BOSS RC 505

I bought a multichannel looper last week!

It arrived yesterday, and I could not be happier so far. It's rare that a piece of equipment works exactly as you expect and with no curve balls almost as soon as you start using it, but after like 20 minutes of messing with settings, it just does exactly what I expect it to do. I'm so glad I just... got the thing I wanted instead of something cheaper that would work less well 😅

I've had my eyes on something like this for a while- there's an incredible producer and improv songwriter on Twitch named ARIatHOME (https://www.twitch.tv/ariathome) who uses the RC 505 to make extremely impressive mixes from scratch using midi soundbanks and fx controls.

There is a new value in simplicity. I usually think about songs as a line- A path that starts in one place and rises/falls till it arrives at another place. In this framework, it's easy to see the whole picture and think about how ideas and motifs will develop and change throughout the song...

But a looper is different. Suddenly there is a very real limitation to the way parts can change over time. It's easy to make things grow/layer, but impossible to alter the details after it's been added... Obviously there are some songs that just cant work in this format, but there are others that really can!

I got this tool with the idea of using it to play more live shows, and so far it seems like it will work well for that. I have a few songs that have been in the works for a while that I think could lend themselves well to the limitations of the looper. It's interesting how a tool like this challenges my ideas about how I appreciate simple v.s. complex song structure. Songs that are more repetitive/simple have often felt like a chore to practice and make me roll my eyes when I feel like I haven't come up with a more interesting variation- but suddenly the only things that can be played and made whole in this format are simple things!... come to think of it... often in my songwriting at the piano or guitar, I'll reach for a different voicing or a different way to put energy into a repeated section- perhaps there is a way to keep the simplified core in place and overdub the loop to add harmonic complexity. I wouldn't be able to be as precise as I might if I were using a whole instrument, but there might still be a way to make something satisfying.

I imagine this looper being a very good tool for my live sets with the Moog. I've met a lot of amazing musicians and artists recently, and it's made me realize that there is a ton of value in having something like an analogue synthesizer that sets you apart from the other acts who might come before or after you. We are all artist, we are all making really cool music, but having a pallet of sounds to play with that's so different from the typical acoustic guitar + vocal will really stand out! The RC 505 has a lot of built in FX too. I typically ignore this kind of stuff, but I was looking through the options yesterday and it seems surprisingly robust! The 505 has a fairly simple and dedicated interface to access the FX and modulate them live. The tools themselves are very neutral and appreciable too- simple, effective, standard stuff like Low/highpass filters, Delay, Reverb, pitch modulation... Before I had it in my hands I never saw myself using these, but they honestly might be the key to gluing everything together and making the arc of a song feel complete and interesting. I'm excited to experiment with it more!