TL;DR 6 loops is a lot, every button is assignable, effects are OK, it’s a good portable audio interface.
I’ve had this box for about a year and originally got it for its 6-track looping capabilities, and I feel like I learn something new about it every week. It is so portable and feature-packed, I ended up selling off my other guitar effects pedals—and one of them was a Helix Floor, btw. And it worked great for my November 2024 set at the Y2K looping festival.
What is this thing, really?
It’s a computer that happens to process audio: that’s the best way to think about it.
There are some small black menu buttons for adjusting the settings, there’s 4 twist/push knobs below the display, and then there’s 9 assignable stomp buttons (technically “pedals”). And those buttons can do just about anything. Oh, and it accepts MIDI which can also affect just about any parameter or RC-600 function.
It’s a lot. Almost too much. (I had similar feelings about the Helix Floor.)
So I simplified:
- I mostly bounce between recording loops and setting effects
- Mode 1 = loops
- Mode 2 = effects
- Mode 3 = for special loops and to end a performance
When in Mode 1 or Mode 3, I paired up the buttons so that:
- The left button is for recording and playing a loop. If you tap it while playing it will overdub. And if you hold down, it will undo the last recording on this track.
- The right button is tap to stop, hold to erase.
And in the performance I generally used the loops as:
- Mode 1, Track 1: bass
- Mode 1, Track 2: “other chords”, usually a pre-chorus
- Mode 1, Track 3: rhythm texture
- Mode 3, Track 4: beatbox
- Mode 3, Track 5: (unused)
When it came to Billie Jean, I ended up flipping Track 3 and Track 2 (the G to D# chords ended up on T3), but managed to remember it was flipped. You can see the planned song chart.
Mode 2: Effects
Since my workflow is 1) choose effects then 2) set the loops, I put all of the effects management on Mode 2:
The RC-600 has 4 input effects banks (Bank A, Bank B, Bank C, Bank D), and each bank has 4 effects (FX A, FX B, FX C, FX D). The best workflow I found was having 4 buttons dedicated to the effects and 2 bank switching buttons. It does mean you have to remember which bank you’re on, but I generally was going between Bank A and Bank B.
You can also choose what inputs the FX affects. I always wanted the mic to be clean (not even reverb), so all FX just affect the Instrument 1 guitar input.
In the performance I had the banks set up as:
- Bank A, FX A: Guitar-to-bass (G2B). Drops the guitar by 1 octave and does some EQ tricks.
- Bank A, FX B: Distortion. Mostly for leads.
- Bank A, FX C: Chorus. To fatten up the sound.
- Bank A, FX D: Reverb. To add depth.
- Bank B, FX B: Deep chorus. To pull the sound into the background.
- Bank B, FX D: Deep reverb. To soften the sound into the background.
- Bank C, FX B: Distortion. Crank that lead.
- Bank C, FX C: Deep chorus. Widen the sound.
- Bank C, FX D: Panning delay. Give the lead depth.
(See the full settings below.)
I wanted a minimal setup; you could connect a MIDI controller and control all the effects and switch banks by tapping buttons. The RC-600 has a whole menu for mapping any MIDI input to almost any function.
Switching modes
The default mode selector is the top row left button (Button 7). The factory setting is to tap it to change the bottom row buttons (Buttons 1-6) from tracks 1-3 to tracks 4-6. Then holding the button switches to effects mode.
I wanted something faster and I only needed 3 loop tracks. So I used Button 7 to switch between Track 1-Track 3 and FX A-FX D. Button 7 then gives 1 tap access between the two modes; if in Mode 2, holding Button 7 goes to Mode 3. And Mode 3 is where I put the All Tracks start/stop and the Metronome on/off. (I am super bad at timing so I need a metronome.)
Custom metronome
The RC-600 does have built-in drum loops, but I wanted to try beatboxing in percussion. And in spite of setting the “orb” indicator to the current beat and making Button 8 flash the tempo, I still wanted an audible metronome. The RC-600 lets you create your own!
I made a simple 1-bar drum sequence in Ableton Live and exported it as MIDI. Then using the BOSS RC Rhythm Converter app you can store that as a custom rhythm on the RC-600.
Then I set the metronome to start whenever a loop begins recording. This means I can start the set in silence and then when I begin arming a Track for recording the metronome kicks in.
Expression pedal
Rather than having to twist the gain knob on the guitar during the performance, I wanted to have an expression pedal I could rock back and forth. Having the floor pedal really opened up being able to adjust the input intensity while in the middle of strumming.
In the Assignments setup I set the “EXP 1” source to modify the “INST1-L LEVEL” input from 48 to 100—I call that “50%” and “100%”. I tried modifying 0 to 100, but then it’s just too finicky.
Then means when I want to have Instrument 1 be more in the background I can rock the pedal back all the way and know it will only be about half the volume. I used that for the bass and many of the Track 2 chords. Then I rock the pedal to 100% when I want to play leads.
Loop quantization syncing, tempo
Quantizing loops is literally the one feature that makes my set possible. I am so bad at timing that I will always be off by a fraction of a second; quantizing to the tempo fixes this.
In the Record settings you can quantize to the measure (and you can set the number of beats per measure). This lets you tap in a 1/4 measure, 1/2 measure, full measure, 2 measures, 4 measures, and so on. And with Loop Sync you can set it so if you trigger the recording/playback slightly before or after the measure it will still sync perfectly to the 1 beat.
This means: those of us with lazy timing end up with perfect length loops.
Also, with tempo syncing set to “XFADE”, I can change the loop playback without affecting pitch. (The RC-600’s tempo sync is a little rough: on sustained chords you will hear a warble.) But my strategy was generally to change the tempo and then rerecord the loops.
Overall impressions
The BOSS RC-600 does a lot for such a portable unit. The flexibility of its assignments and all the input sources make for a great gigging tool. And it’s a decent audio interface too.
Additional info
RC-600 FX Bank Settings
RC-600 Assignable Stomp Button Settings
Comparison to a Line 6 Helix Floor for live looping
TL;DR The Helix Floor is a great effects processor and not a great looper. The RC-600 is a great looper and an OK effects processor.
I had a Helix Floor for a couple of years. It was definitely an amazing platform. It too was basically a computer with lots of inputs and outputs, almost everything assignable.
It turned out to be too complicated and didn’t support looping well.
For strengths, the Helix Floor has great IR and the UI was very easy to use. It also has solid desktop software so it’s possible to manage everything on the computer and then set up the device for performances. It was a great audio interface and could basically do anything whether it was instrument, mic, optical, or USB.
For weaknesses, it was large and heavy. I bought a gig bag and almost broke it. The built-in expression pedal had a cool function of stepping down hard to change it to be a “second pedal”, but 1) it’s a heavy stomp, and 2) it’s easy to accidentally stomp when rocking the pedal forward.
But mostly, the Helix Floor didn’t do looping well. You can add a looper that has undo/redo and you can put it in the chain or at the end of the chain, but you can only have 1. And if you change the current program, it can erase the looper data.
Not so with the RC-600: it has 6 independent tracks and the effects are separate. And, if you want to pre-write your whole set, you could record loops ahead of time and save them into the RC-600’s “memories”. You can also set up track effects per song so there’s minimal pedal-pushing.
I think it comes down to your use case:
- Do you want to craft a specific sound and better software management? Helix Floor.
- Are you OK with menu-diving and just-OK effects? RC-600.
- Do you want a big screen and an integrated pedal? Helix Floor.
- Are you performing prewritten songs or need complex looping setups? RC-600.