Hi All!
I recently purchased the Boss RC-500 looper along with the MIDI cables/adaptors to connect this unit with the BB for syncing.
This ongoing process of studying/practicing the sync between the two units led me to a few preliminary conclusions, which require further investigation and confirmation.
Summary:
i) RC500 (sync master) and BB (sync slave) seems to work fine in terms of sync, but it’s not exactly the kind functionality that I’m looking for, mostly because RC500 as master doesn’t support the BB versatility, e.g. how intro, main rhythm, etc start/stop automatically.
Anyways, I think I didn’t explore this approach enough so requires more experimentation on my behalf to understand the possibilities.
ii) BB (sync master) and RC500 (sync slave) looses sync when the fill “part1-fill3” is triggered from the song “Pop1-16ths”. This raises a suspicion that there’s a problem in this specific drum fill (sounds like that ends with a syncope). Other users reported similar problems with other songs, which raises suspicion of the latest firmware 3.9.3 update, as all complaining users were using the 3.9.x version. This requires further confirmation/testing.
For these reasons I kept testing/debugging the settings with this song and haven’t tested properly others.
For the second ii) approach I set BB and RC500 with the following settings (the parameters that seem relevant at the moment):
– BB SETTINGS (Firmware 3.9.3)
1) BB -> Main Pedal -> MIDI Settings -> MIDI IN -> System Real Time ->
1.1) Sync: enable
1.2) Start: enable
1.3) Stop: enable
2) BB -> Main Pedal -> MIDI Settings -> MIDI IN ->
2.1) MIDI In Channel Number: 16 (related to RC500 parameter a.4)
2.2) Note On: disable
2.3) Control-Change: enable
2.4) Program-Change: disable
3) BB -> Main Pedal -> MIDI Settings -> MIDI OUT ->
3.1) Output Type: Midi-out
3.2) Channel: 10 (related to RC500 parameters a.1 and a.3)
3.3) Sync: Always-on (important to be sync master, sends out midi tempo clock)
3.4) Start: Main Beat
3.5) Stop: Pause and End
3.6) Notes: disable
3.7) Next Part: enable
3.8) Time signature: enable
4) BB -> Main Pedal ->
4.1) Mute Pause: Midi-activated (!!!automatic when BB acts as slave)
4.2) Cue Fill Period: Next-half-beat (!!!)
– RC500 SETTINGS (Firmware 1.02)
a) Menu -> MIDI ->
a.1) Rx CTL: 10
a.2) Omni: off
a.3) Rx Note CH: 10
a.4) Tx CH: 16
a.5) Sync Clock: MIDI (or AUTO)
a.6) Clock Out: off (to be sync slave)
a.7) Sync Start: All
a.8) PC Out: off
a.9) MIDI THRU: off
b) Memory -> REC ->
b.1) Quantize: off (I also tried ‘on’)
b.2) Loop Length: Auto
c) Memory -> PLAY ->
c.1) Play Mode: Multi
c.2) Single Change: Loop End
c.3) All Start: All
c.4) TRK Chain: Parallel
d) Memory -> RHYTHM ->
d.1) Var.Change: Measure
d.2) BEAT: 4/4
d.3) Start: Rec End
d.4) Stop: Loop Stop
–Other observations:
––The time signature information sent by BB is not supported by RC500 apparently, perhaps a feature request to Boss for future firmware revisions. I imagine this is important if quantize is activated in the RC500. There is a parameter to change time signature under ‘Rhythm’ menu, but to the best of my knowledge it’s not accessible through MIDI messages.
––You might wish to disable BB ‘intro’ when RC500 is sync master. At the end of loop recording the RC500 sends a ‘start’ message to BB, if ‘intro’ is enabled BB begins the loop with the intro drum fill and then after the goes to the main groove.
Please share your experience and thoughts, I will had update this post has I gather more info.
Thank you
