Boss BR-532

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?
- Very Easy. This was my first recorder, and i was getting great guitar tones right out of the box. When i screwed with the pre-sets to customize my tone, i was amazed at how diverse my possibilities were.

How about Editing patches?
- I found the editing of the effects patches to be easy as well. Everything is labeled clearly on the screen so it's almost foolproof.

How is the manual for it?
- The manual was very easy to read. It was almost like they were trying to guide me through it, rather than spout it off in a confusing manner. It took me no time to learn how to utilize all of it's features.

What setup are you using with this?
- I play a Squire Double Fat Strat through a Fender Princeton 1x12. I don't use the amp modeler for too much, but i do emulate the speaker cabinets. What i do is run a line out of my amps "Pre-amp Out" into the input of my Br-532. I turn off the amp modeler, but leave on the speaker emulation. With that setup, it's easy to get a full bodied stack sound out of a small 1x12 amp. The added bonus of going direct is a plus, considering that i live in an apartment complex.

Are the effects weak?
- Hell no. Although i rarely use effects (i stick with my stomp boxes), i've been able to count on the built in effects whenever i need them.

Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they?
- With my direct setup that i described above, i've been able to get a sound reminiscent of STP's first record. "Wicked Garden" sounds great, as well as "Sex Type Thing" and "Plush".

The Boss BR-532 is very dependable. I've never had a problem with it.

My overall rating of the BR-532 on a 1-10 scale is an 8. It's excellent for recording anything you can dream up. My only problem is the cost of upgrading the memory.

This is the easiest machine to record with that I have used (Compared to tape 4-tracks and computer programs). It is set up like all Boss equipment, so if you own any other Boss stuff and like it, then using this thing is going to be very intuitive to you.

Made especially for guitar players, the COSM preamp takes about 5 minutes to master. You can edit all of your patches. The recording process is simple, too, once you get the hang of it. I know it with my eyes closed now.

The manual is alright. I read it once, just to get started, and with a little time I knew how to do everything that this machine can possibly do (I mean that).

The sound quality is what it is. First I will tell you that there is no substitute for a professionally-miced amp with a good preamp fed into a Neve board, but that is obvious. Consider getting a cheap preamp (I use an Art with the V-3 Technology), and filtering your guitar through that to fatten the sound. The COSM is alright if you have nothing else. For the first year I owned this thing, I didn't use any preamps, and people tell me the sounds are good.

Be careful not to get distorted signals when recording mics and basses. I find that recording at lower levels will get you a better signal without distortion, even though it sounds like shit when you are recording.

I definitely have outgrown the effects on this thing. They don't respond like a real guitar (you won't be getting any feedback). There are record emulators and some of cool vocal effects that still come in handy. Basically, I feel that having the effects right there really help you when you get inspired, so they aren't useless to me.

I bought a tech 21 10 amp, which works like a SansAmp. This gives me a real amp tone, without having to mic the amp. So I go out of the amp, into a preamp, into the board with no effects. This sounds ten times better than the COSM.

My friend has one of these things, too, and he has taken it to Denmark and Africa, and I just did some songs on it this weekend. I used to carry mine in my car and record at my friend's house, but now I have it in a studio setting. It is tough if you are gentle.

NA

This is where I get to say my peace. The only reason I am submitting a review is to let people know that this machine is, singlehandedly, improved my life. Fuck the CD-Burning digital recorders, Smartcard is sooo much better, and I'll tell you why. For $40 you can buy a Smartcard reader for your computer, download the BR-532 software off the internet that turns your tracks into wav files, and dump it into Soundforge or Cool Edit Pro. Now you can add effects, visually edit your mixes, save all the wav files, and really work on a mix for a long time.

Bottom line - The BR-532 is best used as a recording device for guitarists who don't have bandmates and have visions of songs that they need to get down on CD. I am selling CD's right now that I used my BR-532 to create. They don't sound bad, because I have all the time in the world to tweak these songs at my own pace.

This thing is so cheap and easy to use, I can be stoned at 4 in the morning and still operate it. Basically, I have been able to compose music that I never would have thought possible to create without this baby. If I ever record these songs in a studio with professionals, I already know how I want everything to be.

You CANNOT record drums through this - don't even try. Does it say, "records drums" anywhere on the package? So don't complain and get a mixing board.

I must have one of these things as long as I live. I will be a millionaire and still have on of these - why? Because they are so easy to use. It helps me make music better than any drug, and it is probably the best $350 I have ever spent.

