Boss Micro BR

The BR Micro exceeds my expectations. It is one of the most important musical tools I have. It is right up there with the metronome. My primary uses are for maintaining an audio diary of my playing and slowing down MP3s to help me learn tunes. If it were to break or be lost, I would replace the Micro as soon as possible.

My recording includes both 4 track and MP3. I originally did not think I would use the 4 track much, but it has become an important favorite because I have learned that I can use the Micro to record a jam track to one track, a rhythm track to another track, and a melody track to a third track. It took a bit of fiddling to learn to use the 4-track recording, but once learned it was quite intuitive. These 4-track recordings, as with other recordings can be copied to your computer via USB, but you have to really look for the instructions to do it in the manual.

The results of the 4-track recordings are surprisingly excellent.

The whole thing is like magic.

This is adequately described in other reviews. I will note although the built in microphone is surprisingly good, I actually record with the Micro most of the time by using the Ext input source with an external microphone. The mic is a Shure SM57, with a low-to-high impedence transformer between the mic and the Micro. I wish I didn't need the transformer to do this, but at least it's possible to hook up a good external mic.

It sounds good to me. The results I get with 4-track recording are very good.

Battery power is standard. I strongly recommend getting the optional AC adapter because it consumes a lot of power. Boss recommends this too for the same reason.

The manual is pretty well written as a reference manual. The things you need to know are in there. Plan on reading the entire manual twice to get the most out of the Micro. It's worth the time.

I'd buy another one. Since I bought mine, Tascam has introduced some competing products. My recommendation if you are interested in this type of device is to search for the competing products and carefully check the features to see which one offers the features you want. The Micro fits my needs and wants very well, but your needs and wants may be different. Take the time to study the options.

Digital 4-track recorder about as big as if an alarm clock and an Ipod had a baby. It's right in the middle. This is my first 4-track and it took me about 2 days of messing with it to have about 80% of functions down, for the rest it's stuff that I don't need to use yet such as the mp3 practice tool. DOnt' care about it so why know about it? Anyway, the built in effects are pretty decent and the gutiar tones are useable. If you want a portable practice tool with pretty good tones, get a pocketPOD if you want a portable 4-track with usable tones, get this. Seems sturdy enough, I will probably put a screen protector on it though to be safe.

USB 2.0 - drag and drop...pretty standard

Pretty solid preamp, as stated previously, it has decent tones and decent effects. I would NEVER run line out into a PA to play out with but it's good for sketch pad ideas. I run a flextone III XLR to 1/4" and bypass onboard effects and it sounds pretty darn good that way but if I don't feel like running 10 cables, the onboard stuff is good enough. The drum tracks are pretty decent too. Doesn't sound real natural but then again THIS IS FOR DEMOS!! Anyone mad that it doesn't sound like the new Coheed album is an idiot. DEMOS people...good demos though.

AA batteries or the boss psa adaptor. I've been using the adaptor because I haven't left home with this little guy yet but I've read that you get about 6 hours battery life...I plan on buying rechargeable batteries for it. I hven't messed with the phantom power microphone business either. I've read and heard clips online and it seems to have good sound or whatever. Again, I bought it for guitar and bass with the vocals in the back of my mind...I know the onboard mic is actually pretty impressive. I had the input sensitivity pretty low and I had headphones on and it picked up my gf sneezing in the other room haha

I'm not sure of technical specs. Don't care to be honest.

No software, it's ALL built in. Mixing is easy as heck. hit record and the track you want to record and hit play. If you don't like the take...repeat process. When you're happy press rhythm button and find tempo and start adding drums that change on whatever measure you assign them. When you have all 4 tracks full but need more, bounce the tracks down to one V track and open up 3 more tracks. Master it all and convert it to MP3 all on this little guy. Very impressive.

I would recommend this to others for sure. It's not the BEST thing in the world but it is very cool for me and others like me who want to start recording demos and writing but don't want to HAVE to use the cpu to do so. I have reaching over my les paul for me mouse and having to sit too far back from the desk to reach but not too close or I'll hit my guitar on everything around it. Sucks, I wanted something I could place anywhere and have freedom. What's neat is you can take the tracks without mastering them and copy them on your cpu and put them into a program if you w ant to...at least I think you can...I haven't tried yet but it makes sense eh?

As easy as it is to use, I wish that it were just a little bit easier, like not such a learning curve...it took me 2-3 days to be able to make a half decent recording without the SAME drum loop over and over. haha needless to say that first day's recording sucked.

The Boss Micro BR is a portable 4track recorder. It has input meters, onboard guitar effects, plastic casing, a little bit bigger than an ipod.

USB 2.0

1/4 inch guitar input
1/8 inch mic input
1/8 inch headphone output

AC or 2xAA battery
phantom power for some mics, not true 48v.

All internal processing.

Stand alone. Not able to be used as computer interface.

The Micro BR is a cool little box. It's most usful as a portable guitar practice tool with headphones. A great little schetch pad for musical ideas and a cure for boredom in places where you can have your guitar with you but not much else. I bought it for traveling so i could play guitar in my hotel room and be able to record any cool ideas without any hassle. The BR does all of that and more. I would buy another one for sure. The only other unit that is similar is the Zoom H4 but it does have drum beats like the BR does. I wish the USB port could be used a direct recording computer interface. It only functions as a data port for backups. Hey, at least it does that. The dudes at Boss put alot of amazing stuff in that little package. They did a great job!

Well, it this is a 4 track (with 8 virtual tracks each) recorder that also plays MP3 files, has a full compliment of effects, a fairly complete rhythm section and a mastering toolkit -- all accessed via a total of 20 buttons. That's bound to mean a learning curve but it isn't as brutal as it could be.

The recording section of this little jewel is indeed pristine. It is MUCH better than my prior 4 track recorder (PXR4) made by Korg. The effects were also a pleasant surprise in that they sound pretty darn good. The rhythm section is limited, but usable for demos or new ideas and such. COSM seems to have actually improved over the years, or at least that is my impression so far.

So far, so good...seems solid for what it is.

Never had to deal with Boss/Roland. As I now own several of their products, none with even so much as a hiccup, that in itself is a good sign of quality.

Well, for $229 you get one hell of a portable recorder that will also function as a field recorder in a pinch AND it is an MP3 player and phrase trainer to boot. Dang, what else could you want for that price? SERIOUS bang for the buck in a very crowded market

You need to read the manual on this one, but once you get used to it, you can get around the difficult menus.

Mostly bought it to play MP3 in slow mode, but was surprised how good the sound quality was when recording my guitar. Pretty cool. On slow play back though, anything below 50% is really distorted, so go with a PC package if you have to go slower.

Not very reliable. Half the time it boots the software indicates i have an unformated card. I have to turn it off and back on until it recognizes the card. The software crashes when playing back songs (the power button doesn't work when the software crashes - i have to take the battery out to turn the machine off). The software locks up most of the time when connecting a USB cable. The software has crashed in other situations also. Not very robust.

For me, i should have bought the TASCAM GTMP3 player. I just thought (and someone recomended it) that the MicroBR would be just as good and you would have the added bonus of being able to record stuff. If you mostly want a trainer, don't buy this one. Having said that, when it is not crashing, it is fun and very portable.

I have had my Micro BR for 2 years, I loved it from the day I first used it. The operating system is not hard to use at all, its very simple. Most guys and ladies will need to go through speed tutorial section and anytime you don't know how to do something its easily looked up. It comes with a very well written manual that is mostly pictures and extras anyway so its not as much information as it looks. Turn off the TV for about 20 minutes and skip through the manual reading the parts you need to learn and you will have this thing mastered, or just keep being aggrivated because you've never used a stand alone multitrack and refuse to read a few pages.
I realize if it weren't for the problem of customers not reading manuals and not comprehending simple operating systems, Roland/Boss could have easily made this unit a full 16,24 or 32 tracks, not just 32 tracks virtual (which you can use 32) by changing the code very little in the OS and also the allowed size of the SD Flash card media. If this thing could take a 32GB card and had 32 tracks I would throw out my laptop, I like it that much. Speaking of laptop there is a free editor available online by a third party (not boss/roland) that is a little more complicated than the Boss BR OS so more advanced users may want to get it. Search G**gle for 'Boss Micro BR editor' or '....sound editor' and you should find it. ss

This multitracker really does have pristine sound without harsh digital high end. The converter is what raised the cost on this and its well worth it. I can't ever tell any difference even when I copy, export, import, bounce and master (commands/functions) on this unit. It is really great that they included the drum tracks. They are 4 beat rock mostly but they are a starting point or good enough if doing a AC/DC or Cars style track. There is even a house beat 4 on the floor. Yes you could use this all day long with a 303, 808 kick, a mic and a synth for those techno, goa, drum and bass fans. If you are into hardcore metal, get some double bass drum tracks and go wild like I do. Multitracks guitar easily and sounds excellent, separation of tracks (sound) at mixdown is a 8.5 of 10 which is great. I don't give 10's to much equipment, ever.

