• Easy to use multitracker with some limitations

  
  As reviewed by Tim on 5/16/2011

  I bought this unit a few months ago as a quick way to get ideas down without sitting at my computer staring at that intimidating 'wall of grey' you get with an empty Logic session. Also, I wanted to track in the john. For that, it's perfect. It only falls down when you're trying to arrange and edit your recordings. You're supposed to use the included, Windows-only Sonar software for this, but that's no good when you're on the road (or the pan). A couple of user interface niggles lose it a star as well, but really this is is a fine piece of gear which has done a lot for my creativity. The built in pair of mics do a fine job of capturing acoustic guitar: they are separated enough to give a very pleasant stereo image on these recordings. They do nicely with vocals too, but your room will have a big effect here. Plug a real mic into the phantom-powered XLR inputs. There's a high impedance input for electric guitar and bass, of course, and switching between inputs is very easy. The COSM amp models sound excellent and they are easy to edit on the big screen - which you'll have to do, because the presets are almost all screaming distortion monsters. The JC-120 model is a notable, sweet-sounding exception. The built-in drum machine has useful patterns and a few different kits, but the samples for each kit don't have any variation at all: machine-gun snare fills all the way. The drum machine is mostly of use to keep you in time or to give you a bit of inspiration. You can make your own patterns using the included Mac and PC Rhythm Editor Software, but you can't change the samples. There's no way to export or import patterns: you can't, for example, record a beat using your MIDI keyboard and import that into the BR-800. Again, for what this is, that doesn't matter so much. The 'touch sensitive' buttons aren't so great. I get the feeling these were included because they're cheaper to make. Either way, sometimes they miss my presses, forcing me to stab at it repeatedly like a frustrated lab monkey expecting a treat, and sometimes I clip them accidentally with my palm when I'm adjusting faders which are monumentally irritating. This is a pain, but at least the destructive stuff (the Rec button) is in a place where you're unlikely to hit it accidentally. The worst thing about touch sensitive buttons is that you can't operate the unit without looking at it. They are a gimmick. More seriously, the 'audio converter' software (Mac and PC) which is used for getting tracks out of the unit doesn't work on my Mac. It did for a day, flakily, then I installed some other bit of software and it gave up, never working again. The software refuses to recognize the unit. I could extract and convert on a PC, but what I do most of the time is to play each track back into Logic for use as a guide. The most surprising anti-feature for me was the lack of any kind of cut & paste editing. You can copy & erase entire tracks, but you can't take sections of the song and move them around. This is really basic stuff that you'd expect these kinds of units to do (the older BR-600 did it) but Roland's philosophy seems to be that you should plug in to a laptop and use Sonar for that. I found it annoying to start, but now I'm finding the limitation almost liberating. It's forcing me to concentrate on arranging in my head first (like Grandpa used to have to do with a cassette multitrack) only committing to a take once I'm ready. If anything it's actually improving my songwriting because I'm not fiddling all the time; there's always a computer for doing work like that. Still, if anyone from Roland is reading this, you should fix this in a software update. No excuse. There's no record count-in. I hate this. Really, it's awful. It makes doing overdubs really hard. I guess they want you to buy the optional footswitch to control recording. You can power it from an AC adapter, a USB cable plugged in to a computer, or 8 AA batteries. A set of AAs lasts a long, long time - many hours of recording - but phantom power eats in to that. A bonus feature is that you can use it as a control surface for any DAW. It's an adequate and simple controller for Logic (it emulates a Mackie Control) with transport controls, a jog wheel, 8 faders and track mute buttons. More fun than the mouse, but it's not a substitute for a proper control surface. The best thing I can say about this unit is that I've written more on it in a couple of months than I ever did on a DAW. Its limitations don't bother me much, but it's not my primary editing and arranging device. My complaints - dodgy touch sensitive buttons and crappy utility software - are more serious, but I'm very happy with this unit all the same. Still, at the price Roland want for the BR-800, it has to earn every star, and that is why this fun-to-use and good-sounding box only gets three out of five.

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• Great sound in a small component

  
  As reviewed by super-k on 5/18/2011

  I recently bought the BR-800. The sound is really good. The guitar effects are great, the vocals are great, and the drum machine sounds pretty good - everything solid. It was super easy to record 4 tracks over the drum track. I started running into obstacles when trying to separate tracks 5/6 and 7/8. I wanted to record 8 unique tracks. I tried everything and couldn't do it. The BR-800 seems more of a 6 track ? with two tracks being stereo. The dedicated drum track sounds good, but I ran into obstacles trying to arrange new songs and patterns. I installed the Rhythm Editor on my PC and liked the program, but I could not get the drum beats to load back onto the BR-800. I tried two laptops, one with Windows XP and the other with Windows Vista. Failed with both ? spent a long time trying. I wish I could figure how to make that work. I read the Manual and found it helpful and pretty good. It is a powerful machine in a small component. The detail control of the Boss Effects was very detailed. It would be good for someone living in a studio or dorm. Takes up little room and sounds great. Anyway, it wasn?t for me. I need more than 6 tracks and drum track editing failed ? plus it was expensive.

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• WAIT!

  
  As reviewed by Icewind on 8/12/2010

  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.

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