A majority of music products and gear are either cheap and useless or overpriced and pretentious. Very few are in the category of tools that enable talented musicicans to express themselves, and those are the ones that last (ie, the Leslie Speaker, Wah-Wahs, Moogs, and MPC's). Something tells me that this specific machine, while not on par with the others mentioned, will reach a level of respect among musicians over the years because it is so fuckin' cheap, yet still a real instrument. Who knows, suckers 40 years from now may be paying a thousand bucks for these things on eBay. I don't really care. I just know that it is products like these that help me achieve my musical visions and goals, while allowing my poor ass to still eat.

Good sound is the only kind I have gotten from it.
Most of it is pretty easy to use. I think the instruction book could make it easier to understand the editing features. It isn't written in a way that makes it easy to understand or find information. Editing with multiple versions of tracks, inserts, loops, rythm patterns is confusing from the manual.
It provides a nice array of features and functionality for the money but once I have figured it out, I found only a few things I dislike about it: It is an energy hog. The batteries go quickly.
It is a data storage hog. The 32mb Smartcard holds about one song if you are using several versions of each of the 4 tracks. Then there is the challenge of how to move it somewhere else in its digital format. The only digital outputs for direct connection to a computer/cd burner is a fiber optic connection (no way to receive that on my pc), or the MIDI out (me and my pc don't know how to connect through this). It seems this leaves me with the need to transfer it through the Smartcard. So now I find myself ordering a SmartCard reader for my PC and I am on the hunt for the software I need on my PC to read this file. Any ideas how I get this software?

I am mostly miking things through a Shure m57 mic. It sounds great. There are 2 mic connectors but it can only receive from one or the other of them on one track per record operation. (It can record 2 tracks simultaneously, but one is necessarily guitar/bass and the other a mic. When recording guitar and mic simultaneously, the options for effects is greatly limited. Some of the transforming effets are a little flakey, for example the bass simulator when playing a lower note shifts to a higher octave.

Yes, with plenty of smartcard space and batteries. Only after significant experience with it. It can be easy to make an operator until having learned from mistakes.

I cannot find a website for Boss to tell me how to download software to my pc to read their Smartcard file.

folk rock,good match (except rythm patterns), 4 yrs guitar,
It is light and compact. I chose it over Tascom
I am learning from it. The rythm features are helping me to learn how much work I need to do with holding a tempo.

I purchased my unit at about 11:30 a.m. and by 8:00 p.m. I had a complete 4 minute song that included 2 guitar tracks, a bass track, a vocal track, and programmed a drum pattern. I did this without having any prior experience with any recorder. You have to read the manual and play with it, that is how you learn. The manual would be 100 pages long if they spelled every little detail out to you, and who wants that? Not me. The Br-532 looks like a 4 track, but there is a total of 32 tracks if you use the V-Track option. Very cool.

The best sound is obtained by using the highest recording quality setting. They give you 3 options, with each using more or less memory on your card. You will need a 128mb card in order to have enough room, at the highest quality setting. The lower quality sound options produced hiss, but the highest setting was as clear as a bell. The internal effects are o.k. I wasn't real happy with the distorted guitar sounds. I was able to get a better quality guitar sound by plugging in my V-Amp2. You can edit all of the effects to your own taste. The vocal effects are very good. I also use separate drum machine. The internal drums are good for producing the basic tracks, but they are not very flexable.You can string different patterns together to make a complete song, but the patterns are not programmable, so you cannot add cymbal crashes and accents.

I haven't had any problems with my unit in the 9 months that I've had it.

I have not had to use the customer support for a problem. Boss does offer a free software download from there website, that allows you to covert the Br tracks over to wav. files that you can transfer to your computer.

I read some reviews that really slammed the BR-532. I can only assume that these people really didn't give it a try. This is just like an instrument, you shouldn't expect to pick it up and play it instantly. It is not that complicated however, and you should be making good music in a matter of a couple hours. I would buy this again. As I said before you will need to get a 128MB card. I am able to use the highest recording setting and record 16 tracks with room to spare. I transfer my tracks to my computer where I have mix them to a CD. If you don't do this, you will have to bounce the V-Tracks down to hear everything at the same time. That would be my only complaint. I would like to have an option where you can hear all of the tracks at the same time, without bouncing, but you can only listen to 4 tracks at a time.

Fairly easy to record just a basic recording and once you've checked the manual it's easy to start programming the drums and using the auto-punch function etc.

The manual is ok.

