BOSS announces the RC-505mkII and RC-600, two new flagship models in the renowned Loop Station product lineup. The five-track RC-505mkII brings next-generation power and flexibility to the world's most popular tabletop looper, giving performers an expanded range of inspiring and customizable tools for hands-on music creation. The RC-600 takes floor-based looping where it's never gone before, offering six stereo tracks, advanced foot control, and highly configurable operation. Both new Loop Station models feature class-leading 32-bit sound, a massive onboard effects selection, built-in rhythms, versatile connectivity, external control support, and USB for interfacing with computers.
RC-505mkII Loop Station
Each of the RC-505mkII's five stereo tracks now includes customizable FX and Track buttons, making it easier to color and control loops in the heat of the moment. Users can set up various parameters and trigger them with a press, hold, or double-click. Pressing the Undo/Redo button reveals a secondary layer to double the control options. Two external control jacks are also available for connecting footswitches or expression pedals, and each has its own dedicated set of parameters. And with the Assign function, users can set up 16 additional targets for hardware control and MIDI operation.
The RC-505mkII also provides a greatly expanded FX palette to process sounds during recording and playback. There are 49 Input FX and 53 Track FX types to choose from—including new vocal harmony effects—and it's possible to use up to four in each section at once. Groups of four Input FX and Track FX can be stored in four banks for quick recall, and a step sequence function is available in some FX to create dynamic real-time movement.
The RC-505mkII's expanded connectivity and onboard audio processing allow performers to do more with less external gear. There are two XLR mic inputs and two mono/stereo line input pairs, plus an input mixer with two mic compressors and independent channel EQs. Three stereo output pairs, a headphones output, and an output mixer are also available, complete with assignable routing options and master reverb and compressor effects. In addition, the RC-505mkII's panel faders have longer throw for more precise adjustments and rigid construction for a more solid feel.
BOSS RC-505mkII Loop Station - Official Launch Video in collaboration with SBX
RC-600 Loop Station
Loaded with evolved features and customizable functions, the floor-based RC-600 Loop Station ushers in a new era of creative power for guitarists, singer/songwriters, multi-instrumentalists, and other looping musicians. Users can capture multiple mics and instruments with six stereo phrase tracks and take full command with nine freely assignable footswitches, three pedal modes, and deep external control support. There's also a large, circular loop indicator and seven top-level LCD screen variations to provide visual feedback on current operations.
With the RC-600's 49 Input FX and 53 Track FX types, users can process sounds before and after loop capture to bring color, variation, and excitement to performances. Included are versatile effects from the vast BOSS library, a guitar-to-bass simulator, and powerful vocal FX. The Track FX selections also include cool DJ-style effects like Beat Scatter, Vinyl Flick, and more. Up to four Input FX and Track FX can be used at once, and banks of four can be stored in each section for quick recall.
The RC-600 offers over 200 built-in rhythms in styles ranging from rock, pop, and acoustic to Latin, jazz, and electronica. Each rhythm type includes four pattern variations, intros and endings, and automatic fills to transition between sections. It's also possible to import SMF rhythms using the BOSS RC Rhythm Converter software. And with 16 different kits, users can instantly transform grooves with sounds from heavy rock to light percussion and everything in-between.
The RC-600 comes with the same connectivity and mixing features as the RC-505mkII, giving performers powerful and versatile tools for working with mics and instruments, mixing and monitoring sounds, and interfacing with other gear.
BOSS RC-600 Loop Station – Next-Generation floor-based Looper Pedal
Availability & Pricing
The BOSS RC-505mkII Loop Station will be available in the U.S. in January 2022 for $599.99.
The BOSS RC-600 Loop Station will be available in the U.S. in December of this year for $599.99.
For more information:
boss.info
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While creating her new solo record, Kim Deal was drawn to exploring the idea of failure.
Deal isn’t smiling on the cover of Nobody Loves You More, her new album, but the art bears some similarities: Deal is floating on a platform in an expanse of gentle, dark blue waves, accompanied only by a few pastel-colored amps, her guitar, a stool, and a flamingo. It’s an unmistakably lonely image, but for Deal, failure doesn’t mean loneliness. It’s not even necessarily a bad thing.
