looping pro that needs lots of features in a small package, the RC-3 fills the bill. It's great-sounding, easy to use and I had fun making loops with it. Thanks for checking out the video!

-- Don Carr

#Sweetwater #Boss

[Robylazarus]

Don, very simple but effective vid, great playing as well. Thank you for sharing this. Kind regards.

[jonisalo]

I just ordered this looper yesterday and I am really excited! I can hardly wait for it to arrive from Germany. :)

[michaelmattson]

I have a few pedals. I have the Chorus pedal, the Sdrum Pedal, the Tube Screamer, the Digital Delay as well as the Distortion Pedal. I also have an electronic pedal with every sound in it. A loop station sounds neat to own though as it appears to multi track record. I currently play in a worship band.

[Marc-rnr]

The best demo vid on YouTube about this product...thanks

[BernieBriocon]

A pedal well worth it Merits, Boss works tirelessly to bring us luxury. I have one for the good cause!

[TheZacdes]

Many are having trouble with effects being added to all dubs not just the one they want. The order of effects is crucial. Look it up!! If you have a "send/return, run the looper through that, pedals after the guitar in ther PROPER order. YOu can find this in a hundred places here, just look up pedal order setup! If you have a Boss Katana, go to tone studio, "chain" section and find the chain out of the three that are there that only records the effect on the dub you want. EASY:)

[jessereyna]

I love the second and final blues demo this guy came up with! That was a really good demo of how that pedal really works. Kind of makes me wanna own one one day? LOL!

[fromgreetings]

You connect a U-Pad, Me-Pod, i-Pot, Do-Pit, My-Pud. It works floorless Lee straight right out the box.

[SteveStockmalMusic]

Remember...you’ve got to plug the Output A in to turn the unit on !!!

[dougbline]

I have been wanting on for years! Fun just to mess around in your practice room and come up with some riffs or possibly a new song. This one has a drum machine built in right? I always thought so.

[jerryargenio]

thanks for this video and great guitar playing

[caseyhenderson]

Love your playing, man. Reminds me of Prince....

[brianwilkie]

with the very long record time available (3 Hours) is it possible to create a longer studio piece as a demo, say up to an hour of music, pausing to add and change instruments as you go along, i guess it would mean going back to the start each time ? and waiting to introduce the next instrument, or does the looping time stop when YOU stop only?

[JessMeyer]

does anyone know what button to press, or what to do once you've recorded a loop, to save it to the pedal? thanks x

[highhorseperthian]

Makes for a good alarm clock for three hours just crank it up to 10

[deltasigmallc]

when you said 99 presets does that mean i can make 99 different loops store it in the pedal and just choose which one i hear when i hit play

[tomrp]

I just got one. The problem I am having is that if I change a tone setting to overdub say a lead channel over a clean rhythm then the entire sound changes to dirty while running the loop playback. Once the dirty is dubbed over the clean and the two loops are saved and played back, then I assume that you will then hear the dirty and clean, but during the overdub recording it sounds like shit and will effect your playing significantly. If you have an a/b switch and can run the play back through 1 source then can you overdub the recording without compromising your tone?

Although it is fun for journaling ideas to reference later as a writing tool and chops
Builder, the tone of your guitar and amp are noticeable when you remove the pedal from your effects chain.

having said that, it is very useful and a fun way to hold on to your new ideas

[TheWindstorm]

Hi guys, I got a question: between the loops there is like a three seconds pause, can I get rid of it to have like a non-stop, continuous loop? Thanks a lot.

[tasssono]

is it possible to go out 2 different outputs? one loop in other out and another in the second...possible?

[donniedarko]

Can you record an entire riff to that loop? Like let's say that i wanna play something which is playing with 2 guitars, can i record 1 guitar and save it, and than play the second guitar while the first one is playing from the loop?