I have a laptop using Windows 10 and Audacity version 2.3.2
While in audacity, when i connect my boss rc3 loop station via USB it is not recognized by audacity, i do get an option in windows saying "choose what happens when F: is connected and i selected file explorer, so now when i connect boss rc3 to USB the file explorer window appears with wav files to choose from, but when i drag a wav file into audacity i get this message - Audacity does not recognize file, try installing ffmpeg or for uncompressed files try file-import-raw data
I don’t want to use ffmpeg because that would compress files, and i tried file-import-raw data and that didn’t work either. Also i read somewhere that i shouldn’t import uncompressed wav files as raw data.
I have checked to see if the driver in the boss rc3 is the latest version and it is - 1.60
I have been trawling the internet help for both Audacity and Boss rc3 loop station and have not found a solution, can you help before i go completely mad.
Thanks for this great forum, i love audacity, i just wish i could use it with my new boss rc3 loop pedal, which is also great.
Thanks again.
Brucey.
Try copying one of those files to your local hard drive, then see if you can drag the copy into Audacity.
when i connect my boss rc3 loop station via USB it is not recognized by audacity,
I don’t think it works as a recording or playback device. Windows should see it and it should show-up as a “hard drive”.
You can connect the RC-3 to your computer via a standard USB cable, and back up your RC-3 recordings to your computer for safekeeping. You can also load WAV files from your computer directly into the RC-3. The RC-3 accepts 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV files of up to 1.7GB in size.
Audacity should be able to open the files if Windows sees it.
From the BOSS website
You can connect the RC-3 to your computer via a standard USB cable, and back up your RC-3 recordings to your computer for safekeeping. You can also load WAV files from your computer directly into the RC-3. The RC-3 accepts 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV files of up to 1.7GB in size.
I don’t want to use ffmpeg because that would compress files
Audacity can open regular (uncompressed) WAV files without FFmpeg. When you open a file with FFmpeg it gets decompressed. 
i tried file-import-raw data and that didn’t work either
What happened? You can open the raw data from an uncompressed WAV file, but normally that’s not necessary. If you open it as raw data, you’ll have to guess some of the parameters (you do know it’s 16-bits/44.1kHz), and you’ll get a glitch at the beginning where the WAV header gets converted to audio.