Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder 

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

This is my first recorder I ever bought & used. I did a whole research on different brands around this price range.There was brands like Tascam and Zoom and both sound great. What I like about boss is that it had better drum sounds and guitar effects than the other two brands. its just plain and simple really easy if you want to start with your one man band or just to have fun.I don't recommend for the people who are pros, but if you want to start recording start of with something that will sound clean and nice
it more than just a simple zoom and tascam recorder has 4 channel inputs plus for your guitar and bass.
great
it might be a little expensive but its worth it.

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

This is pretty sweet. First off I've never owned a muti track recorder before, but I've used them in various bands. I was able to figure out pretty much everything that I need to know on this over a few hours of doing quick little "scratch track" recordings. It has the COSM effects which are fully programable down to amp/dist./mod/comp./dly. I use my own direct from my amp but the built in features are pretty useable and believable. I gave it a 4.5 on quality only cause I could see how the faders may feel weak. But when you put money into something like this just take care of your equipment and you'll be fine. I've done a full song from bass/guitar tracks with layers/drums/mixed and mastered all in a few hours. Its really easy to use and pretty easy to understand even without diving too much into the manual. Boss pretty much made this usuable for us idiots out there who hate manuals and just want to lay down some tracks. Boss Fan!

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

unit is allright, i think boss can do better, i can't wait for a new version of the BR1600, with 16 input, 24 bit recording, control surface function for DAW's, automation? (why not) etc. that would weight heavy against presonus, mackie, allen, and rest of competitors.come on BOSS, make it happen! a boss product fan.

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

Flimsy! You wouldn't want to take this unit on the road! My first problem was the sensitivity of the controls. At 1, or 10 I saw little difference! They didn't even say which way was harder or softer touch! The scroll wheel should be way higher then it is. With my big hands, I can't touch one thing on this unit, without touching something else, so I have to use a pencil. Then there's the scrolling! Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling...scrolling your life away! Anyone who has ever had a Digitech GNX4 home studio knows what I'm talking about. That unit had an easy to use recorder, where you just had to punch a few buttons, without going through endless scrolling screens! Unfortunately Digitech stopped making the GNX4, or I would have bought another one! This unit is scroll city! Menu, after menu, to do even the simplest things, except for the easy record, which is basically an old analog stereo recorder It does what it says it does; but you will spend a lot of time to learn how to use it. And the software that comes with it; is just like the unit itself; is overly complicated. I'm a musician; not a recording sound engineer! I want something simple! I don't want to spend the next six months trying to figure out how to import a song! Like Lynyrd Skynyrd says; be a simple kind of man! Unfortunately Boss, and so many others; just don't get it!

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

I've used a variety of PC based software recording solutions and portable units since the old cassette based devices so I'm not exactly a newbie. I've had this device for awhile now and I do like it. For me, it is very easy to use. I was recording a song within 5 minutes of getting it out of the box. I bought it for getting my ideas to "tape" while on my lunch break at work and it works perfectly for this. The built in drum loops will get you by, but you will probably want to use the drum editor and come up with better stuff. The quality of the drum samples are ok, nothing special. The guitar effects processor in this thing SUCKS. Everything sounds thin and nasally. Like a stuck phase pedal or wah pedal stuck with the toe end down. Like a harmonizer or octave effect is on all the time and set at 0. Very weird very digital sounding. The more notes you play, chords or whatever, the worse it sounds. This is for anything with any kind of gain on it. The cleans are ok. That said, if you want to get some ideas down and build a song, this will do it. The bass simulator is kind of cool. You aren't going to be making any polished professional sounding demos with it.