I've been using my Encore Strat and Gibson LP directly in to the input and there's a few dodgy effects like the bass simulator and one or two distortions but apart from that the sound is very good.

Seems sturdy.

Never delt with them

I've been playing for just over 2 years and decided I needed something to help me improve my playing and this thing fits the bill. What you get for the money is amazing! It can simulate bass, acoustic and even a 7 string! It also includes dedicated effects for guitar, bass, acoustic and vocals. Amazing! If it was stolen I'd definately replace it.

So am I the only one that thinks the COSM effects on this unit are great? I only hear everyone bitch about them. ALL of the effects are great I think, even if you can't really put them to good use. There are many parameters you can program for each so you can really get that exact flanger "swoosh" or that perfect "arena" reverb. Very easy to program and save these patches, But more on that later.

The manual is completley bogus. Only read it when you are stuck on something. It is very confusing! Mine came with the Video Manual as well and it is only good for a laugh. It shows some old-timer happily recording and doing basic crap that is not very helpful or informative.

The tuner is OK.

Make sure you press the buttons for tracks 1&2 or 3&4 at the same time and their respective lights will blink for the tracks engaged. You are now in Stereo mode. It takes up a hell of a lot of memory on the Smart Media card but it makes The COSM sound that much better! And for the kid that plugs his drum machine with the ping-pong cymbals and beats (drummers....) into the dual Stereo RCA make sure you have 2 lights blinking to achieve your True Stereo sound. To my ears, after recording anything mono and then going to this Stereo mode, the recorder breathes new life into the effects and you get the true delays, reverbs, shifter, flanger, and phaser, etc. the way they are meant to sound. Give it a try in Stereo with headphones, too!

The effects are so good I haven't even miked my cab up yet. Did try my drummers kit once and that sucked because I had 2 tracks active and recording but I think the Mics phased each other out or something and the end result was ~poop~. Anyone have any ideas for recording live drums with this thing?

The Bass simulators (Tight and Loose) aren't spectacular. They tend to mess up if you hit 2 strings together-you get this wierd wobbly sound that throws the pitch. The best results I've had using the Bass sims are rolling back the volume knob on my guitar(be sure to compensate by adjusting the input knob on the recorder).

Sweet Lead in stereo is a favorite of mine as well as tweaking the phaser on a clean sound for great swirly tone when fingerpicking.

Wide Acoustic is great and a handful of the distortions.

TW Clean is cool if you change the amp sim to Vox and up the gain a bit for a soulful blues overdrive.

For anyone who cares-I have been playing for almost 6 years and have pretty good structural knowledge of home recording. I play blues, metal, progressive rock, and everything in between. The digital BR-8 is my 2nd recorder and is really a great buy. A huge step up from my old analog Tascam Portastudio.

The drum tracks are great to set the mood and tempo of the song. I wouldn't record my first album on this. The drums are fairly easy to use and even if they all sound the same who cares? I like to speed the tempo to 300 just to see if he can play along..hehe

Too many other features to go through here. Um, real quick-
Mic effects, Line in effects, internal mic, loop effects, lit LCD screen, and a bunch of other stuff. (YOU'RE WELCOME, BOSS)

Had this for about 5 months and dropped it once on the living room floor from about 4 feet in the air. WHOOPS. Put a little scratch on the surface but all the gears still turn..I own some Boss stompboxes and they are tough! I bet my friend he couldn't break mine by slamming it on his basement floor....you know who won 20 bucks, baby!!

Haven't dealt with Boss Support ever.

Great for my needs. An aspiring guitar player with too many ideas in my head, the BR-8 helps me compose, arrange, re-compose and re-arrange all of my hit-songs.

Some tips from Josh:

Buy a 128 mb Smart Media card, the stock 32 MB records about 10 or 15 minutes on 4 tracks EVEN on crappy quality recordings (you can adjust recording quality). Look up these cards on the web. I found a 128 mb for 45 bucks!

Buy an Ac adaptor from Radio shack for 10 bucks. My Energizer batteries lasted for about 2 or 3 hours.

After you erase a track or song always "Optimize" and it cleans your card comlpetley of the things you erased.

