Boss Micro BR BR-80 Digital Recorder (Used)
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Displaying reviews 1-5
Pros
- Compact
- Excellent Sound
- Good Live Recorder
- Powerful
- Versatile
Cons
- Difficult Drum Emulator
Best Uses
- Amateur Recording
- Events
- Home Studio
- Performances
Comments about Boss Micro BR BR-80 Digital Recorder:
I have not explored all of the MTR functions and really look forward to using the pitch correction as well as harmony vocals. That is one feature that attracted me to this unit in the first place... a vocal harmony device....but this being a tradeoff from a unit to use in live performance vs one to record with. If I have a complaint at this time...it is with the drum utility. I have made a live recording of a friend's small acoustic group and am trying to back it up with a drum track. I'm ready to say "forget the idea". First..the live performance has more "feel" and tempo variations...making it very difficult to add a drum beat because the metronome feel is very consistent and static. Also, every change in the drum beat (fill, verse, intro, end or break) has to be added individually. If there is a way to copy and paste a series of these changes...I have not found it. If there isn't a way...it would make a very useful addition. Recorded tracks other than rhythm can be copied...why not the drum beat. Also... in the metronome setting there are various signatures that are helpful... 2/2, 2/4, 3/4, etc. but in the drum beats...you are limited to variations of 4/4 time signature. I would also value the ability to shift the rhythm and or any other track... by a portion of a measure. For example... adding the drum beat AFTER the music is recorded... results in a a timing miss-match between the two tracks....and what about breaks in the drum beat that need to end mid-measure or have a pickup beat.... can't do it. Again... as a recorder or practice device...I am excited to give it a go... but as a "recording studio".... there is work to be done.
One last complaint...I HATE the dial wheel. The bumps are too small and it is difficult to turn the wheel with any consistency. My finger goes around the world about five times for every time the wheel actually moves...Recommend raising the wheel so it can be grasped...or coat it with a rubberized texture or some other means of improving "traction". As one increases pressure on the wheel to make it turn...I'm afraid it will become a weak point...
Pros
- Versatile
Cons
Best Uses
Comments about Boss Micro BR BR-80 Digital Recorder:
ready to go on the road. This thing makes me sound great. love jamming with the eband tracks. so far recordings are sounding very nice. I was surprized how good the mics are in the unit.showed it to a friend now he has one.
Comments about Boss Micro BR BR-80 Digital Recorder:
The only thing I don't like is that there isn't an auto-gain setting for the recording level, but that's understandable to a point. Setting this thing at level 50 recording level usually works here. To summarize, I can't find anything to complain about, and it works great. It even works when you plug it into Linux (as a USB storage device), so I'm very happy and I'd recommend one to my friends.
This thing can do a lot of cool stuff, like record live audio, let you jam and/or record the jam with many of the jam tracks included and on their website. You can also create your own tracks to jam along with, record your ideas, etc. No complaint about the features.
The quality on this thing is superb! Got mine, updated the firmware from the zip files right on Boss's website, and it worked easily without any problems. I really can't find anything lacking in the quality.
As for value, you get the ability to record high quality (WAV) or MP3 and the ability to jam along with tracks and also use it as a multieffects pedal. I don't see how anyone could complain here. The built-in microphones aren't garbage either. Really I can't find anything to complain about.
Comments about Boss Micro BR BR-80 Digital Recorder:
One of the best things I've bought in a long time.
Since I travel quite a bit for my job, I've been looking for a good palm-sized device to use with my travel guitar for practicing and song writing while I'm stuck in some hotel room. I recently bought the Roland BR-80 and have been using it for about 1 week now. I must say that this is one of the most well-thoughout devices I've ever seen for guitarists.
It combines an 8-track recorder, COSM amp modeler (with a huge variety of useful guitar tones), stereo condenser mics (great for recording acoustic guitar, vocal, or a band performance), along with a special mode for practicing/jamming (allows you to jam along with side-loaded MP3s, or play with tons of pre-loaded grooves covering a ton of different styles).