I have had mine for 2 years and use it literally every day. I am using the MP3 player on the weekends and the multracker all week. One OTHER thing this unit does which is like having a whole different machine entirely from the 4 track is allow you to not only play MP3 but record them. You can record your favorite radio programs (metal?) as MP3 and then using this MP3 players functions, isolate the guitar track, it removes part of the channel/frequencies so that the vocal,drums and bass don't stand out the guitar does, or anyone of those stands out and the other don't depending on how you adjust it (a simple slider function on screen). After isolating the guitar track you can then slow it down (or speed up) the part without any pitch change. Theres no mummy talk. It is the same pitch, just slower and learn your favorite new gutiar leads. After you finish learning the lick go to another spot and do the same or dump your entire 5 -10 hours of metal (you recorded as a mp3 file) onto your computer via USB cable and then burn it to CD as MP3 or convert to Wav. You can even dump it to your iPOD or other MP3 player. You can do the same with your multitracked projects and put them in MP3 format (for those who haven't read the manual) you use the export funtion in the multitracker, then press MP3 button, go to the MP3 section and import the track as MP3. Plug into the computer via USB cable and burn a cd or dump to your iPOD. Its reliable man. I do use it everyday. Its been on for over 2 years plugged in at home or running on two AA batt. when out and away from AC power. By the way, batterys- I use rechargable batteries that you can now get at any grocery store, the charger and batterys combined cost about 20 bucks and will last you 2 years if you use a lot. I got about 300 charges out of each battery, the charger is still working and I just got new AA's. Recharged (not new duracell disposables) last about
3 1/2 to 4 hours with the screen brightness (contrast) turned down to about half as bright. This will save battery power big time!

I have never had to deal with Customer Support for any Boss/Roland product and I have guitar pedals, multitracks, synths and other gadgets. Roland is famous for a reason. They make good stuff. Put some of those pads you put on the glass of coffee tables on the bottom corners and side/top corners of your Boss Micro BR if you use it away from home a lot. You can even get clear round ones the size/diameter of a No.2 pencil. If you drop it (and you will sooner or later) the pads will keep it from cracking up the display or worse. I have dropped mine on cement 2 times with pads already on it. No problems except the back is scratched up pretty bad. Mine has a lot of wear and tear. Why have it if I am going to put it in a display case. I use my equipment hard. This thing is a lot tougher than it looks.

This is a first for making a multitrack in micro size. When I got it sight unseen I was thinking it was going to record the tracks and that would be about it. The Boss Micro BR COMES WITH THE ROLAND DIGITAL EFFECTS LIBRARY called CSOM effects. These are amp modeled, amp and speaker cabinets modeled, microphones modeled, digital effects like reverb, delay chorus flanger tremolos, etc...All these effects are available whether you are playing a guitar track to the built in drums or doing a bass line and need a compressor, or a vocal line/ backing vocal lines and need reverb or delays. I can't beleive roland didn't make this more know in their advertising. The CSOM effects are phenomenal and truly give the unit CD quality multitracking right in this little box. You don't need to copy everything over to a computer to polish it off and edit it, you can, but won't need to. It has excellent effects and editing and all the effects have tweakable parameters to some extent. Also, the maximum size SD card it is supposed to recognize is a 1 GB. I have actually formatted a 2 GB on my laptop and then put it in the Micro BR and it did not require reformatting(initialize is the command on the M-BR). When I checked the recording time by having 'remaining' set to on in the main menu under 'utilities' and recorded a track, it showed the remaining time left on the card. It was over 16 hours. More than that was availble in the MP3 mode of recording (2 track stereo only). That is over 4 hours available if you had four tracks running constantly!. Think about that on a box that fits in your hand. Its the size of a cigg pack. You get CD quality mutlitracking, 32 tracks/takes to choose from, you can bounce tracks 1,2,3 to track 4 and then re-record over 1,2 and bounce to 3 and re-record over 1 and 2 and you will have 7 to 10 tracks final master! In digital quality with digital effects that sound excellent. And 4 hours of it, multitracked in a box this small. Its one of those reverse engineered things found on a UFO back at roswell. When you use it, and realize what is in it, and how small it is, its freaky man.

Like all good little electronic toys, this baby does have a learning curve. Within an hour though, you can be laying down your ideas. I still havn't figured out virual tracks and I don't plan to. Used as a scratch pad to remember that groove on guitar or some half-baked lyrics (usually using the mic)I find it easy, compact, and just plain fun.

I like to use this with my micro cube. The added effects are great, or I can plug in a mic to the cube at the same time, using the Micro's effects for guitar and the micro cubes for the vocal/harmonica. Hi Fi? No, that's not the point. Just ideas and watching people smile. I power the cube from a nine volt solar panal for trips out in nature with friends. I download the daily ideas from the Micro, but have rarely used the tracks for recording. It did shine in the aspect of recording a party. The built-in microphone worked great, and I did use those tracks as background for some songs.

A few "busy" messages that locked it up. But just reset, or R and R the batteries. I use the leather case and have been very glad I did when it was dropped a couple of times. No problems.

No opinion

This is a great recorder for my style. I like to go out and practice/create or play in the great outdoors, and then bring the ideas back to the studio. IMO it is perfect for this. In a pinch, I might try to use the four tracks, but I have no use for the virtual tracks. I been playing for 40 years, classical, jazz, Rock, techno, and even written some country, for my needs this has been a perfect fit. Easy to bring along, set-up and record. If I forget this on a drive-about or hike (works well with the Martin Backpacker),I really miss it. I would have to get another if it was lost or stolen.

Basic 4-track recording and meteranome use is very easy, I figureed it out without consulting the manuel. Where I think it becomes more dificult to use is editing the effects and deeper editing of the tracks. The main reason it becomes difficult is the fact that the thing is so small and protable that you can not see alot of information on the screen at once, but in my opinion, the device is eas to use for everything you get with it.

The recording quality is great once again the size of the unit makes up for lack of xlr's with phantom power. The cost also excuses the lack of xlr's. I am not a huge fan of the amp modeler I prefer Line 6 Pocket Pod (to maintain portability). I also have a Line 6 Pod 2.0 and Pod xt Live. The mastering efects on the unit are nice. For the price and portabilty, the condenser micon it workes great. I use a guild GAD-25 and it sounds great through that little mic. I am wanting to try a drum set on it(I know it will not be great but it would be good for rought demo's).

One word BOSS.

I have no clue, BOSS.

I have been playing for about 15 years now but that soesn't mean I am any good at it. I live in a small apartment and I son;t have the room anymore to have my mixer and mic stands out to record everything the best way possible. This has been a great tool for me to demo new songs while my family and I look for a bigger place to live. I can fit the boss micro br, a pocket pod, two short guitar cords, a strap, ear bud head phones and my e-bow all in my guitar case with my Les Paul studio and I can fully demo songs where ever I go. It would be hard to go back to not haveing one now that I have gotten used to being able to quickly record my ideas.

Fairly easy to use. If you're use to electronic gadgetry, then playing around with this thing should take you minutes to figure out. If not, RTFM...read the freaking manual!

Pretty easy to use. Plug your guitar in, plug it into your amp using a 1/4" cable adapter ($5.00 at most audio stores or music stores), turn it on, select your desired effect. Start jamming.

If you prefer to jam to your favorite song, the easiest way to do this is hook up your Micro BR to your computer. The memory card will come up as a "drive" on your computer. Copy your MP3's to the MP3 folder (very critical). A 1GB card will hold over 3 hrs of music so that should be plenty. Or just go buy more 1GB memory cards. By the way, a 1GB SD memory card is the maximum size the Micro BR will take. Next, select the song using the MP3 player, press play...and jam along. Pretty damn cool! If you want to practice figuring out a song, you can use the "time stretch" feature by slowing the song down to say 80% WITHOUT changing the pitch. Pretty damn cool!

Now the main reason I bought the Micro BR was the recording features. It has 4-tracks along with 8 "virtual tracks" for a total of 32 tracks. You can then select the best of tracks and "Master" or "Bounce" it down to the final cut. Pretty damn cool! Now as for the "Rhythm" feature, it comes with quite a few drum tracks that are nice, but need some work or modifying. The Micro Br allows you to edit them and create your own tracks. Again, pretty damn cool!

So after playing around with the Micro BR for a couple of days, its a guitarist dream come true. Its marketed as such so don't expect a full recording studio or guitar modeling system. ITS NOT! For ~$200 bucks, its intended to give you portability with the main features you need to record or compose a song on the fly. The 80 built-in effects should cover pretty anything you need to record a song. If you looking for a recorder with modeling effects ranging over 200, the Micro BR isn't for you. Go buy another device. Seriously, 80 effects and you're still not satisfied? Get real! Plus, you can modify the built-in effects. Pretty damn cool!

So is this for the novice guitarist? Yes...and no. You hate that, don't you? But seriously, if you have an ounce of how to work this sort of stuff, you'll be okay. Again guys, for $200 bucks, you get more than you could ever need for such a small device. The size alone is easy to transport. Its about the size of a HP calculator and weighs less than 1 pound. Pretty damn cool!

Give it time. Learn it. Take it with you to jam or check out guitars at your favorite music store. It comes with a built-in tuner (I wasn't too happy with it as it only allows you to tune down to 435Mhz or up to 445Mhz...what's up with that?). Plug in and jam!

I rated this an 8 due to the limits on the tuner as I tune down quite a bit especially on 12-strings. Plus, the first time you power this thing up, its a bit intimidating but you get used to it after a few hours of playing with it. I would have given it a 9 (nothing gets a 10 in my book) if the tuner were nicer and if getting from feature to feature were a bit easier or more intuitive.