“I mean, at least something magnificent was tried, you know?” says Deal. “At least there was something to fail. That’s an endearing thing. I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their ass kicked, because they were in it. It warms my heart to see that, just people getting out there. Maybe it gives me the courage and confidence to try something. It’s okay if I get my butt kicked. At least you’re trying something.”
“I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their fucking ass kicked, because they were fucking in it.”
Nobody Loves You More feels at least a little like Van Ader’s journey: an artistic project so long in the making and so precious to its creator that they’re willing to break from all conventions and face the abject terror of being judged by the world. That might seem like nothing new for Deal, who’s played music professionally for over 35 years, first with Pixies, then with the Breeders. But this LP marks her first proper solo album under her own name—a thought that mortified her for a long time. (“I like rock bands,” she says.) Even when she recorded and released what could be called “solo” music, she released it under a pseudonym. Initially, it was to be Tammy and the Amps. “I still was so uncomfortable, so I created Tammy and the Amps,” explains Deal. “I’m Tammy, who are my band? It’s the amplifiers downstairs in my basement. But the Tammy thing sort of got on my nerves so I just dropped it, so it was called the Amps.” She also assembled a band around that concept and released Pacer under the Amps’ name in 1995.
The cover art for Nobody Loves You More echoes the doomed last voyage of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader.
This new record hums with the soft-loud energetic alchemy that defines much of Deal’s previous works. The opening title track is a slow, romantic strummer with string arrangements, while “Coast” is faintly ska-indebted with horns and a ragged Blondie chord progression. “Crystal Breath” gets weirder, with distorted drums, synthy bass, and a detuned, spidery guitar lead. “Disobedience” and “Big Ben Beat” continue the darker and heavier trajectories with fuzzy stompers interspersed with ambient, affective interlude tracks like “Bats in the Afternoon Sky.” It’s a patient, sensitive, and unmistakably scrappy record.
Some of the songs on Nobody Loves You More are as up-close and personal as solo records get. One in particular that’s drawn attention is “Are You Mine?,” a sleepy-eyed, lullaby ballad. At first listen, it could be taken for a love song. (In fact, Deal encourages this interpretation.) But it’s a song about her mother, for whom Deal cared in her home while she died from Alzheimer’s. The song title comes from a gut-wrenching moment.
“I was in the house, she doesn’t know my name,” explains Deal. “She’s still walking, she can form words, but she doesn’t know what a daughter is or anything. She passes me in the hallway, stops, grabs my arm and says, ‘Are you mine?’ She doesn’t know my name, she doesn’t know who I am, but there was a connection. I knew she was asking if I was her baby. I said, ‘Yeah, mama, I’m yours.’ I’m sure five seconds later, she forgot that conversation even happened. It was just a flicker, but it was so sweet. To have her not see me in so long, and then for one brief second, be recognized in some capacity…. She was such a sweet lady.”
Deal’s mother wasn’t the only loss that went into this collection of songs. Her father passed, too, after a prolonged illness. “My dad was this big bravado sort of personality and watching them get extinguished a little bit every day… I don’t know,” she says. “They both died at home. I’m very proud of that.” But writing “Are You Mine?” wasn’t painful for Deal; she says it was a comforting experience writing the gentle arpeggio on her Candelas nylon-string acoustic.
Deal assembled the bulk of Nobody Loves You More in her Dayton, Ohio, basement, recording with Pro Tools and a particularly pleasing Electrodyne microphone preamp. (Some of the songs date back more than a decade—versions of “Are You Mine?” and “Wish I Was” were initially recorded in 2011 and released as part of a series of 7" singles.) Deal recorded a good part of the record’s drums, bass, and guitar from home, but other contributions came in fits and spurts over the years, from old faces and new. Her Breeders bandmates, including Mando Lopez, Jim MacPherson, Britt Walford, and sister Kelley Deal, all pitched in, as did Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan from British post-punk band Savages, and the Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence.
Kim Deal cared for her parents in their Dayton, Ohio, home until their passing, an experience that colors the music on her new solo record.