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

The recording part of the BR-800 does just what it says, but you have to do a lot of scrolling to set up even a simple song. Anyone who has a DigiTech GNX4 guitar work station can tell you what a simple recorder can be, but unfortunately DigiTech stopped making them, and the BR-800 isn't simple. You will be scroll, scroll, scrolling!But the quality of the BR-800, to put it in simple language; stinks! They are telling you that when you turn it over to put the batteries in...you should put it on stacks of newspaper to prevent damaging the controls. Say what? Somehow I get the feeling that this piece of equipment isn't going to last me very long if I have to take precautions just to change the batteries. One would think that they would have at least provided a plastic cover to protect the recorder if you wanted to take somewhere besides your home studio, but they didn't.If I had to compare BR-800 to one of Boss's standard foot pedals for quality it would get a -1000. The foot petals are built to last, but the BR-800, is a plastic rip-off!It does record well, but don't plan on taking it with you to a gig to record the band, because this is strictly a studio recorder!My concern is that if I have to protect the controls just to put batteries in, how long are the controlls going to last; just by toching them?

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

I owned a micro br recorder and I think It is an an excelent product but this br800 could be better and excelent upgrade but It is not because It does not have integrated mp3 or wav conversor, also It needs the facility to add personalized drum kits with high quality wav files.Instead of this Its better to keep the br 600 and buy a sagem compact flash 1 to sd card converter and use 1gb sd cards.

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

I am brand new to home recording. My only experience with home recording prior to purchasing the BR-800 was a short hour or so with the Micro BR that I borrowed from our drummer a year or so ago. Frankly, I found the Micro to be a pain in the rear, got frustrated with it and put it up until our next rehearsal where I happily gave it back to our drummer.I am happy to report that the BR-800 is light years easier to use. Again, I'm a complete "newbie". I was up and running in a matter of minutes. I was able to record a complete track that included rhythm guitar, drums, bass and lead guitar; each on separate tracks, by using the "Loop Record" function (a very cool feature). I probably spent maybe 1.5 hours total and most of that time was reading the instructions and setting up my room. Once I felt comfortable enough with the process, it literally only took about 5 minutes to record the tracks by simply looping.Next I was able to record some demo samples of my amps. This time I used the built-in mics. Again, I might have spent an hour total and that included mastering, exporting to my computer and uploading to SoundCloud. Additionally, the built-in mics produeed a very good quality sound, much better than I expected.Bottom line, this unit has a lot of fun features such as rhythm tracks, jam along, phrase sampling, etc... all the things that make playing by yourself a bit more fun. But the best feature, IMO, is it makes recording fun for a newbie. I was so happy to find that this unit delivered on its promise as a easy to use unit.The only area where I struggled and had to call tech support was when I got ready to transfer my recordings to the computer. I didn't follow what the book was saying and the process called out in the book doesn't really follow what tech support told me. That said, tech support was outstanding and they were very easy to contact via phone.

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

Keep your BR-900CD's...For a unit that is supposed to be complementary to a DAW (no rhythm pads, etc.), there is NO MIDI, not even MIDI sync for SONAR (or Live, or Fruity Loops, or whatever). There is not even a MIDI Format 1 save from the rhythm editor.....It would have been SO easy......(the new LCD/menu system and effects are improvements... "other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?"

Comments about Boss BR-800 Digital Recorder:

I am a previous user and big fan of the BR-600 and Micro BR. Once I saw this and I had to have it. This thing has a slick new look, new effects and drums, touch controls, and you can use it as a control surface for your PC DAW if you're so inclined. A lot of great steps forward!But then they took a giant leap backwards. I feel the need to make sure as many people as possible know about this before purchasing:You can't edit tracks on this unit.That's right, a crucial feature that was in the BR-600 and the Micro BR (and all other digital recorders of this kind) has been REMOVED.On previous units you could work within a track by moving segments around or copy/pasting them to other parts of the track/other tracks. On this one, there is no way to do that. You can copy a track in its entirety to another track, but that's it. They actually expect you to export all of your stuff to your computer in order to do any track editing. So much for the "portable music production solution" as they print on the box; you've been chained to your computer, like it or not.If this matters to you (and if you're looking for a portable digital recorder that frees you from your computer, this DOES matter to you), then wait. Maybe they'll update the firmware and correct this ridiculous decision (and yes, this was a conscious decision by Boss "based on market feedback"). Or maybe you should look elsewhere.