Gee...for $200 bucks, I can't complain. Its quite, sounds better alone than my crappy Fender modeling amp (I over-paid for my Cyber Champ). I play a Strat, unmodified, and it sounds great. No complaints.

Is this something I'd put up against higher-end, higher priced models? No. But for on-the-fly recording, jamming, practicing, portability, and ease of setup and use, its worth it.

This is my third BOSS device. The other 2 are still working and are as tough as tanks. No problems with those so I hope this bad boy works out just as well.

I bought the higher-end AA batteries for it but will eventually pony up the money for the PSA electrical adapter from BOSS. Word of caution, BOSS included a "warning" flyer inside the box that highly recommends using their PSA adapter and not a generic power adapter. You may risk damage to the unit if you use the wrong power adapter. Is it just a marketing ploy to get you to buy their product? I don't know, but I'll buy one anyway. To me, it lease doubt out of it.

Never used them. Don't know.

I gave it a 9 just due to the features and true marketing of "a guitarist dream come true". I love it! Makes perfect sense to me. A truly portable recording unit the size of calculator. Easy to use and allows you jam on the fly. I read on another review where he was disappointed with the output volume. Huh? If you're using an amp...turn up the volume! If you're using headphones...are you freaking deaf? Good god man! Either that, or you got a bum unit. Oh...one thing I forgot to mention is you can control the input volume and output volume as well. Pretty damn cool!

Look, if you want a great recording device with all the features you need on the fly, get a BOSS Micro BR. Seriously, how anybody could give this device a low rating is beyond me. Some people just aren't happy with anything. Ignore their rating. If they got a bum unit, then that's a different story. But the Micro BR is a fantastic value!

I love how simple it is to work with it, and how fast you can record. Those who say it??s complicated never worked with a analogic portastudio. The manual is a bit complicated to understand, but after a few tries you,ll get the hang of it.

I use it to record ideas and jam sessions with my band (the built in mic is great for that).The guitar efects aren??t great, the reverb is awful, but for recording an idea fast, it??s more than enough. You can always use an external pre amp, i use a line 6 POD and it works very well.

Well, it??s a boss so i expect it to last.

Never dealt with them,never had to.

I play guitar for ten years now, from folk to metal, from acoustic to eletronic and i found a great way to record your ideas fast and with excelent audio quality. If lost or stole i would buy another one imediately. I like specialy the portability and the easy of use, i only wish it came with a power suply and a powerfull memory card.

I love how all the bad reviews were by people who weren't bright enough to figure this thing out. It's one thing to take in all available info and make a judgement, but for these inexperienced types who want to take this out of the box and magically have an album recorded, there seems to have been a bit of dissapointment.

Included is a 130(approx.)page manual that clearly explains how to do EVERYTHING with the unit, as well as the wealth of tutorials and info on the net. Morse code seems pretty overwhelming at first too, but take the time to learn it and you might change your opinion. Remember people, this is a pocket recorder, not a full DAW, take it for what it is. But even for something this small it is essentially a portable studio.

If you have half a brain and are technically able, you should be recording multi track songs within a half hour of taking this thing out of the box. And NO, it does NOT take forever to set up a song to record. Unless by forever you mean 15 seconds.

As far as recording quality from the inputs goes, I was quite happy. Virtually no noise to speak of, and overall really decent sounding.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the built-in mic. It records way better sound quality then you would expect considering what it is.

The effects did seem a little predictable, but they were still great. I don't think BOSS was trying to create a bunch of unique guitar patches here though, they just wanted some solid, tried and tested effects to add to this already loaded device. Mission accomplished.

I haven't had it long enough to give an accurate rating here, but knowing BOSS I'd say I'll have this device for years to come.

Haven't needed any as of yet.

Hopefully that doesn't change.

In my opinion, this is an unbelievable value at just over $200 CAD. Sure they could have made it an 8-track, or added a juicer attachment but come on, it's already loaded with capabilities. There's no need to be greedy, this device will do most everything 99% of it's users are looking to do with it.

Very highly recommended, and would definitely buy this again.

When I opened it... and seen how thick the manual was, and all in english too... I thought, this will take forever...

I sat down in the night, and i just pressed buttons, trial and error.. its the best method, and then use the manual to fine tweak. It isn't a ??10,000 recording studio... its a notebook for ideas... so you just have to work with it.. But I can totally understand why people find it daunting... ya just, like with anything.. have to take the time

Everything as far as connecting is easy and straight-forward, guitar input, mic, line-out, headphones/speakers and what not, and the sound is fine, use a decent pair of headphones, or a nice set of speakers, maybe 5.1 style, or even 2.1 styled, and ya get a good enough sound for recording. But as for just using headphones thats fine.

The effects vary, some are great, and some are not so great, but you can always edit them, play about change amp Mods, compression, reverb, delay etc... so I guess you can always find something you'd might like. Coulda done with more Bass effects though, proper dedicated bass effects. not just 3. But like I said, editing is a great gift, so if ya have the time/effort, you cna make something

I don't know, its plastic, but its Boss, so I have faith in it lasting. Ive got a warranty, and a case for it.. So i'm pretty sure, itll be safe in my pocket whenever.

Not had to deal with Boss/Roland customer support.

If you want a good priced, 4 track... good to get ideas down, and enjoy... have a drum machine to jam too, a great learning tool, and a pretty neat device for all your ideas, and even mastering them for demos, this is perfect... Some people hate it, each to their own... I got it because I'm on the move alot, have a few bands, like to record all our ideas and what is going on. and for this it works perfect. Thanks for reading

Not that easy-- the interface is a rather confusing menu based affair that is not particularly intuitive at first. You'll get it, eventually, but not without scratching your head many many times.

First: The think has LITTLE OUTPUT VOLUME-- you can never get enough volume out of this thing with any kind of heaphones. Piddling small sound- and if you are trying to use in a noisy or moderately noisy environment, just forget it.

Good sound quality, somewhat more pristine than other small palm sized units I've owned and/or still own-- i.e. Korg Pandora and Pandora PXR4 recorder, (pre-2008), Zoom PFX9003-- in its own way.

It records excellent quality-- however

IT IS VERY LIMITED in regards to effects and sounds-
the device reminds me of a beautiful MODEL-- who looks good, but doesn't do that much

and thus the fun factor is somewhat limited to the standard guitar sounds everybody has heard a gazillion times---

If you think the Micro BR is cram packed full of choices-- you are wrong. The effects are relatively very limited compared to the other devices above- either of which have pretty astronomical- which can be found for a FRACTION of the price of the MICRO BR. You get amp simulators, speaker simulators, 4 band EQ, Bright option, noise reduction,and ONE EFFECT at a time- compressor, chorus, flange, phase, tremelo/pan, and Delay (AND JUST TRY AND FIND The Delay effect ! hahah!) --- AND THAT'S IT BABY.

You do get Reverb additionally (room or hall)- yeah, but you just try and find it in the menu-- good luck. And it sounds like absolute crap. I found it eventually.

So in summary-- Your basic guitar effects from twenty years ago, with generally good quality.

Nothing to jump up and down about. In my opinion, the versatility of this thing is HIGLY OVER RATED.

I will NEVER sell my Korg or Zoom palmtop recorder/effects. I would seriously consider selling this.

Who knows. Probably good.

Again blank.

Average. For the money-- get something much more fun, more versatile at half the price, like an older Pandora or Korg on ebay and hang onto it.

If you need the tiniest multitrack recorder made, okay, this might be the ticket.



Neil Slade
<a href=http://www.BrainRadar.com>BrainRadar.com</a>

Manual a must, but not as hard as some of the other posters make it out to be. The way I learned it was to "master" the major functions one at a time. Once you learn how it works, it's pretty simple. It???s taken me about 2 months of use (once a week) to get comfortable with pretty much all the features and this thing is loaded! BTW, it is very simple to get the unit to keep your drum tempo. Read the manual ???cause it???s all there.

I was expecting a little more from the effects processor because I own a GT-6 and love the tons of ways you can tweak your own sound. The presets are only decent, but definitely good enough for scratch pad stuff. The sound quality for recording surprised me. I was so used to an $80 Olympus digital recorder that I bought to record band practices (that thing sounds terrible - fizzy and thin). I was expecting a little better from Boss . . . and they delivered! I recorded a practice going direct from the board to the Micro BR while simultaneously using the built in mic for ambient sound. I was amazed. Recently I played a piece, I put together, for a professional musician friend of mine and he was surprised that I only used presets and a cheap Jackson Dinky ($200 guitar I bought to have a floating Floyd and to keep my American Strat for "gigs"). My friend ordered a Micro BR that same week.

Only one complaint. The headphone jack moves ever so slightly in the casing. Seems like no big deal but I made the mistake of using the unit on soft surfaces (car seat, couch, bed, etc). So when I would press on buttons there would be stress on the output jack. After a couple of months the connection went bad and the sound would cut in and out. I originally thought my cable was the problem. Turns out it was the unit's jack! I was so bummed. I would buy another unit in a heartbeat but money is tight. So I took a chance and opened to unit to see if I could re-solder the joint. It looked like too delicate an operation so I used an epoxy and a spacer to keep the jack still. Works perfectly now. Phew!

I've owned a bunch of Boss stuff over the years. Never had to contact them. Love their products. I hope I never have to contact them. This time I was blessed to have found a simple solution on my own.