As a practice tool alone, this device is insanely useful. You can dial up all kinds of pre-recorded grooves, change keys, change tempo, etc. But you can also side load your own MP3 files and change playback speed, etc to learn difficult solos, etc. Many of the pre-recorded grooves are really good, and inspiring to jam with.
As a mobile studio it has some great features that make it extremely handy. My favorite part of this is some of the COSM modeling. For example, it has a bass guitar modeler that allows you to quickly put down a bass part using your electric guitar as the source (very handy for getting an idea down when you don't have a bass with you). The COSM models are very useful for capturing most of the tones you might need. They also have some useful style presets too allow you to quickly dial up the basic tone you need without a lot of deep navigation (this is great when you are trying to quickly capture something). It also has an acoustic guitar simulation model that allows you to get a close approximation of an acoustic part (very useful for fleshing out a song idea when you don't have an acoustic guitar with you, or it's 1:00 am and you can't play an acoustic guitar in your hotel room)
There are less expensive field recorders out there, and cheaper headphone amps to use for practicing, but none of them have combined so much useful stuff into one package that is easy and fun to use. I love this thing!
Seems to be pretty solid, altough it is small, plastic, with various knobs on it. I would definitely invest in some kind of protective sleeve or case for it.
Huge value in my opinion, both as a practice tool and as a mobile demo studio. This device will definitely fuel your desire to play guitar more and hopefully inspire you to create some new songs of your own! It's much easier to use than a PC DAW (although maybe not as powerful in terms of editing and sound quality as a DAW) but it also doesn't take 5 minutes to boot up.
Comments about Boss Micro BR BR-80 Digital Recorder:
This is fuctionally a different product from BR-4
This is a great tool for any guitarist to have and I highly recommend getting one. As there are lots of ads describing great functions of this devise I am going to concentrate on shortcomings only.
1. If you have finally figured how to use the previous model BR-4 and want to upgrade it to BR-8 all the time and effort spent on learning BR-4 is now a waste of time. BR-8 is an absolutely different devise that must be studied all over again. Even worse, when you try to apply BR-4 logic to the same function you get frustrated each time pushing the wrong button.
2. On BR-4 you could record a song and during the mastering convert it to MP3 which made lots of sense to me. BR-8 does not give you that option. Your song will end up being either WAV or AIFF that take lots of memory and cannot be emailed to your friend. You will have to import them to your computer and covert them to MP3 on your own.
3. One major setback there is no Input selector as it was on BR-4. That means if you want to record thru Live line-in jack, say, from a mixing board or from an Ipod, you microphone will always be on picking all surrounding sounds too. Same goes with eBand recording, however if you plug in a guitar cord it will shut down the microphone but will add noise from the cord.
4. BR-4 could be used as a MP3 player, BR-8 is not designed for that. Though you can copy MP3s to its memory under eBand folder for Mastering or even Live and use them from there that is something for you to figure out as it is not in the manual. If, say, you copy them under User, that would make more sense than Mastering, you wont see them.
5. There are a few software applications that are saved on the memory card. You will have to open, unzip and install them from there. Why couldnt they come on a CD? If you accidentally delete one of them, its too bad.
6. eBand being a great idea otherwise does not fit into this devise in terms of the reason you buy this recorder for. I would rather not have it as it takes up memory and has all kinds of functions that are unnecessary. And if you have not backed up your memory card and accidentally deleted some files while figuring how to use it then too bad again. Your eBans turns into a dead feature.
7. If you created some songs and you want to back them up on your computer you will have to figure where in the vast majority of existing folders they are hidden. This is where I miss BR-4 most.
8. For backup operation you will have to copy the WHOLE memory card to your computer. If in the meantime you created a few nice songs and suddenly your memory card shows a problem in order to restore the functionality of BR-8 you will have to copy back the WHOLE content back to your card. That automatically deletes your songs that you just recorded.
If you are a computer programmer that wants to learn playing a guitar you are going to like it. If you are a guitar player who tries to figure how to get things work you may be frustrated. However I believe the service you can eventually get from it will overpass any of the above.
Can not export from eBand shows error sigh (maybe it is my unit only)
Good
Displaying reviews 1-5
