How the RC-505 Changed Loopology Forever

June 20th, 2025

Looping has always been a conversation between the artist and the moment. Before the RC-505, it was a whisper—beautiful, but often restricted to the guitar world, buried in pedalboards, or held back by clunky workflow. Then came a roar. That roar was the BOSS RC-505. It didn’t just tweak what looping could be—it cracked it open and poured in fire.

When I first touched the RC-505, I realized I wasn’t just playing sound anymore—I was sculpting it. The tactile response, the immediacy, the raw power of five stereo tracks in front of you—it gave loop artists hands again. Not feet. Not presets. Hands. As @gdotbennettmusic, I knew this wasn’t a piece of gear. It was an invitation. Not just to perform—but to build in real time.

Before we talk about what the RC-505 became, it’s important to understand the world it entered. Loopers existed, of course. The RC-20 and RC-50 were already doing big things. But they were largely foot-operated, built for guitarists who wanted to layer solos over chord progressions. Functional? Sure. But limiting for beatboxers, vocalists, synth freaks, and live-looping producers. You had to crouch, tap, bend, stretch. Your mind had to work one way and your body another. It created a barrier between your creativity and your control.

Then came 2013.

BOSS dropped the RC-505 in April of that year with a form factor that flipped the entire looping paradigm. Five independent stereo tracks lined up horizontally. A fader for each. Buttons for record, play, overdub. Real knobs. Built-in FX chains, both for input and track-level processing. A rhythm guide that didn’t suck. USB. MIDI. Sync. Audio interface. You could finally loop without ever taking your hands off the art. You weren’t adapting to the gear anymore. The gear was adapting to you.

Suddenly, a new wave of creators emerged—and more importantly, they shared what they were building. The community took off. If you were on YouTube in the mid-2010s, you saw it happening in real time. Dub FX standing in front of a street crowd building roots reggae dub riddims entirely from his mouth, layering bass, kick, delay-rinsed stabs and ethereal harmonies. Reggie Watts showing up on stage and creating comedy-laced funk grooves from scratch, twisting time signatures and expectations while barely blinking. Marc Rebillet in a robe, improvising entire shows built around whatever chaos the crowd gave him. They weren’t DJs. They weren’t frontmen. They weren’t even traditional musicians in the usual sense. They were loopers—and the RC-505 was the centerpiece of that identity.

The sound changed. The visuals changed. The performance changed. Suddenly, watching an artist wasn’t about what they played—it was about how they built it, live, in front of your eyes. The audience became part of the track. There was no fourth wall. The faders were up. The vocals were bouncing through effects. The loop wasn’t a gimmick. It was the message.

And because the RC-505 had MIDI capability and USB integration, it wasn’t just for standalone performance. You could integrate it with your DAW. You could lock it to an external clock. You could bounce your loops straight into your software for further production. As a live looper, your studio was now your stage, and your stage could be recorded with studio fidelity.

But it wasn’t just the raw specs. It was the feel. BOSS nailed the tactility. Each fader was smooth and resistive in just the right way. The buttons lit up intuitively. You could see your loops as you performed them. You didn’t have to guess what was happening—you could feel it. You could breathe with it.

And then, something incredible happened: the firmware updates started dropping. BOSS didn’t just abandon the product after launch. They listened to the community. They added better quantization. They expanded memory and improved rhythm patterns. Artists started sharing their setups online—custom MIDI triggers, footswitch extensions, loop chain tutorials. Looping wasn’t just performance anymore. It was an evolving discipline.

A new language of performance was born. Artists began creating “loop routines,” structured pieces built entirely on live creation. You’d see it in battles, showcases, jam sessions, and even classrooms. Young musicians learned composition by watching loopers layer sounds. And loop artists began to push beyond music—into comedy, theater, poetry, movement. You could teach with it. Preach with it. Protest with it. Perform with it. You were no longer tied to prerecorded ideas. You were liberated by the now.

And then came the RC-505mkII in 2022. It didn’t reinvent the wheel—it made the wheel meaner. The faders felt tighter. The FX got deeper. Four input FX and four track FX? That was the stuff of dreams for artists who wanted control without compromise. The lighting improved. The workflow tightened. And again, BOSS did what few companies dare—they evolved a legend without betraying it. You could take your original routines and port them into the mkII without skipping a beat.

Was it perfect? No. But perfection isn’t the point. Fluidity is. And the RC-505, both versions, gave us that in spades.

It’s impossible to calculate how many songs, careers, and movements were born from a single loop on this machine. TikTok creators, underground beatboxers, global loop station battles—all pulsing from the same heartbeat. For many of us, the RC-505 wasn’t a gear purchase. It was a creative rebirth.

And still today, in an age of ever-changing gear and endless DAWs, the 505 stands tall. It’s immediate. It’s human. It has a soul. And for loopologists like myself, it’s a sacred instrument.

Now here’s where I turn the question to you. If the only limit was your imagination, your hands, and five stereo tracks—what would you build? If you could erase the rules and record the moment as it comes, no edits, no filters, no do-overs—what would you say?

Because looping isn’t just repetition. It’s recognition. It’s hearing the truth return again and again and realizing it changes every time.

The RC-505 gave us that. And we haven’t stopped listening.