I researched mini-recorders for about a month and narrowed it down to the Zoom H4, the M-Audio Black Box, and the Micro BR. I finally went with Boss because of my track record with their products (especially the GT6). I play Christian praise music and love all kinds of music but I have a passion for hard rock and metal. I've been playing for about 25 years and got a small bunch of equipment. But for this article, I will only mention that I use my Jackson Dinky and Fender Jazz bass with the Micro BR. I wish I had a unit like this when I first started because it's a great practice tool - like having a full band in a box - and the multi-track studio is absolutely fostering my creativity. It's so much fun, I will stay up to about 2am to make time to record even though it makes me drag a bit the next day.

As a beginner, the Boss Micro BR is NOT easy to use for recording. I had to go online to figure out how to Bounce and Master as the manual seems to assume the user has some background knowledge. I did find a great forum on this unit http://microrecorders.org/ that can help you with anything on the Micro BR!

The built in effects are ok, the sounds are decent. I would have to rate them better than expected, althought I don't like the reverb too much. Overall I have to admit the sounds built into this unit are better than I expected.

So far so good, and it IS a Boss, so it should outlive my dog.

Never tried to get support or help, so I have no opinion on this...

This product was purchased to play along to MP3's with headphones on so I don't drive the wife and kids nuts. For that purpose, this thing is a perfect 10. The fact that I have a 4-track recorder, to me is a bonus! I have had this for over a week and have recorded some songs for fun. Sure you ain't gonna take this thing out of the box and start using it right away but with the manual and the online forum, you can be recording tracks, mixing and mastering in a few hours! I love mine and would not be without it!!!

Some of the reviews on here are pretty critical, I think the price of the unit has to reflect somewhat in the ratings. It is a great value and a great way to put a demo together or to practice along to songs. For those that want to figure out songs the slow down feature is excellent as well - I only wish I had something like this years ago!!!!

Just getting started, but its recording quality is great. Ge used to the fact that you'll have to spend half a day with the thing in front of you and the manual in your hand, but after youve got that outta the way its pretty intuitive. Ive not bothered with the finer points of mixing and editing on it (which looks arduous) ,,but thats because its primary job is as a PORTABLE musical scetchpad. It fits in your pocket, has a half decent mic, battery power and is tiny-if your (seriously) homerecording,this isnt a studio in a box (even if it is),but is still the best way of catching sounds when inspiration strikes

Better for recording, less so for realistic effects, Id be far more unhappy if it was the other way round

no probs so far,,not had it long, but apparently theres a full 2 year warranty if you register it online (in the uk at least),,so Boss seem fairly confident. The case it comes with is flimsy but does what its meant to

The primary target audience for this thing is undoubtably guitarists,,but as a guy who collects found sounds for use in breakcore its perhaps even more of a gem. As I say, if youve no use for its portability and ease of use as a musical scetch book your barking up the wrong tree. Boss have smartly added (limited but effective) USB/mp3 options, not to mention a fair stab at a drum machine (essential if just as a varied metronome), effects etc.Actually for me some of the extras are irrelevant, incredible given its size. Biggest 'con'- It doesnt let you record two mono inputs at the same time (though stereos fine,,weird),,,but I have heard internet mention of a way round it via the right adapters, bounce works well,,,look,,bottom line ,,,out and about? touring? spending week or two at your folks who probably dont own a home studio? wanna record sounds in a derelict factory? these are the most relevant questions to be asking,,bearing in mind its decent recording quality and unbelievably good price. Well done boss

I don't know why mostly everyone is saying this is difficult to work with. I would say it is very easy. You have one main screen, a levels screen (click on cursor left) and a track screen (click on any track button). Then if you want to do other things such as edit, etc., you have to go to Utility. It even has distinct buttons for rhythm, input and effects settings. Everything is done by moving a cursor and modifying the values. You can always go back to the previous screen by pressing Exit. It doesn't have dozens of screens in which you might get lost. Normally you can only scroll to a second or third screen, in the case of tracks you can go through the various parameters (levels, pan, rec track, etc.). Transport buttons are perfect. It allows rapid scrolling through values. I do not know how digital recording can be done simpler. The display is great. I have used a roland VS-840 and a korg D12 and everything was logical to me. Just look at the manual of any Zoom digital multitrack recorder, and you will see how difficult it can get. Editing is fairly easy, you can specify the sections by time or measure, or as an A-B point. It autosaves. Programming rhythms is the only feature that could be easier - it only allows you to program up to 50 patterns in sequence, and you cannot combine drum kits or move backwards or forwards smoothly - you only can hear the song from a certain step. If you want to save your tempo, simply program an arrangement of one step with that tempo. Not as complicated as others mention.

As regards recording, the sound is great considering the price and size. I was able to cut tracks easily, even with the onboard mic. The inputs are in general too sensitive, however. As regards effects, this was a let down. I expected sound quality similar to, at least, the VS-840. While the general purpose algorithms (with Compression, limiter, etc.) are OK, the guitar effects are very poor. So generally I use a pocket pod to record guitars. Reverbs are nothing to write home about. So a 9 for recording, a 3 for effects.

No problems so far. Battery life is good.

It is amazing to have such a portable recorder. It is easy to use, and has a lot of features. However, a firmware upgrade is needed to at least:

- Include the possibility to assign marks so that you can jump between sections of a song.
- (very important!) Include the possibillity to store and recall "scenes" or snapshots of the mixer. Particularly because it is a pain to reproduce the settings value by value, and because the input sensitivity forces you sometimes to bring everything down so as to hear yourself when overdubbing.

An upgrade of the effect algorithms would be welcome as well.

Overall, a nice little device that records surpringly well, and has many features. And, not to be forgotten, it's cool. If you think that is not important, then look again at the iPod sales.

Well from what I've seen so far, other reviewers either give this a 1 because they think every electronic device is plug in and play these days and if something isn't they scorn it, or people give it a 5-8 for ease of use, which seems about right.

I'm going with 6 because yes, at first you'll get it, press a few buttons and within seconds be rushing off to the bin to recover the manual. However, take time to read the thing and in an hour or so you should be laying down a few tracks. That's all I use it for at the moment because trying to edit/mix on this thing is way too complex for my small mind.

Considering the price and the sound, the sound quality is actually fairly awesome. The built-in microphone is a touch sensitive, but generally it produces a solid sound quality for on the go recording.

The effects are pretty good except I'll agree with everyone else here, the reverb is absolutely awful. Use it in small amounts if at all.

What can I say? It's BOSS! I'll be getting wrinkled before this thing takes a scratch.

Never dealt with the customer support I'm afraid.

This little gismo isn't all that bad you know. I play most styles, and the recording is consistently good every time, so I'm a happy man. If it were stolen or lost... that's tricky. I think I would get something a little more simple, because I only really want to use it as a notebook and get my ideas down.

I love how the Micro BR looks. It's typically BOSS, really sleek and modern with lots of flashy bits. The value for money, all things considered is insanely amazing. You can get this thing for $150 (USD) if you look hard enough. Thats a tuner, recorder and mixer for less than my microwave!

I must say I wish it had a more intuitive interface, but thats Roland/BOSS for you, making quality products unnessecarily complicated. The one exception is of course the micro pedals which subsequently are vastly popular. Not this though, keep the instruction manual safe!

I'm sorry, but this device IS a great tool for capturing song ideas. As a matter of fact, that may be its best feature! I can pull it out of its bag, plug in my guitar, quickly set up an effect patch and level, and begin with my idea, before it falls of into some void in my brain. 5 minutes at the most, and that would include getting out my guitar, cord, and finding my MicroBR in my case. Take the time to learn how to use the unit.

I wish I could say that post production is as easy to do. The alphanumeric, multifunction buttons are very hard to get a grip on. I have come to realize that what needs to be done is to break out each button's functionality and make a chart. Even when I finally find the right 'path' of buttons to follow, I forget how I got there.

Maybe Boss could do that.

Let's step back a couple of years. Remember the cassette 4-track machines? You bounce once and the sound quality goes down the drain. This unit costs less than $250, and the sound is 1,000% better than 10 years ago, when units were bigger and cost way more money.

The effects patches are cool. Some are overkill, but that's better than less.

I think its a great little unit to carry around and record. I use rechargeable batteries, and 2AA's on a charge can last for hours. Bring an extra pair of you think you'll need them. Mono recording live onto one track can grab about 12 hours of sound!!

The manual is a little vague. It needs to have more visual support and give typical case scenarios.

I'd recommend the Boss MicroBR to anybody looking to record ideas. It is not a replacement for a high end unit, but it does remarkably well for the price.

Too complex for a musical ideas notepad; too small, fiddly and limited for a proper recording system. What is the point of the Micro BR. Boss have either ruined a useful recorder by making it too small or ruined a useful notepad by requiring too much setting up before you can do anything. Christ, by the time you've go it all set up to do something you've wasted half an afternoon and the batteries are flat.
Editing seems very involved to start with, but I guess you kinda get used to it. Don't lose the manual, tho' - you're going to need it. If it was simple to set up and just put down a quick song idea I could forgive (or at least ignore) the rubbish effects, but it isn't and it just doesn't seem to have anything going for it.
I'll give it 2 out of 10 for the fact that it does, eventually, allow you to record multiple tracks.

