Boss Br-600 Review A review of a portable digital recorder

[rob86 2]

Here\'s a kind-of review of the BR-600 Digital 8 Track recorder, one of my favourite \"toys\".

 

Here is a brief overview from Roland US.

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The Ultimate Notebook Studio

 

BOSS/Roland is proud to announce the BR-600 digital recorder earned the Recording Equipment Line of the Year 2006 honer of the 14th Annual MMR Dealer\'s Choice Awards.

The 14th annual MMR Dealer\'s Choice Awards were held by the MMR (Musical Merchandise Review), based on the votes of music products dealers throughout the United States who cast their ballots for the most outstanding instruments, equipment, and accessories for 2006.

 

BOSS has a long, celebrated history as the world’s premier compact-effects manufacturer, but now the BOSS brand has become synonymous with portable digital recording as well. The latest arrival in the BOSS recording line, the BR-600, is bound to raise BOSS’s recording profile even higher. Meet the most physically streamlined, feature-rich eight-track studio on the market.

 

* For more information of BOSS recording products, please visit the \"BR for Guitarists\" web site.

 

8 simultaneous playback tracks, 64 V-Tracks

CompactFlash memory card slot for storing recording media; 128MB card included

Built-in FX processor, including pitch corrector and COSM amp models

Built-in drum-machine with velocity-sensitive pads

Built-in stereo mic and battery power to record anywhere

USB for data transfer/computer connectivity

Portable and ultra slim: 257 x 182 x 23mm

Carrying case and XLR-to-1/4\" mic cable included

I bought the BR-600 mostly for practicing my guitar playing but also to record a few tunes when I\'m in the mood. It has a surprising amount of features. It would be hard to name them all. I\'ll start with the features of the rhythm section.

 

This is a very adequate machine in the rhythm department. It comes with quite a few built in drum arrangements and most of the common ones. It\'s got your blues drums, heavy metal, light rock, hard rock and it\'s got a couple world beats, such as a reggae beat. If you need something more with your drums, you can build your own patterns with the Touch Sensitive buttons. These do the job, but you\'ll most likely find it easier to adjust the velocity/loudness of your drums manually after the initial \"cool\" factor wearsoff. It comes with about 7 different DrumKit sounds, STD1, STD2, HARD, JAZZ, REGGAE, HIP HOP, 808 which are quite usable. Everything is pre-panned left/right for a little bit more realistic sounding drums.

 

You can download the BOSS-br900 rhythm editor online which is compatible with the 600. You can edit the drum arrangements on your PC, and another useful feature is the ability to import MIDI\'s and it will extract the drums and make them compatible with the boss-br 600.

 

Onto the COSM effects. Well, they\'re pretty good in my opinion. It is a BOSS after all. There are quite a few. Many Elec. Guitar FX, such as 90\'s Metal, Blues Lead, TEXASSRV. There are acoustic simulators, which sound quite good. There are BASS simulators to simulate a bass guitar, which to be honest, are disappointingly bad, but they are usable if you are very careful (the tones warp). It\'s got some BASS Fx for plugging a Bass into which I haven\'t tried, and some Vocal FX which sound pretty good but I haven\'t done much singing. Obviously if you\'re a tone junky with high end gear you\'ll probably rather hook up your $5000 amp, and you\'d probably have a huge home recording studio, but for the average person, the FX are good.

 

There\'s a Guitar Trainer, which slows down audio from your mp3 player or other audio source. This works much like the famous Amazing Slow Downer, but it seems kind of gimicky and I don\'t use it too much as it\'s not as good as Amazing Slow Downer available online.

 

It\'s got Auto Pitch Correction for Vocals, which works pretty good at making a not so great vocalist sound better. Be warned though, if you suck REALLY bad, your pitch will be warped in completely unrealistic ways. These work well with the two built in microphones, which sound very good considering their extreme portability.

 

Well, onto the recording features.

 

Despite it being advertised as an 8 track, it really only has 6 tracks. The last two tracks are Stereo 5/6, and Stereo 7/8. Sure you can bounce tracks and get 8 tracks playing at once, but it\'s not so easy. So it\'s really a 6 track.

 

It\'s got a surprisingly good recording interface, you can punch in and out and loop and UNDO/REDO and each track has Virtual Tracks, which are \"Takes\", this let\'s you record the same thing multiple times so you can pick the best, without losing a previous one.

 

You can Aux out the back into a mixing board or home audio receiver to use for speakers. Oh, and there\'s no built in speaker, you need to insert headphones. I wouldn\'t have minded some kind of a speaker, but headphones are better anyway if you\'ve got them around.

 

 

There is one HUGE problem though!

 

256mb CompactFlashCard with a 1GB limit!

 

They include a 256mb card which is absolutely tiny and I often find myself completely frustrated with it being constantly full. I haven\'t purchased a 1GB yet, but I plan to. Flash Cards this small are extremely hard to find but you might find some on EBAY. There were some when I wanted them but that was months ago I never got around to getting one.

 

BOSS is apparently selling them in music stores as I contacted the local one. Their cards are jacked up in price ($50 as opposed to $10 on some online computer stores) but I guess it\'s an option.

 

 

Anyway, there are tons of features on this little thing it\'s hard to review them all and the bottom line is I\'d highly recommend it to anyone. For the guitarist who wants to practice, this is an exceptional tool. It\'s improved my guitar playing technique and creativity immensely. Pick a drum rhythm. Record a few bars of some chords. Loop. Solo over it.

 

For the acoustic singer songwriter, it works excellent. They have a guide on the official website for Acoustic recording tips.

 

For the home recording newbie, it works excelelnt. No latency problems a la low budget PC recording, and terrific sound quality. It\'s got a built in mastering kit (more FX like De-Esser\'s and stuff) I didn\'t mention, which is definitely useful.

 

For the person who wants to record live sessions, the mics are excellent.

 

Even if you\'re not a guitarist, it makes a great tool for recording anything. I sometimes hook it up to my Sirius Radio and record some tunes, obviously this is hindered by the 256mb card, but still.

 

For the price I can\'t say enough good things about this thing. I use it ALL the time. I even use it for jamming with friends when I don\'t feel like lugging an amp around, I just hook up to some speakers!

 

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