To make things even easier you also have the option of setting up your own user patches for clean, crunch, lead, acoustic, vocals, bass, etc and recalling them instantly.īOSS’ rejection of the stand-alone multi-track formatĪs I delved deeper into the features of the BR-800, I got to the point of editing some drum tracks for my latest song, only to find, almost unbelievably, that the BR-800 DOESN’T INCLUDE DRUM TRACK EDITING! I took a step back, read the manual and went on-line only to have it confirmed, Not only that, but TRACK EDITING has also been greatly dumbed down. While you’ll never get the response or dynamics of a valve amp at full tilt in this setup, for practicing at lower volumes the tones you can get out of the BR-800 are much better than just a compromise, in fact, you’ll have access to a wider range of tones than you would through one amp anyway. I play back tracks from Youtube or Windows Media player for example, while the guitar sounds come from the excellent COSM models of the BR-800. With it’s ability to function as a USB interface, the BOSS BR-800 has become a mainstay of my home practice setup, with no need for a guitar amp and effects pedals, I simply have the BR-800 and my PC connected to the same set of desktop monitors. Even now the BR-800’s internal mics far surpass any mobile phone for recording band rehearsal’s / gigs etc, although for rough ideas I still tend to find my phone as it’s quicker and easier. I set this up to record with the internal mics, and it’s become an invaluable alternative to using a dedicated PCM recorder. One press and you’re into the recording mode of your choice. Unlike the BR-600, we now have a dedicated button ‘Song Sketch’. The new hardware was slightly bigger than the BR-600, but it was advertised to include many new features, most importantly of which was the ability to function as a USB audio interface for the first time in the BR series. First ImpressionsĪs I’d come to expect from BOSS, the BOSS BR-800 appeared to build on it’s predecessor, the BR-600, the internal mics had been upgraded, in place of compact-flash we finally had SD-Card storage, the interface had been cleaned up, the rubber buttons replaced with much more modern touch-screen style layout and the screen enlarged. I continued to record with the BR-600 until, in 2010, along came the follow up, and what I still use today, The BOSS BR-800 Digital Recorder. In the end I could never get a DAW working in my setup to satisfactory standard (see the link opposite for more details). Then I got distracted for a while with in the frustrating, latency plagued world of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation) and dedicated USB audio interfaces. It featured much larger, quieter and easier (and cheaper) to obtain storage, USB connectivity (to save songs to your PC), twin built-in condenser mics to quickly capture ideas, but most exciting of all, A BUILT IN DRUM MACHINE! BOSS really hit it out of the park with BR-600, and I spent a lot of my time happily recording with it, making the most out the great sounding COSM vocal and guitar amp models, in particular the GUITAR to BASS patch, which provided hours of fun. I fell in love, it was around half the size of the BR-8, with sleek rubber buttons that reminded me of my ZX Spectrum 48k back in the day, and a rather fetching champagne colour. Now a BOSS convert, I purchased it’s successor, the compact-flash card based Boss BR-600 almost immediately, on it’s release in 2007. Nevertheless, with a decent external drum machine/keyboard I was able to put together tracks that I was fairly happy with. Then in 2000 along came the zip-disk based Boss BR-8 much more storage space, 24-bit digital quality, but still the necessity to switch disks, which were, at the time, becoming increasingly hard to find (a 100Mb mini disk held about 3 songs per disk). Obviously cassette tape had it’s limitations, primarily the degradation of the tape itself after numerous takes. My first multi-track recorder, way back in the mid-90’s was a cassette-based Tascam 4-track Porta05 ministudio. My brief history of the stand-alone multi-track recorder How the BOSS BR-800 Digital Recorder became an invaluable part of my recording and practice setup.
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