I might have to give this an artificially low score to make up for all the deaf reviewers who've given it 7 and 8 for sound quality. Unfortunately I can't really give it a score any lower than it deserves as the scoring only goes down to 1. The effects are horrible, buzzy pieces of crap!
Seriously, tho' the actual recording quality, I suppose, is pretty good but you have to use external effects - which kinda defeats the object of the Micro-BR being all small and portable. Sheesh!
OK, I'll compromise: recording quality 8, effects quality -5 so I'll give it a generous 2.

Being Boss it should be pretty reliable and it seems to be reasonably well-made. Add to that the fact that you'll get sick of it really quickly and never touch it again and it'll outlast every man Jack of us.

I'm sorry Boss but to turn out such a useless waste of time and money you obviously don't listen to you Customers. Take a 1 out of 10.

OK, it *is* a multitrack recorder, but you can't use it as a portable multitrack because it's too complex, the batteries don't last long enough for you to get it set up and then actually do anything and the effects suck so loud you just want to throw your headphones away and put cactus in your ears.
You could make use of it with a power supply and external effects, but in that case you can get better, more ergonomical multitrackers for less money... from BOSS!

Plenty of features from recorder to MP3 player. Looping, effects, etc. Even use it as a portable amplifier. Fairly easy to use although best to read the manual to familiarize yourself with the buttons and what they do. First try I got good sound from this unit. The manual covers all everything one needs to know.

Excellent for such a small portable unit.

Seems to be built well. All buttons are smooth and precision. Only time will tell.

na

I am very pleased and impressed with this unit. I considered the Zoom H4 and some MP3 players, but I was after a small recorder unit. This unit is feature-function rich. IMO it doesn't look toyish like the Zoom. It's look sharp and feels solid in hand. I like the fact that it uses a removable SD memory card unlike the Zoom unit. I've since installed a 1 gig card for increase song capacity. I find the battery life is very good. This unit suits all my needs perfectly as a portable, practice unit, for play along with songs or rythyms, and for recording snipes of song ideas. It's conveniently small enough to carry with you. I hhave have a gripe with the unit, it is that this unit only supports MP3 and WAV formatted files so you'll need a converter utility to convert non-MP3 or non-WAV files to one of these two formats in order load the songs into the unit. You will also need a USB cable with a mini type B plug on one end. Using the USB interface is a breeze as this unit is plug and play. The unit/card is immediately recognized when connected to a PC.

It may take a while to get used to, but once you do its really not too bad. Ive read some complaints that it was complicated but that was only the first hour or two.

For this price and size, i think Boss did a pretty good job. The sound seems somewhat digital and it lacks a bit of warmth, but hey its not an amp. For on the run recording its very useful especially since it can run off 2 double A batteries. The built in mic was surprisingly good. I read on other review about the sound being thin on single coil pickups such as strats, but i have yet to test that. I tried with duncan passives and EMG 81s and the sound seems pretty good, except a bit too sensitive.
The built in effects are good, other than the reverb.

Seems to be working fine so far. Great for practice at home if you have annoying neighbors.

Never dealt with

Overall, for this price its a good buy. Give it a try before you buy though.

it's easy to a degree but not to go all out on

i suppose the micro BR doesnt quite have studio quality sounds but alont, it sounds pretty good and plugged into a computer, a little better

it always works so its dependable

i am having a little trouble transfering and listening to the songs on my mac powerbook i dont think i have any software installed? so i cant listen to it on my computer...but the portability is great i bring it in my car everyday

Yes, I read all the reviews below, but I thought I was cleverer. Just create a "song" with all your default settings and use that each time. Nope. No way to save under a new name. You have to start each new song from scratch and switch off all the default effects (some are recorded to the track - some are in the monitor/phones only. Fun to figure out.)

I also thought it would be great as a notepad for capturing ideas, but by the time you're set, your idea is gone.

And you cannot just select a 4/4 drumbeat (or even just a metronome) and jam to it because next time, the drums and guitar are out-of-sync (unless you stick to the standard tempo). The only way to get it to remember the tempo is to create a complete drum track(!?!). Yes, really. Major inspiration killer.

Sound quality is good but built-in mic picks up switch noises, and if you have not turned off the reverbs first, you start each take with a reverb pulse triggered by the record switch click.

It's back in the box and I'm going to give it away, so I probably will never find out.

What Roland/Boss did here is create a cut down version of their bigger desktop recorders. Consequently, the complexity is still there without the feature set to justify it. It's small but not really portable because you have to take the manual along. It's not really good for capturing spontaneous inspiration because its too complicated to get set. It's not really an MP3 player either because it only runs 3 hours on batteries so you need a power supply.

Boss unwittingly created a new market by introducing this device: a simple portable pocket multitracker. Unfortunately, the Micro BR is not one. Boss must now think again about what this market segment really requires and come out with a Micro BR-2 that addresses it properly. THEN we will have a killer device!

C'mon Boss/Roland, I know you guys can do it!

It's not intuitive as everyone has said, but w/ the manual it's not really that bad. I've certainly seen worse. For the features and the size.. well, it's more intuitive than my Roland VG-8 or VG-88!

As for editing patches, it's very limited. See more information in the sound category

This all refers to the guitar/amp/effects sound, NOT the overall recording quality.

This is where it really loses it for me. It pretty much sounds like a Rockman circa 1984. It's been over 20 years since then. Given the sound quality of the Line6 products (like say the new pocket pod), this is awful. Everyone else that gives it high ratings must be referring to the recording quality or something. Overall I like this unit, but I may return it simply because the sound is SO awful. If you wanna play some Boston, or something off of Surfing With The Alien, then you've come to the right place. It's got Rockman sounds for days. Otherwise, look elsewhere. My old Korg Pandora PX3, which I believe is well over 5 years old, and sounds sterile and processed, sounds better and more natural than this, and there are more effects and they are more editable.

The quality of the effects is medicore. Chorus sounds like Tom Scholz, as stated above. I kept listening to my patches wondering where this reverb was coming from (the unit has no reverb effect that I have found), and realized that it is coming from the feedback parameter of my delay effect. IOW, instead of feeding back the delay into the delay and producing distinct delays (esp. when playing staccato), the delay feedsback in and it gets all smeared rather than distinct and ends up sounding like a really crappy reverb instead!

I am seriously considering returning the unit because of the sound.

When you slow down mp3s, you can hear the digital noise that gets created pretty distinctly. It's not as bad as devices and software used to sound just a few years back, but it's not great. Transcribe! and Amazing Slow Downer on my Mac sound WAY WAY WAY better than this (haven't tried them on the PC yet).

The following is important to know for some, and not mentioned ANYWHERE in the manual:

It won't decode all mp3 types. I haven't delved deeply into this, but I grabbed a bunch of MP3s and copied them to a smart card and popped it in. Several of them got unsupported format errors (they play find on my iPod and on other computers). I can only assume that it doesn't like certain mp3 codecs (I had a Sony mp3 boombox that liked frauenhofer and blaze mp3 encoded files but crapped out on LAME mp3 encoded files - may be a similar situation here).

MP3s, if they do not follow the 8.3 naming scheme, will be renamed to follow that scheme (they won't actually be renamed, but they will be displayed like that). IOW, FooFighters_song1.mp3 and FooFighters_song37.mp3 will be displayed as FooFig*1.mp3 and FooFig*2.mp3, etc.

When you put in a card and initialize it, you will see that it creates a Roland folder and an mp3 folder. You must put all mp3 files in the mp3 folder, and NOT in subfolders, or the device won't see them, whihc kinda sucks and reminds me of the $10 mp3 CD players that you can get at wallmart. Even the cheapest of mp3 players these days will understand some sort of a directory structure.

Like I said, it sounds like an old Rockman. I think that the difference between say "SmoothLead" and "MetalLead" are simply the COSM amp models, and it sounds to me like the different amp models are basically all the same amp model with different EQ profiles selected. Pretty sad...

It's Boss. It'll probably outlast most of us. :-)

Haven't had to deal with them for this item.

My style of music ranges from blues (Freddie King to Jimi Hendrix) to fusion (Mahavishnu to modern stuff like Brett Garsed, Richie Kotzen, etc.) with some metal edge thrown in (Megadeth, Pitchshifter, etc.) for good measure. Been playing for 20 years+.

If it were lost or stolen I'd look for something else. Right now I'm thinking of returning it and getting something like the StaelthPlug, but I really wanted something that I could use away from the PC. :-(

I really feel lik in this day and age, this thing shouldn't sound like a Rockman! I have other Roland COSM stuff (VG-8, VG-88) and they sound WAY better (as expected), but this thing should still be at LEAST on par with a 5+ year old, old technology Pandora PX3.

Maybe I'm being overly harsh, but come on. It's 2007. This thing should at least sound like, say, oh, 1995!

Love it. This is the coolest toy I've bought in a while. I also own a Roland VS2000 so I was already very familiar with the menu style of Roland, so I did not find it difficult to use. I recorded a few minutes of a guitar track and then spent about 4 hours going through the manual as if it was a tutorial and tried the different recording, editing, copying, looping, bouncing functions and I found it very easy to use. It was easy to follow along the instructions and figure out all the main functions. Moving files back and forth between the unit and my computer is a breeze. Excellent for backing up recordings.
Some things I don't like. When I save a song, it doesn't remember what tempo I set the metronome to. Very frustrating if I didn't write it down ahead of time. I have not figured out how to dynamically control the input level during a live recording. You should plan to buy an SD card with it. I think it's pretty lame that it comes with a 128 MB card with a 1 gig is not that expensive. I would have paid the extra money up front to save a seperate trip to the store.

