Originally Ed Sheeran's Looper Pedal - The Boss RC-20XL

Originally Ed Sheeran's Looper Pedal - The Boss RC-20XL

Ed Sheeran has exploded in popularity over the last year.  His catchy song, Thinking Out Loud, is stuck in my head even as I write this sentence.  The great thing about him is that he's getting a lot of people to dig acoustic guitar, fingerpicking, and looping.

A lot of great players, like Phil Keaggy, have used looper pedals for effect, or to build out a solo show.

But Ed Sheeran is the man of the hour.  Equipboard.com  has a terrific breakdown of the system Sheeran uses now.  Amazingly, it required 6 months of research and even still is a mashup of custom gear, off-the-shelf gear, custom-written software, and requires a sound engineer to "keep an eye on things" to prevent mistakes.

This, unfortunately, is a bit beyond the average guitar player.

What was more interesting to me is that Sheeran started out doing most of his early gigs on a simple Boss pedal - the Boss RC-20XL. So if you're looking to gear up for some solo acoustic work, this is originally Ed Sheeran's looper pedal - and it's worth checking out.

The Boss RC-20XL Phrase Looper Pedal

[vc_single_image image="427" img_size="medium"]  The Boss RC-20XL Phrase Looper pedal is great because it combines a few key things:

  • Long recording time: up to 16 minutes
  • Lots of loops: up to 11 loops at a time
  • Easy to use: The built-in auto quantize makes for simple and accurate loop timing
  • Fixable: Undo function makes it easy to create perfect loops

It helps that it's a foot pedal.  I've used some rack-based looper systems.  But even with the attachable foot pedals, these systems don't seem as intuitive.  Something in a guitar player's genetic code trusts a foot pedal.

The RC-20XL is actually a discontinued model, but you can find some used ones hanging around.

View Used Models >>>

New & Improved

Boss has also issued a new version of the pedal - the Boss RC-30 Phrase Looper Pedal.

The new and improved model boasts 3 hours of recording, USB connection, built-in effects, and quite a bit more.

View on Amazon >>>  [vc_single_image image="428" img_size="270x270"]

Have you used the Boss Phrase Looper pedals?  What did you think?