BB Midi tempo sync with boss rc5

Hi all,
thought i would share my experience syncing BB and Boss RC5 for those who have similar queries like I had initially, now that i have used them for couple of months, these points cover all the answers to the questions above.

When BB set as Master and Rc5 as slave:

  1. They sync very well, BB sends the tempo and also sends signal to RC5 for pause, unpause, stop.
  2. On Fills and transitions, the Rc5 loop keeps playing.
  3. The Rc5 loop only starts to play after the intro has finished. And stops at the end of the BB Outro.
  4. Pausing BB stops the Rc5 loop. Unpausing BB starts the Rc5 loop from the beginning. And is always in sync.
  5. The BB and Rc5 stays synced as long as they are both set to same Time signature.
  6. You can pause and unpause the Rc5 loop anytime independently while still having the BB playing. Here, again, pause on Rc5 will be STOP the loop, And an unpause will start the loop from the beginning.
  7. You have to unpause the Rc5 loop at the beginning of the BB 1st measure to have them re-synced. It is really easy to achieve the re-sync.
  8. On the fly changing the tempo on BB changes the pitch of the Rc5 loop.

Now,
When Rc5 as master and BB as slave.

  1. You cannot really do much with this setup. The Rc5 sends Tempo to BB and the beat on BB will play with the tempo that Rc5 auto reads from your loop. So it will be on sync. BUT only with a BB song without an intro.
  2. If you have an intro on a song on BB, and lets say, you recorded a loop on Rc5 and the Rc5 triggers START to BB at the start of the loop playback, the BB intro kicks in. And… boy, you will be so out of sync that you cant even think of making it right.
  3. the Rc5 start command triggers BB to start and the Rc5 stop command Pauses the BB.
  4. the multi function dial knob on the Rc5 reacts to the BB, when rotated, 01 memory will locate first song of the first folder of BB. 02 memory will locate the second song of the same folder. and so on… it only reacts to the very First folder of the BB.

I may have missed some other features but will surely update when i come across them.
please feel free to ask any question related to these two devices and i will try to answer prior to your purchase decision.
If you were to ask me, I always have my BB set as Master.

cheers.

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