I think the sound quality is great for how I use it. I am not planning on releasing a CD from it, so to use it as a portable song writing, lick learning tool is great. The internal effects are fairly basic and I think they are there mostly to be used when you are just trying to get ideas out without having to plug in a bunch of external units for the "perfect" sound. For the price, I think it is excellent.

I have not had any issues with the unit so far but I have only owned about a month now. I do like the fact that if the power goes out from the AC adaptor that the batteries will take over until the power comes back up.

NA

Again, I think the Micro BR is an excellent song writing, lick learning tool. It is better than I expected.

You'll hear a lot of people whine about various features of this product. Try it for yourself before you rush to judgement. I toyed around with my Micro-BR for about an hour after skimming the basics in the manual and it's actually very easy to use. With some patience, on a creative day you'll be laying down cool sounding tracks in a few hours. Once you've mastered the basics of using effects and laying down individual tracks, it pays to study the manual more in-depth. Granted the manual is not 100% perfect, but it will generally point you in the right direction. I like to just mess around and record 4 track songs in one take to sketch out ideas. Some suck, so I erase them, others have usable parts or provide me with inspiration to go a different route. The Micro is a great sketch pad type tool. I don't think anybody expects to rock totally pro sounding songs on it for under $350 (USD). You can however create some really cool layers with it and the built in mic is pretty neat too. It does a surprising number of things considering the sparse button count, that's what may confuce some users is having to hold certain buttons and tap others to scroll through features. In the long run though it's just like learning a new cel phone. It'll all become second nature in time.

This device is fantastic for quiet settings. Throw on some studio quality headphones and you can record till dawn without waking the neighbors. The vocal effects can be slightly over the top but they can be adjusted to sound cool and be of use. The guitar/bass effects patches are pretty nice too. If you're turned off totally by built in effects, plug in your favorite stompboxes or play around with Line 6's modeling pedals like I did, lots of fun. With patience and practice you can lay down tracks easier and with overall better quality than a traditional tape machine. I bought a Yamaha 4 track about 10 years ago and it's in mint condition because I never used it. For some reason the Micro is much easier to use and mor inviting to play with than an old machine with 4 dozen sliders and knobs.

I trust Boss stuff. Just in case though, I bought the guitar center extended warranty AND a second Micro-BR because I love it so much. It's lightweight but seems pretty rugged for a plastic device.

No experience, though Boss stompboxes are built like brick ovens.

If you want a fun, easy 4 track sketchbook that plays Mp3s in a portable package, look no further. Try it before you buy it, that's what sold me on purchasing two of them in the same week. This is an awesome gift for musicians at a fair price. Just stock up on AA batteries, this thing devours them, or spring the $25 for an AC adaptor. You'll also need to buy a bigger SD card, lika a 1 gig since the included one is like, 128 MB and only holds one or two songs in addition to the lame pop punk demo song. Any major brand regular dimension sd card will work. Take the Micro with you when shopping for a USB/Mini b cable. I mistakenly bought the 4 pin, should have been the 5 pin shaped more like a trapezoid. Damn. Overall though lots of function, small portable package. Much fun.

UPDATE FROM EARLIER REVIEW

I've given the Micro BR a little more time, and as I mentioned earlier, it takes a while to become familiar with the menu--- so now I do okay on the thing.

One fun thing I'm using it for is my weekly Beatles jam session-- i.e. a friend and I have been getting together for years and simply go through the Beatles catalog (big thick japanese complete scores)--- The Micro BR allows me to import the original recordings in excellent MP3 files, and then we play along with the record-- AND, this is the cool part, I can modify my guitar that is going into the micro BR simultaneously as a guitar effects, and tweak my guitar to match the sound of the Beatles guitar part I am playing-- i.e. I listen to the original recording, and get pretty much the exact sound of George, John, or even Paul. Nice fun.

Yes, the guitar effects are limited to basic effects, but extremely good quality except for the reverb, which sucks. Just use a little bit of this effect, cause it is pretty lame. Surprising, because otherwise excellent sound quality. The Korg Pandora snuffs the BR completely on the reverb.

I got mine for DIRT cheap on Craigs list, $125. You should be so lucky.

Neil Slade
The Amazing Brain Music Adventure
www.BrainRadar.com

If you ignore some of the advanced features of this unit, it's relatively easy to record a 4 track song. If you stick to the basic guitar and/or mic inputs and add a few effects, and ignore the rhythm section and bouncing, you'll be up to speed within a day.

My biggest gripe with the Micro BR is that it won't record two inputs to two separate tracks, in other words you can't record a guitar and mic at the same time to two separate tracks unless you jump through some hoops to use a splitter on the line input and forfeit the abilty to add separate guitar and mic effects.

The sound quality is actually pretty good. Using the external mic to lay down a track on guitar with vocals is surprisingly good. I've used external mics with it but I find the built in mic does a reasonably good job of capturing a live performance of guitar and vocals.

The effects are ok, most of the guitar inputs are suited to electric guitar and being an acoustic player, I was still able to find a few that enhanced my sound. Vocals effects are respectable e.g. there is a compressor and the reverbs are ok.

So far so good. I've use it with batteries and I bought the optional power supply. Both work as expected. Overall the unit is well constructed, I don't expect any problems with it.

Haven't need Boss support.

I like the portability of this device which is why I bought it. It allows me to record wherever I am without being tethered to a PC or a bulky digital recording workstation.

It does a respectable job of capturing a live performance of acoustic guitar and vocals on a single track without anything "plugged in".

I'd give the BR Micro a 10 if I could plug in the guitar and sing into the on-board mic and have them go to separate tracks. This is the one disappointment I have with the BR Micro. There are many times that I'd like to record guitar and vocals with separate effects, and keep the one of the tracks and re-record the other, alas that isn't possible.

if you are familiar with roland gear you can expect more of the same here. tedious non user friendly interface. somewhat cryptic manual, but if you pay attention to it you will get the job done eventually and it makes sense eventually in a rolandesque fashion. i have allot of roland/boss gear because it is rugged professional gear for the most part. so i understand roland/boss thinking a little more perhaps. if they get some real users and musicians to collaborate on their manuals and prototype evaluation they could be awesome. the manual assumes allot and under explains allot too.

for a basic sketch pad and recording features it is adequate, but as someone else mentions it stifles creativity by smothering it with cumbersome technology. the guy who designed windows vista must have helped design the micro br. get a mac guy next time senor boss.

after owning it for about a month i have resigned myself to using it's basic recording features as a practice tool and to capture ideas but will go to my studio and mac/digital performer interface for anything else. the micro br is just too mentally cumbersome for anything else without snuffing the creative spark.

no firmware updates available (or possible) to my knowledge. i'd sure like to swap some of the drum and guitar patches for something more useful. i have been a rock blues folk musician for 43 years and build electric guitars and tube amps so i know useful tone and rhythm. this doesn't blow my hair back. the usb seems to be only for dumping and loading files you create. it would have been wise to include a programming interface to allow use of the computer instead of multiple tiny button sequences to personalize your unit.

why does roland wait for users groups to come up with the programming interfaces like for the vg-88. wake up roland!! you build quality gear--put it together so the creative non geek musicians who are your customers can make you look good with it. that said i have over a dozen pieces of roland/ boss gear because it is so reliable.

the sd card format is great. eventually after being at my mountain cabin with this for a few uninterrupted weeks without other options i will probably find it better tool. i bought it to replace an old zoom recorder.

roland sounds are very good for the money and this is no exception. if you can and will use them. there are few i will use however. there are few at all right out of the box like i use live or in my studio but as a composing or practice tool it will do. i'll have to spend allot of time tweaking the stock patches. the rhythm sounds good but the arrangement use is confusing and lacking in variety for practical usefulness unless you like 3/4 metronome as an inspiring rhythm to compose slow dance tunes to. i don't at all get how the stock rhythm arrangements are set up to do anything right out of the box.

i have over 50 guitars but almost always play guitars i build. they are several configurations of pickups but my specialty is hexaphonic output blended with custom wound magnetic pickups. i especially like custom dual humbuckers (like k.a. motherbucker in a way) with my proprietary wiring to tap specific coils and change phase for a variety of sounds. i have been using a h-s-h guitar mostly with this recorder as i am recording ideas and not complete layered songs. ideally i would like to turn on a suitable rhythm track, lay down a rhythm guitar track, and solo over it. it works for that but so far all i use is a rhythm verse pattern like a metronome.

i use sony studio headphones with it at home and some smaller headphones on the road that also work with my laptop. it would be good if the mic on those headphones worked with this unit without a preamp for recording rough vocal ideas and verbal notes.

to early to tell most of my roland and boss gear is very reliable and it had been stepped on, doused in beer from dancing drunks and even rained on and it seems to handle it well. once a well lubed patron came up to greet me, stepped right on my vg88 and stood there weaving until a told him at which point he quickly stepped back and spilled half a glass of beer on the unit. i turned it over and shook and wiped what i could off. i was ready to play set 2 and 3 without synth and darned if it isn't still working almost 2 years later. i have had roland gear for 20 years that never missed a lick. you just give em to a student WITH THE MANUAL.

the micro br isn't as rugged feeling as other roland gear but it was designed to be small and light. time will tell.

i attend namm in aneheim every year and spend allot of time at the roland booth. since i am a custom builder and comparitively really sell very few of their units for them i don't think they listen to me hard enough. but some of what they have is on the cutting edge of technology. (like the elusive vg99) so far the micro br is only on the cutting edge of size in my book. listen to the guys in the trenches roland!!! we damn sure know what works and what we want.

so far i would say i haven't needed anything in the way of service with years of roland and boss gear but roland has been non responsive to my suggestions. i even offered to proof read and test their gear for them to help them AND my buyers get more from their products.

i play rock and blues mostly. started playing 43 years ago when there was a guitar a cable and a tube amp to keep up with.

i play in 2 bands and teach guitar. i build custom guitars and tube amps.

i have a studio full of gear and have so much "stuff" i would never even begin to cover it all here. i have a small collection of ovation electric, a few great hamers and allot of good vanilla and chocolate. musicians make music on anything playable.

overall i think roland gave us a handful of dairy queen without even a cone here. you might only get a few licks into it before you hand it off and wash your hands. except for capacity (with a 1 gig sd card i installed)it isn't up to what i hoped for and as a sketch pad my 5 year old zoom is easier to use.

