Boss Micro BR

I mainly use the MicroBR for guitar practice. These are the features I use every day:

MP3 playback
- A-B looping
- slow down playback
Tuner
Simple recording of 2-3 tracks for practice.
Metronome Beat
Amp Modeling and Delay effect.
Built-in Mic, Guitar input, Aux output.

It is very easy to use the above features. You will probably need to use the manual to figure it all out but you can get an understanding of it very quickly.

If you need to do multitrack recording and editing its is a bit clunky to do that through the user interface.

Here is a page with reviews that has become sort of a Micro-BR forum:
http://colartz.com/blog1/boss-micro-br-review/

It has some "issues"

- Doesn't support long filenames or filename scrolling (this is pretty lame).
*You won't be tempted to use this as a replacement for an iPod
- Doesn't support VBR MP3 formats, (I use Audacity to convert the ones I'm practicing to 192kbps MP3).
- Battery Power doesn't last long (uses a standard Boss pedal power converter)
- The built-in rhythm machine doesn't have any patterns in 3/4-ish time. There are metronome patterns at that support it but not the nicer drum patterns. This a also lame as there are 50 pattern presets, couldn't they provide one in 3/4 time?

MP3 playback, and all the recording inputs have very good quality. The built-in mic is actually very good. If I don't have to be too quiet around the houes I use the built-in to record my own tube amp during practice rather than use built-in amp models.

I'm not a big fan of the built-in amp models, I think they are a bit noisy, but they work well enough for practicing. I also have a POD XT-Live and I very much prefer the POD models, I like my tube amp much more than either.

I really haven't had any problems over the last 5 months. I drop it from couch height about once a week.

For my purposes this is the best solution. I really need to record myself in practice to understand how songs are sounding.

I got it because I didn't like lugging my laptop over to my practice area, I was using it and Amazing Slow Downer and Audacity for these features. I've taken the Micro-BR and my guitar on vacations and its great, its pretty small, does all the functions I need for practice (mp3 player w/loop&slowdown, recorder, tuner, metronome)

COMPARING THE MICRO BR against the older PANDORA PXR4--

Don't trade or throw away your PXR4 yet--- there are things about the Korg you will definitely miss or would like. The PXR4 has a charm all its own, that I have thus far not been able to duplicate on the Micro BR, although the Boss recorder has its good points too.

Okay, first the Micro BR points:
Oh god--- NOT EASY TO USE AT FIRST-- jeez.
I am usually great at figuring out stuff without the manual, going by
intuition and common sense. Not this thing. Must use the manual to get
around on it, then after a while you get it. But you will scratch your head a lot at the start.

The menu layout is just bizarre, not like anything else I've used. No dials or knobs, except for input level and headphones.

The manual is FAIR, not great. You will read something and then go "what??".
Eventually you'll get it after a couple hours. Micro BR 4 out of 10

The Pandora also presents challenges, but in many ways is more easy to get around, even though it seems quite a bit deeper in terms of what it offers. The Pandora has MANY buttons an knobs-- this is definitely good, and allows more rapid non-menu scrolling to do jobs. 6 out of 10

Micro BR sound is quite good, the guitar effects are quite good, although not like a full fledged multi-effects pedal. Good for generic
modern sounds with Chorus/flange,phaser/tremelo/pan/delay. You can add reverb to anything, but the quality of the reverb is nothing great at all, and not particularly good except at low levels of ambience. It has a higher 44.1 sampling rate, so, very nice recording in general. I've heard people bitch about external mic noise, yeah, I can see this. Cheap mic preamps.

The Pandora has a lower sampling rate of 32K, but we have done some KILLER recordings with it, that sound wonderful. We also did a comparison with a CD recording, and blindfolded tried to tell if we were listening to the CD wav file, or the Pandora card--- we could never tell. Plugging in a guitar and running the effects-- yes, the Micro is more pristine, more high tech--- but the Pandora has a charm all its own, its own personality. I like it, and I would not say the Micro BR is "better". Its different.

