'How To' Articles

4 WAYS THE BOSS RC-10R CAN INSPIRE CREATIVITY

The RC-10R is a new breed of loop station which combines a song-structured two track loop engine with high quality drum grooves from the extensive Roland sound catalogue. This is an amazing new tool for musicians, whether it’s used to bring a new level of dynamics to your live performance, or to help you sketch out songs in the studio!

Contributed by Ed Lim for the Roland Australia Blog

Song-based looping for the next generation

How does the RC-10R work? Well, it’s based around two key ideas – song-structured looping, and smart drum grooves. While the classic RC-30 uses two parallel tracks (basically, two tracks running next to each other), the RC-10R uses two tracks in series (two tracks running one after another). This allows you to record separate verse and chorus loops and switch between them at the press of a footswitch!

And it’s only logical that these distinct verse/chorus parts are also paired with different drum parts, right? Exactly – so for each of the 280+ onboard grooves that you can choose from, you’ll get two separate verse and chorus drum parts which you can switch between via footswitch. To add an extra dimension of spontaneity and realism, you can trigger drum fills whenever you want!

So let’s get into whether the RC-10R is the right loop pedal for your needs. Keep in mind, these are just a few possible uses for the RC-10R, the rest is up to you and your imagination!

1. As a performance tool

The verse/chorus structure of the RC-10R immediately lends itself to being used by performers, whether you’re a soloist or in a duo and want to make a bigger impact with your performance. Using the unit in “SYNC” mode means that you’ll get the looped instrument sounds and the drum rhythms working in harmony to help you create tight verse/chorus arrangements on the fly. However, you do have the choice to uncouple the loops from the drums and use it more like a traditional loop station.

As with any live looping performance, you can go the traditional way of building up your instrumental loops from scratch, but the more complex your arrangement, the longer this can take (and the higher the risk that you’ll lose attention of the audience).

With RC-10R, obviously the first big time-saver is that you don’t have to build up a percussive groove – great drum sounds are already there for you! Additionally, you can either save parts of your loops beforehand (for example, pre-record some main chord changes, and live loop the melody lines and embellishments), or even load complete backing tracks onto the unit, helping you to achieve a tight, punchy performance that will keep the audience’s eyes and ears focused on you!

If you’re performing original music with the RC-10R, you can even import your own Standard MIDI File (SMF) drum grooves onto the unit to use with the high quality onboard drumkits!

If you choose to run straight into a guitar amp, the unit has handy filters that can be applied only to the drum sound, to give you as close to a full drum sound as you can get. Or, if you’ve got a PA, you can send the drums straight to the desk using one of the stereo outs.

2. As a practice tool

RC-10R is packed with high quality drum grooves and sounds, whether you’re playing rock, pop, Latin, jazz or even if you want to get some 808 beats in there! There are over 280 onboard grooves to choose from with a variety of different kit sounds.

This makes it the ideal practice companion for when you’re stuck at home, lacking inspiration, or aren’t able to jam with other musicians.

Just load up one of the countless drum grooves, lay down a basic rhythm, and start building those chops! It sure beats playing to a click. Check out the amazing Andy James lay down a furious improvised solo over some of the metal grooves onboard the unit:

3. As a songwriting tool

It’s always easier to write a song with a bit of a groove happening. And the RC-10R has plenty of groove! Similar to your practice scenario, just choose a groove in your genre of choice, and start looping your song ideas to help you develop vocal melodies or other instrument parts, all the while being backed up by a great “drummer”.

Or maybe even try to step out of your comfort zone and dial in a Heavy Rock groove but using an 808-inspired electronic kit – inspiration can come from many different directions!

Here’s a great video from Gear Gods showing how the RC-10R can inspire all you to write alt rock, soul, metal, and everything in between!

4. As a smart drum machine

Well, it is first and foremost a loop station, but we think the onboard drum grooves are so much fun that you don’t even need to worry about the looping part sometimes! Want to jam with a friend but don’t have a drummer? Chuck the RC-10R in your gig bag and away you go.

You’ve got the verse/chorus grooves to switch between at the press of a footswitch, and you can trigger a drum fill at any time – to be honest, it might even be easier than jamming with an actual drummer! Disclaimer: we can’t be held responsible for hurt feelings when your drummer stops getting invited to jam night…

LOOPING – THE NEXT GENERATION

The RC-10R is a new approach to looping, and as countless artists across the world have done with our other loop stations, we’re sure that you’ll find many creative and out of the box ways to make music with it!