IF YOU BOTHER TO READ THIS ROLAND/BOSS---YOU ARE CLOSE TO GREATNESS WITH YOUR TECHNOLOGY. MANY MUSICIANS DONT WANT TO BE TECHIES. LET US USERS HELP YOU MAKE YOUR GENIOUS USEABLE. LISTEN!!!!WATCH!!!

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!

Quite easy to use, but there are many functions and quite a small screen to navigate through them

Great for electric guitar plugged straight in.

Very poor for external mic plugged in - much much more hiss than I get through a minidisc recorder. In built mic also produces hiss.

I play acoustic guitar 80% of time and electric guitar 20% of time. This unit covers recording the electric guitar very well, but not the acoustic (hiss even when using a good quality mic)

I have owned my Micro BR for about three months now. I have found that if I have a specific task to do and read the manual for that task, it is pretty easy to figure out. Once you figure out a process and the menu system, the Micro BR becomes rather intuitive.

This is an impressive little piece of work, especially considering the low cost. I do recording thru both a full-blown ProTools home studio and thru an Apple Garage Band setup. I bought this to do demos at home so I could present ideas to my bands. I have been most impressed at the sophistication and quality of the demos that I have produced. The sound quality is top notch. I am especially impressed with the rhythm generator. The built-in microphone is better than expected. Of course, being this small the unit has it's limitations but it is amazing what it can do for the money. SO COMPACT! It is an ideal choice for making home demos.

So far so good! It would probably not withstand abuse and I wouldn't want to spill adrink on it. I would by another in a heartbeat if I broke this one.

I would expect Boss to have decent customer service

Boss has hit a home run with this one. My friend with the ProTools system is slightly snobbish about his home studio (as he should be) but even he was impressed with what I was able to wring out of this
little machine. A good ProTools system can set you back several thousand, an MBox or Lexicon Omega will cost more than this and you have to have a decent computer. You can keep this complete portable studio in your guitar case with your picks if you want to. There is really nothing else quite like it. It started out being a cool toy, but I find it to be much more than a toy.

The unit has suprisingly great sound,through my amp and with the headphones.It has features over and above what I require. It's function editing is to be applauded. The user manual requires
a lot more thought as far as organization and instruction is concerned. It requires the user to look all over for some simple
procedures. I'm assuming it was translated which never works.

I'm using the Micro BR with a Fender HotRod Deluxe and a 1973 Traynor
Custom Reverb. My guitars are a Hamer Monaco,Fender American Deluxe Strat and a Gibson Les Paul. The affects and rythym patches are amazingly exact with loads of tweaking. Each guitar changes the BR's
character and requires added adjustments. I'm just a basement dweller
guitar player and my needs are simple I've been waiting for a unit like this for a long time. I intend to buy a Traveller guitar and use the BR with headphones and power supply/batteries when I'm away.

I bought it in Dec/2006 it worked fine until Feb/2007 when one afternoon while using it my living room filled with the tell tale odor of a failed component. An output coupling capacitor blew and the unit got hot. Took it to Roland Canada the people who market Boss here and they fixed it within 24hrs of me dropping it off to them. Kudos!

Excellent!

For the price and quality you can't go wrong. If it were stolen I would buy another. Also I own other Boss equipment and am very satisfied with the reliability of their products

Following the instructionsin the manual (which sometimes get a bit complex), the unit is easy enough to operate. The onboard patches are good to excellent and there is enough room to experiment with creating your own. One problem, however, this is a quick noodling, impluse unit (albeit, a dynamic near studio grade mini-unit) which really could use a real-time monitoring of adjustments to the effects and rhythms. Within most DAW apps. and the hand held Pandora (as well as in others) you can audition the changes to the effects, tempo, etc. in the guitar effects and the drum kits/patterns. This is important to a vast range of players who set a beat, or experiment with an effect to drive a new idea on the guitar. With the Micro BR, the parameters have to be guessed at, set, and then they are audible. It is dead air during the creative process; hope that Boss takes this into consideration for the Micro BR 2. Otherwise, this is a wonderful and fun tool to carry around in your pocket or gear bag to explore your creative abilities.

The sounds range from Very Good to Excellent. Yes, indeed, we are definitely into the 21st Century here. I use it with earphones in a Manhattan apartment. It is beyond perfect at 3 a.m.
with the neighbors fast asleep. The demo video on the Boss website has a dude playing with it through an amp. Sounds impressive there too.

Time will tell. It appears to be extemely well made.

Boss (a.k.a. "Roland") is one of the biggies; no sweat with support here.

For the clean multi-tracking abilities of creation through a neat, beautiful hand held elegant and powerful recording device, anywhere, anytime-this is the one to have now.

Wow I love this thing. You've got to remember this is about the size of a nintendo DS. You cant expect abbey road studios here. It is what it is and that is a scratch pad. and an exceptional one at that.

its very easy to use as long as you contain your exciement for half an hour and read a bit of the manual to get started.

Functionality is great there is not too much and not too little. there are enough fx etc to get your ideas down. thats what its for. its a song writters tool and it doesnt stiffle creativity by giving four million options. your not going to cut a record with it. your just getting some ideas down while the inspiration hits. top class.

Good sound quality for what it is. I especially love the mic sound. it is very clear. i expected that to be rubbish but it is very good. again for what this machine is. the only thing is that there is no pop shield. how could there be?? I think ill stick a bit of cloth or something over it next time.

i wont give it a 10 even though im tempted to. maybe it could be better but its hard to see how.

i guess if it would shoot out wav files to burn to cd that we be awesome.

well it doesnt look as rugged as a boss pedal. its made of plastic. put it this way. i woulnt toss it around but if you look after it it should be fine. i wont be lending it to anybody either. you know how people are with things that arent theirs. hammer hands abound.

who knows how long it will last. im not going to rate it.

well i sent a mail asking about SD cards. i bought 2 seprate 2GB cards and neither work.

Im trying to find out what the story is there. maybe you can only go as high as 1 GB. but who can tell me?????

I love it. a dream come true. ive heard that you cant burn songs to cd and if that is true then im going to be a bit peed off with it.

that to me is ESSENTIAL.

When i got it i had a song thats been in brewing in my head for weeks recording within an hour of openning the box. not bad at all.

one realy cool feature i should mention is to do with the drum track. as you build a drum track you can preview all the patterns as you go. so if you are say up to verse 2. the machine automatically jumps back to that spot as you press play to preview the drums. a f----g awesome idea. and very very useful.


Im giving it a 10 because for what it is it is fantastic. i love it. you wont make a hit record out of it but you might just find it lights the spark.

It is what it is. Do you expect superb functionality from a product designed to be a portable stratch pad device? If you have ever owned anything which uses "multi-function" buttons, e.g. from a scientific calculator - through a digital watch - to any multi-fx unit, you should have no problem, as it is Easy-Peasy, lemon squeesy to use. very user friendly. If you haven't, then it may be a little frustrating to use at the start. This unit does however remind you to press stop when accessing features that need the player to be on stop, so it doesn't leave you guessing. Nice touch.

Sound is ok. I am used to the quality of the BR-1600CD, (which I sold to buy a house) and so this is a little FX are much better than the early Zoom stuff, and a whole lot quieter.

I am using headphones, my hi-fi and I am yet to use it in my valve amp (ONLY BECAUSE I CAN'T FIND MY ADAPTOR!)

The stereo effect on an chorus is not "get at-able" as far as I can see.

VERY dependable, as all Boss stuff is, but as for quote "road tough", the buttons don't appear to be as solid as their compact pedals.

3 year guarantee.

Can you get better? You'll get bored of it by then (or have bought the next latest gizmo!)

For my music, I enjoy like a woman tone This device is less felexible than the BR-1600CD v2, but how can you compare ??140 with ??840?

Easy to use. Don't really need the manual to get it up and running the first time. But if we want to access certain features, the manual is necessary. Plugging it to computer for data transfer is also very easy. No need for specific drivers to be installed.