The drum kit on the Micro is definitely a much higher quality, no doubt about it. But the drum patters DO NOT inspire me at all. They just leave me flat despite the wonderful quality. Its like great sounding generic drums. Bleech. On the other hand, the Pandora has these really cheap sounding somewhat dated drums, that kick ass. The Korg programers made some wonderfully interesting patterns that work immediately. The Micro BR, I haven't gotten anything to work yet. Perhaps I will.

The Korg has more effects, more tweakabiltiy, more flexibility.
The Micro BR has less effects, harder to navigate, but higher quality sound.
I can't say one is better than the other, sorry.

I suppose they are both great. No problems with either yet.

Never needed either yet.

Well, currently, the Pandora offers MUCH more bang for the buck. You can get them on ebay for roughly 1/2 to 2/3 the price of a Micro BR. It has lots of buttons, knobs, slides, friendlier LCD, more effects, better battery life. It is thicker than the Micro BR, and will not slide into your shirt pocket. It has a real retro 90's early 2000 look to it. Cool. But the Smart media cards are a more money at about $60 for 128MB. Record bunch of songs, then export into your computer.

The Micro BR offers pristine sound quality, but less effects, a confusing operating system at first, a more compact size, short battery life (get some new Nickle Hydride batteries 2700 hour or an 9Vold AC with a NEGATIVE center pole.)and it looks thoroughly cool and modern. It uses the more economical and sturdier SD cards (1GB limit).

There you go. Each has advantages-- neither is a substitute for a real recorder or PC workstation software, no way. The best way to use these things is to lay down basic tracks and use the drum machine for reference or inspiration and FORGET ABOUT EDITING and MIXING ON THESE THINGS. That is just stupid and insane. Come on, get real.

Export into your computer, and process and edit there.


Hope this helps-- have fun
Neil Slade
www.BrainRadar.com
The AMAZING Brain Adventure

If you love intuitive interface, this is not for you. The manual is a must and the instructions are easy to follow. So the score reflects both extremes.

Again, polarised opinion, I have a Fender american Standard, sounds thin through every patch. Tweeking helps a lot here and can be. bothersome if you're low on patience. I mainly use a Godin LGHmb with the Micro BR. That little plactic box loves humbucker and good sound clean or effects loaded are easier to get. I fitted a SD hotrail in the bridge on my strat and guess what..it sound a lot better with the BR. the scrore reflects that again..crapy with single coils (unless patiently tweeked) and great with humbuckers

no problem other than it's a powermonger for batteries. Power supply recommended. Casing is in plastic and the mirroir finish gets dirty quickly. droped it a few time by accident, not a scratch work great..

didn't deal with them so far

I play anything that comes to mind, from heavy rock to sweet-nothings melodies. I,ve recorded accoustics with the built-in microphone, voice, clean,dirty and heavy electric guitar with it and it does the job for what it was meant for: On the go recording. I love the fact that you can be playing and recording a song sitting under a tree in a parc have a DYNAMIC drum track and full range of effects. It's a band in a box and mini studio so you can make a decent recordings of complete songs anywhere you can imagine. Strictly for recording purposes, it beats the crap out of everything out there in for the price. feature packed. the only down side to it is that for anyone who swears by Fender's single coil sound...it's crap. to get a good sound out of it with singles coils you have to do heavy tuning on the presets. The score reflect my personnel apreciation of the little marvel and is not objective.

It is not intuitive!Read the manual. You can plan (not relize: attention at mistake...editing is not easy...) a demo in 1/2 hour....

I'm using a Fender Stratocaster with a valve amp.
This very little box is not friend of my guitar because the digital tonal character of micro boss is naked with the strat. I mean every patch has a thinny sound, i can hear the square sampling at its worst.
Not suitable for real situation, only use it for scratch demo.
I try editing patch in every way but the preset are the max; the only human sound is .....jc120, the others seems a highly compressed mp3. Not put in your head the idea to use it as multifx device for live or studio situation.
The effects sound are killed by the overall low quality sound of the box.
I have also a Art sgx 2000 Express: another world, make every amp great.

