RC-505 as live gig loops trigging device for a band

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Robotomy
Posts: 2
Joined: 13:52, 3 October 2013

RC-505 as live gig loops trigging device for a band

Post by Robotomy »

Hi All,
I play guitar in an Italian electronic rock band.
I’m also involved in music composing and electronic sound integration together with our keyboardist.
I like also producing electronic music and in the past I’ve been frequently on stage with some experimental/dance projects where I seriously used computers, controllers and other digital stuff.
After this experience I decided to avoid possibly the “computers” on stage preferring dedicated devices designed to play music only.
This choice have been taken for many reasons including reliability, musical “feeling” and simplicity.
In my current project we use electronic loops which are triggered during playing: we send a metronome click to the drummer and to the keyboard player and we “play” the loops in sync when required.
To do this we used for some time a ZOOM R8 recorder/sampler which is able to play up to 4 stereo sample tracks per time and sending a separate metronome click to the phones output.
ZOOM R8 (and his big brother R24..) is a pretty device but it lacks of some critical features and it's not an optimal solution for semi-professional use. One of its main problems is the output sound quality which is enough for home friendly recording purposes but it’s too low for a serious live gigging.
I have purchased the RC-505 to replace the ZOOM R8 and my first impression have been amazing.
This unit seems to be designed exactly for our purpose.
We are not interested in beatboxing and so, all the recording features of this unit are almost useless for us but all the playing features including the surface design, knob position and pads are perfect for our use.
Unfortunately when I received the unit starting to check all the features I noted a big problem which is causing us some headache…
With the R8 we are able to split the metronome sound from the main tracks sound sending on the phones the click only as reference for drummer and keyboardist. On the R8 the time beat and the loops sound can be mixed on the phones with a dedicated knob and we are able to decide the amount of each signal we want to hear (normally we mute completely the loop sound and we keep the metronome only..).
With the RC-505 we can send the “rithm” (metronome) to the phones channel only but we cannot mute the main sound of the 5 tracks on it so we cannot send a “clean” metronome signal.
This is a big problem for anyone using this amazing device in conjunction with played instruments.
Having a clean separated channel for the reference click signal is a critical need in our case.
I’m sure that adding this feature would be very simple for the Roland/Boss programmers being the RC-505 hardware ready to support it (main output and phones are separated channels already…).
An alternative solution could be sending a MIDI clock/start/stop signal to an external device such as a drum machine or a MIDI based metronome but sincerely, having in our hands a fantastic device like the RC-505 it would be a big shame to be forced to add other stuff complicating things unnecessarily (and to be honest I’m not so sure about the final result …).
Any other one have experienced similar problems?
Which kind of solution have you tried?
Any of you have suggestions or other ideas about this issue?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Robotomy
Posts: 2
Joined: 13:52, 3 October 2013

Re: RC-505 as live gig loops trigging device for a band

Post by Robotomy »

After further testing:

- "Quantize" mode doesn't work if "One Shot" mode is on, so it's impossible to synchronize single samples starting. The only way is trig them "in time" manually with the pads, for short samples can be done quite easily but for longer sequences...

- "Quantize" mode works only if "Loop Sync" mode is ON. But if "Loop Sync" is ON, the loops starting will be adjusted to match the starting point of the first recorded loop.
This means that if we start the first recorded loop which is 16 measures long and then we start a second loop with same lenght (for example) when the first is at position 13, the second loop will start playing from position 13 too......
This is a problem for who needs to launch synchronized loops in sequence. When we start the second loop we need that it starts from the beginning even if we launch it when the first is still playing...

I have contacted BOSS support asking about these issues. I think that RC-505 at the moment has been tested and optimized only for real time looping (beatboxing...) but it has still some problems if used in different ways...
I think that live looping is a very important feature for bands which merge electronic with standard playing and RC-505 can be a fantastic solution for this purpose but it still needs some critical software adjustments. RC -505 is a new device and probably (I hope so...) Roland /Boss will release sw updates which will include these adjustments.

Any other there needs the same features??? Some of you have experienced similar problems?? How have you solved??
dualmono
Posts: 4
Joined: 02:15, 27 December 2013

Re: RC-505 as live gig loops trigging device for a band

Post by dualmono »

Thanks for your explanation. You bring up some very good points Roland needs to address via an update.

See here for some notes on an audio quality issue inna and me are experiencing:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=47449

Would you be so kind and pass me the contact info to BOSS, so I could ask them about my issue with the audio quality?

Thanks.
dualmono
Posts: 4
Joined: 02:15, 27 December 2013

Re: RC-505 as live gig loops trigging device for a band

Post by dualmono »

Check the other thread for an observation on the audio issue I mentioned before.
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