loop help me loop help me loop help me

March 6, 2016 4:54 PM

I just inherited a Boss RC-3 Loop Station! But how do I get it to interface with my violin?

A friend was cool enough to indefinitely loan me a Boss RC-3 loop station pedal so I can live out my dream of being Owen Pallett, but a) I've never futzed with audio equipment, so I don't even have a mic and b) he mentioned that it would require some pretty serious adapter manipulation to get it to work with recording and looping the violin. What cables and plugs would I need to make this into baby's first looper? Is it even worth it? Or should I go out and buy myself a looping station that will work with audio input and save myself the hassle?

posted by iNeas to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

It looks pretty complicated to use, but I'd start with getting a mic for your violin (probably a clip or lavalier, but anything should work for starters), plugging that into the "A" input, and then a cable from the "A" output to an amp. I'm not sure what "adapter manipulation" would be, I'd think at the most you might need a direct box (<$40), but that's about it.
posted by rhizome at 5:12 PM on March 6, 2016

Best answer: this is easy. you need five things things:
- a piezo pickup to transduce the signal from the violin soundboard into an electronic signal
- a preamp - i've seen this box work well
- a cable to connect them
- short 1/4" cables for eq-to-rc30 and rc30-to-amp
- a small amplifier. i saw el shankar play an old peavey - maybe a 'backstage' or 'pacer', which gets panned by guitarists, but sounded terrific.

violin>pickup>1/8 to 1/4 > preamp > 1/4 > rc30 > 1/4 > amp
posted by j_curiouser at 5:19 PM on March 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

You want a nice-ish pickup, as a cellist I strongly recommend Shadow pickups - you need to loosen the bridge to install them, but they have a great rich sound. They also have a preamp included.

You can do it with a microphone, but I don't recommend it - uncontrollable wailing feedback will be a real problem.

Once you have a pickup you just need a guitar cable.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:43 PM on March 6, 2016

And no, you're going to face this issue of getting sound into it at some point. You could maybe try an ipad and the looper app but it won't sound good.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:44 PM on March 6, 2016

Best answer: RC3 owner's manual here.

j_curiouser pretty much has it - for your most basic getting-started-I've-never-done-this-before use, you need a way to get sound from the violin into the pedal, and a way to get sound out of the pedal into the open air. So you need some kind of pickup or contact microphone, which gets your violin into the pedal, and an amplifier/speaker combo to hear it (I like j's Peavey suggestion, but there are plenty of small under-$100 guitar amps you could use.) A couple of guitar cables, use the A (mono) inputs and outputs, and away you go. A preamp/EQ is probably useful but maybe not necessary.

You could wind up getting into "serious adapter manipulation" if you, say, already had a regular microphone, and wanted to use the RC3 stereo in and out, and were trying to hook up to your home stereo to hear things, and/or if you wanted to dig deep into the USB and Aux in capabilities, but getting started from scratch should be easy. Buy a few pieces of gear (probably less than the cost of the pedal itself) and you're good. You can dig into the complexity of the pedal later.

(Pro-tip, DO NOT spend big bucks on Monster or other "high-end" guitar cables - Monster is always a rip-off, and claims from many of the other manufacturers are unproven at best. Hosa would be fine, ProCo, Planet Waves or Whirlwind would be a step up and more than adequate for your needs.)
posted by soundguy99 at 6:28 PM on March 6, 2016