I can live surely without it. I never will gig with it, rather i prefer guitar and amp only. Make sure you carry an ac adapter...it eat batteries. However i not hear scratch or noise from input/output or the pot, seems good quality.

No upgrade at now; no new patches;

I play rock, blues jazz etc. I play guitar form 35 years. I love in it the new feature (usb, mp3 etc) but i hate the sound.....also my hi-fi sound miles away better with guitar.....
Suggestion: buy a valve multifx with the same money and send out at your notebook you can make better and easier.

I agree with the comment below. This is anything but easy to use (I am fairly technically adept). I bought it to quickly capture ideas, but all I did was spend hours wading through the manual to even do the simplest of things. By the time you figure out how to do something you've long since forgotten what you wanted to record. My Fostex 16 track is so much easier to use and gives me far better results.

I wouldn't call the sound inspiring, but for $200.00 its about what you would expect.

No idea returned after a week.

The concept is excellent but unfortunately the engineers who designed it missed the point. Its should be an ends to a means to capture ideas when they are still fresh in your head, not a technical maze.

I buy every new gismo and gadget and pedal (Gear Aquisition Syndrome) and usually can figure stuff out very quickly.
The Micro BR looks great and is jam packed with tricks but is not user friendly!
I am an experienced ProTools user and own many Roland synths, so I can safely say that I am very technologically experienced.
I bought this thing to quickly capture those song ideas that pop into your head when you are on the subway or something. There's nothing quick about it.
Technology that makes you a slave to the MANUAL for the first few weeks is not very well designed technology!

It probably sounds good for what it is.
I wish that manufacturers would focus on making products that just work really well instead of having every bell and whistle under the sun!
The Gibson Les Paul doesn't also make toast and do your taxes, it just sounds like a Les Paul really well. The Urei LA 2A Compressor has like 2 knobs and is a wonderful thing . . . it does not do Amp and microphone modeling, drums and multi effects.
Brian Eno once said that he would really prefer if they would just make a synthesizer with 4 or 5 good sounds rather than 256 shite sounds and 2 or 3 good ones.
Listen up Boss/Roland

Reliable yes. It sits reliably on the shelf I left it on one week after buying it.

This is a baffling little device that I'm sure in the right hands can yield satisfactory results. I felt obligated to post this on Harmony-central because I read peoples reviews myself when considering buying gear. You can't rely on magazine reviews when the very same magazine receives it's advertising revenue from the manufacturers it's reviewing. Not everything is wonderful. When I read these user reviews I am more interested in the bad ones for insight.
I am not saying that the Micro BR is no good. But if you are looking for a cool little recorder that you can start capturing stuff out of the box with a minimum of study . . . this isn't it.
You will be reading the manual for a while.
Great tech design doesn't depend heavily on the user reading the manual this much.
Good Luck

It can all seem baffling if you want to fiddle around with it straight from the box, so reading the manual is a must. Luckily I had already had experience with using a Boss BR 864 and this uses a similar menu system so it all didn't seem that daunting. The only annoyance I have is that there is no way of finding out if a drum rhythm is actually 8 or 4 beats long without actually listening to it. Overall it is very easy to use ONCE YOU HAVE READ THE MANUAL COMPLETELY!

As I have said I have already used a Boss BR 864, and you may or may not know that the Boss BR 864 is atleast twice the price as the Boss Micro BR. The sounds you get out of both are identical though, it's amazing how Boss actually crammed all these quality sounds into a device this size. The different drum sounds compliment a wide range of styles of music from hip-hop to reggae and they do a great job. As for the guitar sounds you will get a great recording sound just by using the ones that Boss have preset for you already, although you can make your own ofcourse. The amp simiulations aren't going to make you sell your Marshall stack but they do a fantastic job for getting ideas down and even for serious recording too. The effects, such as chorus and flanger, can be tweaked as much as you like to get the speed and depth you want. For device this small I don't think you will get anything better.

It's made from a solid plastic that feels completely sturdy and I'm sure if you dropped it on the carpet it would still work fine, just don't drop it on the concrete.