The effects with simplistic setup are surprisingly good for a small unit. It can produce various type of sound including spacey-out-of-this-world sound, so it is quite versatile for any kind of music. The MP3 playback quality is also better than IPOD in my opinion. I recorded a song from external player and the quality is amazing. I have the BR-1180CD and the sound quality is no different or even better with the 24 bit quantization (BR-1180 has 16 bit). I had a Tascam PS-5 before, it has a MIDI tone generator, but the effects sound awfully bad. Never tried the Zoom or Korg portable recorder, but I think the Korg PXR is overpriced.

Seems reliable but I won't drop it. An aluminium casing will make the design more sleek. I wonder if BOSS sell a wrap case for this so I can carry it and still can play. The pouch is nice but I can use the button while the unit is in the pouch.

Never dealt with them. But they have too many web sites, the international, the US, etc and all contains almost the same information but not standardized. I think they should have one but contain all that we need. Just like Line6 Websites, it's awesome.

I Play many kind of music. For travel purpose, this is what I need. I'm gonna get myself a travel guitar to go with this one. If it were stolen, I would wait for the new series, I think BOSS will come up with something that is even better than this. I think it's the best affordable portable recorder yet.

The MicroBR is pretty easy to use right out of the box. I played with it in the store for about 10 minutes before I bought it, and had already figured out how to create a loop (press the A<>B button where you want to begin and end the loop), and slow the loop down (cursor over to the speed % and press + or -). Recording is just as simple.

The buttons on this recorder are well marked, and appropriately named.

I also give it high marks for the input and output volume being controlled by thumb wheels instead of by buttons. I always prefer volume knobs over volume buttons because then I can go from full volume to 50% volume to 0, or anywhere in between, with the flick of a thumb instead of by pressing a button numerous times.

The manual is pretty well done. It is fairly thick, but seems to be complete. The information is laid out logically, and the manual explains each function of the unit and how to control that function step by step, button by button, and with numerous visual aids to make using the unit easier.

The unit has many preset effects patches for use with guitar, and they sound pretty good when the guitar is plugged straight into the input. There are also 80 user editable effects patches, which is far more than I'll ever use.

Each patch is pretty easy to edit. You can choose from many different amplifier, speaker, and effects types to dial in a usable sound, and then save it to a user patch with the touch of only a few buttons.

For me, this recorder is very easy to use, but I'm also a computer/electronics guy, so sometimes using electronics comes easier for me than for others. However, spending 20 minutes with the manual in one hand and the MicroBR in the other should get anybody using it without any problems.

First, I generally use the MicroBR by plugging the guitar straight into it, selecting an effects patch, and playing through headphones.

The sound quality on this unit is good, if you consider its intended purpose. This is not a studio multi-effects unit. This is not a guitar processor intended for playing live shows with a band.

The effects sound good, but they're not going to compare to playing through dedicated effects into a tube amp with a 4x12 speaker cabinet in front of you. However, for using the unit late at night through headphones, and being able to record those sounds as musical ideas, or to work out parts of a song, it sounds great.

The patches are not noisy at all either. There is a built in noise suppressor that is part of the effects chain of each patch, and it does its job. Even with the high-gain "metal" style patches, there is no excessive background hiss/noise.

The recording works very well, and is not noisy at all. The sound you hear in the headphones when you are playing is the sound that you'll hear when playing back the recording.

I have also used the unit to record some old tapes of a now-deceased family member telling stories so I could put the tape on CD. I hooked the headphone out of the tape player to the line input of the MicroBR, set the recording input to line, with a flat EQ, and recorded directly to MP3 format (very easy to do using this recorder). It worked beautifully, and introduced no noise to the recording. The CD sounds almost exactly like the tape.

The thing to remember is this is basically a home-level four track for scratching down musical ideas, or personal recording, which is much more powerful and easier to use than tape.

I have not used internal/external microphones with this unit, so I cannot comment on the sound quality with a microphone.

About the phrase trainer/slowing down the music: This unit works 100% as advertised when used as a phrase trainer. One reviewer mentioned the sound quality was poor when slowing down an MP3 - this is the nature of the beast. It is impossible to slow down a song (or speed it up) without degrading the sound quality (It's like playing a 33 rpm record at the wrong speed). The important thing is the pitch of the notes stay the same, which is what you really need when trying to learn music by ear. No matter how much the MP3 is slowed down or sped up, the notes of the guitar are the same as at normal speed, which is really important.

I've only had one very minor problem with this unit. I primarily use the MicroBR as a phrase trainer to play along with MP3's. I have noticed that occasionally when skipping through an MP3 song to get to a specific section, the unit will display "Unsupported Format". It has only happened a few times, and has been easily overcome by turning the unit off and back on again.

As for gigging/etc... this unit is not intended for gigging, so that is N/A.

I have no experience with Boss telephone/email customer support as I have not had reason to contact them yet. I have used numerous Boss products for years without problems though.

However, when I opened the box to the MicroBR and took out the manual, I also noticed a separate "Owner's Manual Corrections" addendum, which shows the incorrect wording of the manual and the corrected version (there were only a few errors - nothing major). This could have been done through the world wide web, but Boss chose to print up this correction sheet and include it with the recorder, so I'll give them some customer service points for that.

Overall, I enjoy this unit quite a bit and use it frequently. I've been playing guitar for right around 10 years now (Mostly clean/bluesy styles, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton/etc..), and I wish I had something like this when I was first starting out because I'd be a much better guitar player now if I had.

I first saw this unit in a guitar magazine several weeks ago, and knew I had to go buy it. I primarily use the unit as a song/phrase trainer, a musical scratch pad, and a headphone amp for late night playing without waking up the neighborhood.

I've used software in the past to do this, but found the interface to be a little clunky, not to mention having to sit in front of the computer while playing guitar. I've also used a few different software packages to record musical ideas and some guitar songs I wrote, but I like the ease of use of a four track recorder instead of the really complex computer software.

The MicroBR is exactly what I've been wanting for years - a four track that I can use to quickly record some guitar ideas or songs, and a phrase trainer to learn new songs with.

If it were lost or stolen, I would most certainly buy another one.

I'm giving a 10 in this category because for what I wanted it for, and what I use it for, it really is a "Fantastic value." A highly portable four track, with decent guitar amp modelling/effects built in, a phrase trainer, and a tuner, at an outstanding price point? What's not to like?

Once I had been through the Quick Guide, it all became apparent how the device operates. The manual is needed though in order to get the best out of the unit, because it can do so much. Like it is possible to record dry guitar even though you can opt to hear the effected sound when recording. You can also use MP3's and inport them into your four track recordings and vice versa. Manual is helpful/essential for those indepth features.
Basic stuff like editing patches is soon easy to do.

The sound quality is great for the price. I used it through a Roland KC550 and there was no noticeable hiss as with some portable effects units. The clean sounds are clean and the dirty sounds are dirty. I have not yet edited to alot so sound could be better. There is an effect noise suppressor on board.

OK up to now, but I had it for three weeks.

Never had a problem in the three weeks I have had it.

This unit is phenomenal. I can use on a live, but best of all it can be used for practice to great effect. You can use the drum machine which has metronome sounds to practice to. You can drag and drop MP3 files and practice along with those. You can slow it down to 25% to study lead licks. One can centre cancel the lead instrument that is in the centre or off centre. Four rack recorder with full editing features and the drum machine has parts like start, variation and ending which can be chained.
If you are at a rehearsal you can record with it at different qualities through the built-in mic and then rehearse with it later or drag the file on to your pc. Loads more...
Only two problems found so far:
1. The battery life is not so great only about three hours if that. Just turned the contrast down on the screen so that might help.
2. When playing MP3's to practice with it is difficult to get the incoming guitar sound at the same level as the MP3 because when you turn the MP3 down this also affects the guitar input.
Otherwise fantastic. This unit can be used live, but I will not totally store my VG88. I think Boss have overdone it this time. Great product. Email me for more info.

No faders for the mixer, but yes, it's this tiny !
It's very easy to handle (even without the faders).
All the menus are logical, most features can be used without the manual.
Editing patches, songs, effects all easy - the drum patterns can't be edited - that's bad - at least an PC editor would be fine.
There is no bass in the rhythm computer - only drums.

Drums and even the guitar effects are fine - guitar effects sound better than in all other small recorders - and even better that a lot of big modellers.

All the effects are fine - but one - the reverb is VERY bad - come on - we need an update for the reverb.

The inbuild mic is fine and almost noisless, to bad the mic preamp (for the external mic) is very noisy.

The overall recording quality is fine (Did I mention that the reverb sounds poor).

With a better reverb would it be a 10 for guitar use.
For recording with an external mic is it a 5 (to noisy).

For my business trips and holidays is this box perfect. I used to take my Zoom PS02/PS04 with me but now will the MicroBR travel with me.

It's fun to play with this one. Even the AB loop works seamless - so I can record some background parts and play along with the box.

Ther is a mp3 player included - nice for music stuff - e.g. background loops or phrase training. Not so nice as a replacement for an ipod - since the unit can't handle longer filenames (max 8 characters) and can't handle subfolder, no playlist ...

The mp3's can be played back with 25%..200% of the original speed - with poor sound quality - but nice to learn a lick from a recording.

The box is not perfect - Updates ? - but there is no other small recorder on the marked with this much features, easy of use and sound quality - and it locks cool