Photo by Steve Gullick
Kim Deal's Gear
Guitars
- '90s Fender Stratocaster
- '70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul
- Candelas nylon-string acoustic
Amps
- Marshall JCM900
- 4x12 cabinet
- Kalamazoo combo
Strings & Picks
- .011-gauge strings
- Dunlop Tortex Standard .60 mm
One day, ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer stopped by the studio to see what Deal was working on. He listened to “Wish I Was,” and scrambled together a lead idea. Deal kept the part and expanded it over time, leading to Klinghoffer’s writing credit on the record.
Deal used her trademark red ’90s Fender Stratocaster HSS along with a ’70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul for most of the electric work, pumped through either her long-time Marshall JCM900 or a tiny vintage Kalamazoo combo. Deal has never been a gearhead—at one point on our video call, she uses a tooth flosser as a pick to demonstrate some parts on her Candelas. “Kelley is a pedal person,” she says. “I’m not doing leads. I’m just doing a rhythm that needs to sound good.”
“I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually, or I’m a sociopath because I don’t even talk about [Steve Albini] in the past tense.”Over the years, Deal’s sonic thumbprint has been tied up in the work of her good friend and frequent collaborator Steve Albini, the producer, engineer, and musician who died unexpectedly in May 2024. (Deal quips, “Steve’s the lead character in my own life.”) Albini and Deal began working together in 1988, on Pixies’ debut LP Surfer Rosa. Their friendship continued over decades—Deal even performed at Albini’s wedding in Hawaii, for which he gifted her a ukulele—and the final sessions for Nobody Loves You More were under Albini’s watch. His parting hasn’t been easy.
“I got a text: ‘Call me,’” remembers Deal. It was a mutual friend, telling Deal that Albini had passed. “He told me and I just said, ‘You’re absolutely wrong. That didn’t happen.’ I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually. I don’t even talk about him in the past tense. I say, ‘What he likes to do is this.’ I never think, ‘What Steve used to like to do.’ My head never goes there. I wanted to record a song that wasn’t working and I said, ‘I need to do it from top to bottom at Albini’s.’ That’s not going to happen.”
YouTube
Along with Rob Bochnik and Spencer Tweedy, Kim Deal plays two tracks from Nobody Loves You More for a holiday fundraiser in November 2024 in Chicago.
Bluegrass music is bigger than a genre. It’s become an entire world of ideas and feelings in the popular American imagination. And musician Jerry Douglas has been a key part of its celebration and revival over the past 30 years. “It's an old form of music that came from people in the south playing on the porch and became this juggernaut of a genre,” says Douglas. “It’s a character. It's a physical music.”
Douglas has racked up an impressive cabinet of accolades, including Grammys, American Music Association Awards, and International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. He’s been dubbed the CMA Awards’ Musician of the Year three times, and played with everyone from Allison Krauss and Elvis Costello to Bela Fleck and John Fogerty. He’s an encyclopedic guide to contemporary American roots music, and on this episode of Wong Notes, he walks Cory Wong through the most important moments in his 50-year career.
Tune in to hear Douglas’ assessment of bluegrass’ demanding nature (“Honestly, there's not so many genres nowadays that require as much technical facility as something like bluegrass”), what’s required of roots players (“Get it right, get it fast, make it hook”), and why the O Brother, Where Are Thou? soundtrack connected with so many listeners. Wondering how to get involved with session work? Douglas says there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, and what worked for him might not work today. The key is to be dynamic—and know when to keep your mouth shut.
There are plenty of gems in this interview, like Douglas’ thoughts on what makes a good solo, but the most significant might be Douglas’ big takeaway from decades of sitting in on communal roots-music sessions. “We can play in all genres,” says Douglas. “We just have to listen.”
In some respects, the newestLes Paul Studio adheres to that philosophy and shares many trademark elements with its Studio forebears. There’s no body binding and a silkscreened, rather than inlaid mother-of-pearl headstock logo, for instance. But Gibson also carefully and cleverly threaded the needle between economy and luxury with this release, including several desirable Les Paul features that have occasionally been excluded from the budget model over the years.