For the price I paid I got a fantastic piece of kit. It is highly portable especially with 2 AA batteries as an optional source of power. The quality of everything is fantastic and you aren't going to be dissapointed with such a small device that offers many big things. The MP3 mode option allows you to listen to MP3 files at just as good quality as an IPOD, though there are less menu options than you would find on an IPOD.
With loads of sounds on offer and 293 different drum rhythms available you have everything you need to record 5 platinum selling albums! Boss have made a fantastic piece of equipment AS LONG AS YOU READ THE MANUAL!

This is one cool piece of gear as long as the purpose is clear. I have tweaked gear like this since' 85 and the smaller the unit and more power, then the learning curve is tougher..that's perfectly normal. If you are spending this much spend 350 to 450 for one of the used and totaly awsome Yamaha 16 breeds to trully get 16 tracks 8 at once. I have the aw4416 which has motorized flying faders etc. 16 tracks at a time for 750 on ebay. This is NOT made for that. I bought it as a guitar practice and idea sketch pad and it's near perfect. I just recorded some rythm'& lead riffs with drum machine without cracking the manual. I'm sure it's deep if one is trying to get 4 high quality tracks out of it. As far as an acoustic one man show it would be great for demos. You know a metronome is boring for those who haven't realized how much it improves one's playing. How many times do we sit around and noodle without a click track or drum machine for timing?? Most of the time a guitarist is playing rythm on stage and near perfect meter makes ALL the difference. The sounds are just great for the $... especially the cleans.

Very quiet when input gain is set..very imp. as it will change from one guitar to another..that's normal of course. I think the effects for the $ are fantastic.No it doesn't sound like my Lexicon G-System but it wasn't $1500 either. I can clone most tones. It sounds better than my Pandora and it sounds better then my digitech floor looper and boomerang actually which suprised me. The delays are my style in terms of being echoplexi and soft...(highs roled off)

VERY IMPORTANT..input sensitivety is critical with all gear...making sure hot humbuckers are not overpowering the input...the difference is TONE or NOT.

Look tough enough. buy the Boss PSA120 for $20..forget batteries except when traveling...I have used a ton of their gear since the KILLER Roland GP8..old but still killer for recording..i BOUGHT IT NEW FOR $1200 IN '85 AND IT SITLL KICKS BUT..Steve Lukather helped develop it..BATTERY STILl WORKS FOR HOLDING PRESETS..GO FIGURE.. I have hundreds of hours in studio recording on that thing. It's either the pod pro or the roland gp-8 if not an amp..

Well a company this big..Roland/boss is probably fine with support

I have played for 40 years...13 in same vintage rock R&B band so we cover a lot of ground. This piece is to keep my chops sharp...especially when I come across something cool...then forget it 2 weeks later...I really like laying down licks and funk to listen back..and critique. At this price I'll have to go with 10 for value.
What is the value of hearing yourself especially if you are striving to be an accurate and clean..string muting..slide work...so many players are actually sloppy on playback in the studio. I have seen many guitarists come unglued because their playing didn't sound like they "thought" it did. a recording never lies. This is a great confidence builder!!!

Shirt pocket size digital recorder with four tracks, additional MP3 playback and recording capabilities, plus guitar multi effect processor/amp modeler, chromatic tuner, simple drum computer. Connections: 1/8" rec/phone output and mic/line input, 1/4" guitar input, USB for backup on your Computer. Works with SD cards (comes with 128 MB, max supports 1 GB) and runs on 2AA batteries.
All in all a very nice Jack-Of-All-Trades for practice, travel and musical note-taking.

Given the size there need be compromises concerning the UI. 21 knobs plus analog input and output volume wheels. But cleverly designed, the only thing that can be annoying is when you have to step through 1000ms of delay time, 300+ rhythm patterns or 80 preset sounds. A +10 and/or +50 knob would be welcome here. Else, if you manage to get some functionality out of you mobile phone or digital camera you should have no problems with this one.

Preset sounds can be edited and saved universally ("user presets", internal memory) or for the song (on the SD card).