The Death of a Four Minute Song

by Glenn Bennett

There was a time when the four-minute song ruled the world. It wasn’t a rule written in stone, but more of an unspoken agreement—between artists, listeners, and radio stations alike. Four minutes gave you space to explore. You had time to breathe, to build, to layer. You could set a mood, bring in a solo, loop back, and land the final chorus with weight. But somewhere along the way, that space got compressed. That permission to stretch out got revoked. And in its place came something faster, leaner, more impatient.

The truth is, music didn’t just evolve sonically—it sped up culturally. The way people consume sound today isn’t about the long play. It’s about the instant hit. It’s about what grabs you before you even realize you’re listening. Somewhere between streaming platforms, social media trends, and the endless swipe culture, the four-minute track quietly became the exception rather than the rule.

Now we’re in an era where 2:15 is more common than 3:45. And if your intro lasts more than ten seconds, you’re already losing someone. The listener isn’t sitting with headphones on in a room full of silence. They’re hearing your track while walking through traffic, scrolling TikTok, checking messages, dodging distraction. You’re not just fighting for attention anymore—you’re fighting to survive in it.

Streaming platforms changed the game first. When payout is measured per stream—not by length—shorter songs become smarter songs. You earn the same for a two-minute track as you do for a five-minute one, but the shorter song is more likely to get replayed. And replays mean rankings. Rankings mean visibility. Visibility means playlists. And playlists are where listeners live now. So what do you do? You trim the fat. You get to the hook faster. You shrink the bridge. You kill the outro. You make your point and you move on.

There’s a deeper story beneath all that, though. The shortening of song length isn’t just about metrics—it’s about culture. We’ve been conditioned to expect speed. To chase novelty. To scroll before we finish. The algorithm doesn’t reward patience. It rewards patterns. It rewards familiarity. It rewards what’s easy to package, clip, and repeat. And that’s had a major impact on how songs are written, produced, and released.

As an artist, especially one who builds from the ground up—layer by layer, loop by loop—you feel that pressure. It’s like trying to paint a mural on a sticky note. You’ve got ideas that need space, moods that need time, and sounds that don’t reveal themselves in just sixty seconds. But the world’s asking you to condense. To summarize. To deliver the emotion in under three minutes or risk being forgotten.And yet, not all is lost.

There’s still a lane for the long form. There are listeners who want to sink in, who crave that immersive experience, who want to hear something unfold. You find them in the corners—on Bandcamp, on SoundCloud, at live shows, inside vinyl jackets. They’re not the majority, but they’re loyal. They’re not driven by the charts—they’re driven by connection. They’ll sit through a seven-minute loop piece if it hits their soul the right way. And they’ll return for more because it made them feel like time stopped instead of being stolen.

The challenge today isn’t just writing music people want to hear. It’s deciding which world you want to live in while you’re doing it. Do you build for the feed or for the feel? Do you trim everything down to fit the platform, or do you risk being skipped in order to stay true to the stretch of your sound?Somewhere in that tension is where the most honest music is being made right now. Artists are starting to get smart with dual versions—offering a 2:30 cut for Spotify or TikTok, and a full 4:45 vision for their real fans. That’s not selling out—it’s adapting without giving up. It’s offering a door in, and a deeper hallway once they enter.

When I sit with my guitar, or map a drone bass under a slow gear loop, I’m not thinking about time first. I’m thinking about presence. Texture. Vibe. But then, inevitably, the question creeps in: is this too long? Will they stay with it? Do I need to cut it down? Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s no. But every time, it’s deliberate. That’s what separates noise from narrative. That’s the difference between chasing the algorithm and communicating something real.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from releasing under @gdotbennettmusic, it’s that some songs find their people because they’re short and sweet. Others find their place because they’re unbothered by the clock. And the key is knowing when each approach serves the art better. Short songs are not lesser. Long songs are not better. Each length is a tool. But you’ve got to choose it on purpose. Not out of fear. Not because the market told you so.

The death of the four-minute song isn’t a tragedy. It’s a shift. It’s a mirror. It reflects how we’ve changed as a culture. We’ve made music quicker because life feels quicker. We’ve made songs smaller because attention is shorter. We’ve cut down length because we’re running out of room. But we haven’t run out of meaning. Not if we’re intentional. Not if we’re willing to ask why we’re writing in the first place.

I still believe in the long track. I still believe in the extended build. I still believe in repetition that becomes meditation, and layers that reveal themselves slowly like sunrise through fog. I also believe in the power of a hook that hits right away and a drop that lands like a punch. There’s room for both in the music world—it’s the middle that’s gone missing. The song that’s not short enough to be viral, not long enough to be immersive, not focused enough to be felt. That’s where the danger lies—not in the clocks, but in the compromise.

So the next time you start a track, think about the time you’re claiming from your listener. Is it 2:15 that says everything you need to say? Or is it a 4:05 that deserves to unfold? There’s no wrong answer—but there is a wrong intention. The only sin in today’s music landscape is letting the trend write the song instead of the truth.

The clock is ticking, but that doesn’t mean the music has to rush. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do as a creator is to take your time—then ask your audience to do the same.—

Diamonds—@gdotbennettmusic

“Music like time needs to breathe”