I bought the RC-202 this week, and here are my impressions from the first week of poking around. I actually sold my Pigtronix Initity (which I was using with my hands, tabletop) to purchase/explore this 202 as complement to the Octatrack, for quick and dirty loop/one-shot work, without ALWAYS having to plan ahead, set up machines, and and menu-dive with the OT’s “looper-ing” with Pickup- or Flex-machine tracks.
Specifically, I was interested in loops whose length was defined directly (press record, press play), without having to work through the step-sequencer. Here are some of my key first impressions of the 202, in and outside of that particular interest.
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The table-top controls are well scaled with a great feel. The buttons for Play, stop, Track and Effect/Memory are big and responsive (highly preferable to hand-pushing stomp-switches on the Infinity). You can also assign up 2 foot-switches (or one Expression pedal) and 4 MIDI CCs for external control.
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The User Interfacing has some advantages and disadvantages over the RC505: While the 202 loses the per-track volume fader and text-filled LCD screen, the 202 has very clever color coding_ of Track Buttons and Memory (1~8) buttons to serve as a (glaring) reminder of context and action, instead of menu diving, which proves to be faster, and doesn’t require you keep the screen in front of you.
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Each of the 64-Loops (2 tracks each) is organized into the 8 Memory Banks of 8 Loops. I found the RC202’s color-button scheme easier to use than the 505; the buttons not only (colorfully) show you which slots have loops stored, but also jump seamlessly, AND let you copy/save the present-playing loops into multiple OTHER slots at once, all without stoppage. This lets you permute freely and intuitively. Just be careful not to tax the processor with effects or Undo’s while Saving, or the 3-digit LCD will say “EGO” (…“Error 90” for “CPU overload”). Thankfully, no amount of EGO-overload made the loops stop dead.
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The 202 was not able to do sample-accurate loop sync as MIDI slave… it was un-usably losing sync within a few bars, and trying to thin out MIDI reception (Omni turned off, Auto-modes off) did not help. Perhaps it’s from unstable clock from the 20-year old Sirius groove-synth used to test…
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The 202 fared MUCH better with sync as MIDI Master. I’m happy to use 202 as clock master, given the dedicated Tap button blinks red on the bar and green on the beats (again, better than having to look into a screen).
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The Unit has direct (and color coded) buttons for each Loop’s Reverse playback direction, Loop / OneShot state, and one layer of Undo / Redo. This makes it easy to change how loops are used once they’re recorded. Same goes for toggling the Record mode into Replace, so you can insert/delete loops as you go. Embrace the destructive editing !
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There is no Start Mode parameter: If both are stopped, you can start one Track at any time. Once one in playing, the 2nd Track has already started to stays aligned, so pushing Play does not (re)start that 2nd track, but un-mutes it. Thus, the 202’s Tracks do not have the the ability to be (re)start at arbitrary alignments from each other. It would be nice to have some Start Mode options beyond this.
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the unit’s Rhythm Guide is very handy, as it not only gives an audible tempo to cue up, but also determines if and how loop operations will be quantized. The Guide’s sounds are fine, but there are not enough Time Signature options. Specifically, while does have 2/4 thru 4/4 and 5/8 thru 15/8 (just like the RC505, and the foot-pedal RC50)… it would be REALLY nice to have one-Beat-per-Bar options like 1/4 and 1/8, or even stuff down to the 16th note, because of how these Bar-Length settings of the guide affect Loop Quantization… Such arbitrary granularity would allow the 202 to keep up with the OT, or even the 10+ year old Gibson EDP looper.
The unit will always Quantize your loops to/for tempo sync different ways, depending on how it’s set up.
- There is no “Free” loop mode for out-of-sync ambient work (such as on the RC pedals).
- there is no “Loop Length” option; where previous RCs could let you pre-determine the length in Bars (at tempo) or by the length of the first loop, the RC202 will ONLY record a second loop that is a power of 2 (…1/4, 1/2, 1x, 2x, 4x, etc) multiple of the first loop. It will either delay recording start of, or delay end-record/start-play of, your other loop so that it’s always in base-2 sync with the first-recorded loop. Thus, you cannot make short-loops into polyrhythms.
Beyond this set of the 202’s options (or lack thereof) being more restrictive than the 505 et al, there are a few desirable settings/combinations that are not available within the 202’s own configurable settings, specifically, the Quantization and Rhythm Guide. This is my biggest frustration so far, because I want to record loops of arbitrary beat-lengths (such as 7 quarter-notes, or perhaps 5 eighth-notes, etc) determined directly by the timing of punching IN/OUT a new recording, with recording (and related operations) quantized to the Beat…
Quantization and the Clock (at present) interact thusly:
- with the Rhythm Guide ON, you can only start Recording at the Bar (not on the beat) so you not only have to wait for your bar to come around, you have to decide ahead of time what time signature you’re working in. The Rhythm Guide ON will also hold the BPM as clock Master if Sync is set to Auto-detect master/slave.
- with the Rhythm Guide OFF, your loop length is not quantized, but when 202 is MIDI Clock Master, it will automatically calculate a new BPM from the Guide’s Meter (Bar length) and broadcast this. Thus, the unit preemptively assumes/limits you to certain meters.
For me, the limits of the above 2 points could be solved if they simply expanded the Quantize options to include the time-signatures of 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16 time. This way, I don’t have to wait for the (Guide’s) Bar to finish, as my Bar and Beat are the same period of time.
Quantize settings are stored on the System (global) level, where the Rhythm (and thus Bar/Meter) settings are stored at the Bank (of 8 phrases) level. There are some handy features to require a (1 Bar) count-in before recording and/or playback, stored on a per-bank level, so you can start different “songs” differently.
Thankfully, the 202 allows you to configure the headphones mix differently from the Main outs, so you can isolate the Rhythm Guide to the headphones only. You can also put the Input sound in headphones only, so it does not pass thru to outputs, which is the dry kill necessary when I use it in an aux loop.
As of this posting, there were only two other snags that frustrated me (beyond the Loop Size / Quantize rant above).
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While I could get the unit to store my Bank settings (Rhythm, FX, Loop Content), the unit only saves System settings (quantize, Clock Master, etc) if you power off using the unit’s switch (and power-down sequence)…so be carful with making edits if you have this switched on/off by a studio strip.
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while the unit has a hardware Input Trim for the XLR mic setting, and the Main and Phones output are set by editing System menus (but not saved!), there is no hardware or software Trim for the Line Inputs, so it can confound your gain structure.
Overall, the RC202 shows some interesting advancements toward a more quick interface and expressive processing. I REALLY hope Roland address all of the above settings and freedom-of-loop-timing issues with a follow up software update.
This is a LOT of power in a small package with a great interface, and I hope it’s years ahead bring growth instead of obsolescence.