You can easily bounce or master tracks and convert to MP3, you can also record directly in MP3 (mono or stereo, using whatever input you like) or jam to your fav MP3 using the effects and amp mods (but not the rhythm).

Rhythm patterns can't be changed but combined to arrangements (which you should do to make sure the machine saves the tempo of your song, a very simple arrangement will do. 5 different arrangements can be stored per song.) Miraculously all rhythm patterns are 4/4 with the exception of the metronome, which is a sin. There are some triolic ones, though.

All this editing stuff works very straightforward once you got the hang of it. I didn't imagine I'd be able to come along with this machine without extensive manual lecture, but I did. The manual is fine and very usable, though.

Boss writes nowhere that they intend to update the firmware. If they do, it would be a good idea to add some 3/4 and 5/4 rhythm patterns, but I doubt they will. Probably there will be a follow-up model next year and that's it.

This device eats batteries. Nonetheless I did not buy the optional mains adapter as it compromises portability and run the BR on NiMH rechargeables which is the best option IMHO. A set of 2000+ mAh batteries lasts about 4 to 6 hours, I'd say.

They also seperately sell a mock-leather case. Get that one, it makes a lot of a difference in usability, as you can hang ut around your neck or velcro it to the guitar strap. Great. Since I have it, I keep walking around the house with guitar and headphones and jamming :)

Effects are generally excellent. There are compressor, chorus, flanger and phaser plus delay. There are also two reverb flavours that can be added also to the mix.
I'm not after the sound of anybody in particular but you can get pretty much any sound you want with a little tweaking. The factory presets (80) can't be perfect for everybody, but I'm pretty sure anybody will find some to work with out of the box.
To my taste, delay times are much too long on a number of presets (500 ms seem to be some kind of standard) but this is easily changed.
There are three bass patches (and two for acoustic guitar), you can find some more when you play around a little bit. Works quite well for bass too, IMHO.

I'm using this box with my Gretsch hollowbody an Telecaster and with my newest acquisition, a Yamaha passive PJ Bass. Have not tried it with a guitar amp, I use headphones mostly. You also can show off in a non-musician household by running it through the Hifi system.

This is not a device for gig use. For that, the UI _is_ too finicky. Else I suspect it'll last long enough if you don't throw it or spill beverages on it (I again recommend the play case here).
Case is plastic and the batteries seem to make up half of the weight, but if something breaks in distant times, it might as well be the electronics.
I give it an 8 for what it's worth.

Never dealt with them and maybe never will (see: firmware updates, see: reliability). Websites are very good to excellent IMHO.

I play guitar for over 25 years now (huh, scary) but have just recently restartzed to take it more seriously after a quasi-break of several years. While I was at it, I've also begun playing bass.
I'd say the Micro BR is a heck of a useful tool for learning and practice, in my case I do find it multiplies my possibilities, gives me a decent self-check and even is inspiring. It helps me making music. I am very glad I bought it.
I love the portability and it being an all-in-one device, with all of the components being more than decent. Stay away from me with all those Nintendos and PSPs, just give me the Micro BR.

So if it was lost or stolen I'd have another one as soon as it can be delivered.

takes a bit of a read through the manual, but it's well written and easy to locate what you're looking for. anyone who's used a multi-fx pedal or digital recorder of other sorts could figure it out for sure.

it's what i expected. it's not the warmest sounding unit, but it's a small digital recorder and it's better than pretty much anything else in it's class and more affordable.

i've only had it a few weeks, but i've known people to have them for a few months now and no problems. 3 year warrany i think, so you can't beat that for the price.

they're usually helpful, never used them for this product yet.

kick ass! and YES YOU CAN BURN THE SONGS ON YOUR COMPUTER, RTFM (read the fucking manual) you have to master the song or track and then convert it to an .mp3 or .wav when it's done. you don't have to really master the song, just let it go through the process and don't add any FX or use any of the mastering tools, leave it flat and then alter the .Wav or mp3 files on your computer if that's what you want. otherwise, fully master it on the little unit then dump the song as a .wav or .mp3 and then burn away. easy!