Classic Contours
Most readers with a cursory knowledge of the Les Paul format will know this guitar’s basic specs already: mahogany body with maple top, mahogany set neck, 24.75" scale length, 12" fingerboard radius, and dual humbuckers. The Les Paul Studio hasn’t always followed the Standard’s, um, standard quite so religiously. Studios from the first few years of the model’s existence, for example, were made with alder bodies and slightly thinner than the usual Les Paul depth. The newest version, too, veers from formula a bit by using Gibson’s Ultra Modern weight relief scheme, which slims the guitar’s weight to about 8 1/2 pounds. The carved maple top, however, is plain and not heavily figured, which keeps costs down. Even so, it looks good under the bright-red gloss nitrocellulose lacquer finish on our cherry sunburst example. (Wine red, ebony, and the striking blueberry burst are also available).
While the binding-free body and less-heavily figured top hint at the Studio’s “affordable” status, Gibson didn’t skimp on dressing up the neck. It has a bound rosewood fretboard with trapezoidal pearloid inlays rather than the dots many early versions featured. For many players, though, the fretboard binding is more than cosmetic—the ever-so-slight extra width also lends a more vintage-like feel, so it’s really nice to have it here. The neck itself is carved to Gibson’s familiar and ubiquitous Slim Taper profile, a shape inspired by early-’60s necks that were generally thinner and flatter than the ’50s profiles.
“Gibson carefully and cleverly threaded the needle between economy and luxury with this release.”
Hardware largely adheres to contemporary norms for all but vintage reissue-style Les Pauls: tune-o-matic bridge, aluminum stopbar tailpiece, Kluson-style Vintage Deluxe tuners with Keystone buttons, and larger strap buttons (yay!). Another feature here that some past Studio models lack is the cream pickguard, which contributes to the ’50s-era aura. There’s also a matching cream toggle switch washer in the included gig bag if you want to add another vintage touch.
Studio Play Date
Under the chrome pickup covers live two wax-potted, alnico 5 Gibson Burstbucker Pros, which are calibrated for their respective positions. The DC resistance for the Burstbucker Pro Rhythm is 7.8k and the Burstbucker Pro Treble 8.3k-ohms. They’re wired with a traditional Gibson four-knob complement and 3-way switch, but the volume knobs are push-pull controls that enable coil tapping, which broadens the tone palette considerably.
Playability is a high point. The fine setup, smooth fret work, and well-executed binding nibs lend a very visible sense of quality, but you can hear the payoff in the form of the well-balanced, resonant ring when you strum the guitar unplugged. When you turn it up, though, it’s classic Les Paul. Whether I paired it with a Vox-style head and 1x12, a Fender Bassman with a 2x12 cab, or numerous presets on a Fractal FM9, the Studio didn’t yield any negative surprises, but plenty of positive ones.
The Burstbucker Pros have plenty of bite. But most impressive for a Les Paul at this price, is the excellent clarity and articulation you hear along with strong hints of PAF-descendent grit and swirling overtones that lend heft and personality in cleaner amp settings. There’s none of the mud or mid-heavy boominess that you hear in some Les Pauls, even though the characteristically beefy Les Paul overdrive is present in abundance, helped, no doubt, by the slightly hotter-than-vintage-spec Burstbucker Pros. The Studio matches up well with a cranked amp or an overdrive. And while to some ears the Studio might not sound as creamy-complex or lush as high-end, vintage-leaning re-creations of a ’59 Standard, it will crunch, wail, and sing with aggression and civilized authority.
As for the coil-tapped tones, they don’t sound quite like genuine single-coil pickups, even though Gibson employs the nifty trick of wiring a capacitor in series with the coil tap—which is voiced to provide a fatter tapped-coil voice and balanced output with full-humbucking operation. It also provides hum-reducing operation when tapped and full-hum canceling operation when both are combined as they are reverse wind/reverse polarity. But generally, they will deliver the lighter jangle and chime that some humbuckers struggle with and lend a lot of versatility.The Verdict
From fit and finish, to playability, to sonic virtue and versatility, the new Les Paul Studio is a genuine Gibson USA-made Les Paul that offers a lot of value. It does just about everything a player working within this price range could want from a Les Paul Standard with a load of style to boot.
Gibson Les Paul Studio Electric Guitar - Cherry Sunburst