Thanks for listening!

as a singer songwriter of some 30 years standing i've used many recording mediums from 2 track reel to reels, portastudios etc. I've had the BR532 out on demo from my local store and it's driving me crazy. For a start the manual is like every other manual I've ever read. It reads like it has been translated from japanese. Little things like an "in2 instaed of "it" can cause untold confusion. as to the unit itself. big problems with the drum section. Having sat until 4.30a.m. I still cannot figure how to put together a decent drum programme for a song. Over and over, step by step with the manual produced nothing that was supposed to happen.Pressing the ON/OFF Auto to hear what had been programmed produced only sounds that didn't figure at all. In fact several times I got different kits and patterns playing back from those that I had programmed in.n the whole I am not overly impressed and will be returning the unit t6o the store. No sale. Derek, Belfast.

this unit is very easy to use. manual is good clear and answered any questions that arose during use.

this unit has recorded everything I have recorded with it perfectly. it is a forgiving piece of gear.

absolutely dependable.

it's a boss product. I have never had a roland /boss product fail.

30 years of playing. blues , rock, punk (melvins ,flipper) noise, abstract sound design, I use a roland vg8, nord modular, kurzweil 2vx, alesis QRS, nano bass, boss DR770, line 6 stomp boxes, drum kat dk10 pads evolution mk245c keyboards peavey 1600x controller
mac and pc computers sound forge, acid, reason, recycle, cubase 5.1 , lots of boss stomp boxes, e-bow, roland cube30 amp(mostly for generating beautiful feed back)
this unit as a replacement, as I accidently plugged a peavey power adaptor into to the last unit I owned, when I was very tired ( smoke came out of the midi port! whoops....) yes I would replace it again.
this is a very helpful tool for creating audio projects, for the money its a great deal.

Very easy to use-- on night on a caffeine and cigarette high and I was set. A good idea is to just jump in with both feet, manual in hand, and start laying tracks as sitting around reading the manual itself will only put you to sleep. Bouncing definitely takes a little faith and sometime actually doing it-- and I'm still not sure where those "V-Tracks" traipse off to...I just pray they show back up when I'm ready to put another track down...

Sound quality is only as good as the effort you're willing to put into it...a reliance on the onboard effects will get you, tada, mediocre guitar tones. The same is true for the drums which are passable, at best...however, set up your tweed in the bathroom with good mic placement and you're set...a lot of it has to do with the onboard effects, which I would stay away from using and lean more towards being creative in your own space (moving the unit around, getting good room sounds, etc...)...although I record everything myself...I think a drum machine or sampler is a must however.

Seems to be very reliable...not unlike all those BOSS pedals I've trampled at shows for the last 15 years...

Haven't tried to contact them...so I'll reserve judgment.

This is a solid unit that makes very good recordings...ultimately it's also very flexible, which is kind of the point. Again, the drum/guitar patches are good for sketching demos, not so good if you're planning on recording your major-label debut, although I doubt anyone has that misconception about this unit. The SMART cards the thing uses are a pain in the ass...with the "bohemian rhapsody" amount of guitar overdubs I do, the thing maxes out almost at one song with the 64bit card and, apparently, would only hold about two full songs with the 120 bit upgrade. Another guy on this site had a very good idea about backing up every cluster of tracks onto a CD burner and then sending them back into the line input (i.e. dump down and premix drums/bass/rhythm guitar on one CD and send it back to one track, obviating the need for more smartcards...I'm doing this now, to lesser quality with a tape deck, but plan on buying a stand alone CD burner, which can be used a bunch of different ways and, at musicians friend, is only going for about 2 franklins. Not bad for a versatile unit...doing it directly to your computer is a better option. So, that said, a solid B+ on the unit...but you can get A+ sounds if you're willing to be either creative or spend some more $$$.

I'm writing this review as a WARNING to people who assume that this is a flexible tool for multi-track recording.
though it's designed and usable as a personal studio...this thing is made for guitar players, and leaves some SERIOUS problems/oversights for people who are looking to use it for more general/flexible construction... this thing was meant to leat guitar players sit on their bed and plug right in with no amp (internal amp models) and play along to patterns (internal drum tracking) and lay down tracks without any ourboard production equipment (...come on the thing has a mic ON IT...).
this is all well and good, but as such, it has SERIOUS SHORTCOMINGS and logic problems for people who actually want to exercise some production skill and/or use it to lay down dracks from outboard gear (drum machines, turntables, etc...ANYTHING Stero). that already has things sounding the way you want 'em.

this thing is easy to use,...and is definitely programmed to make sense to guitarists... anything that uses the names "crunch" and "lead" programmed in as effect patches is meant for guitarists.
the virtual tracking and UNDO feature are very handy, and the battery power is a nice idea....c'mon...this caters to people who will be satisfied with internal drum patterns/programmability.
(...I'm a drummer...with appropriate bias: they may sound good, but that's about all...)

1 give it a 1 because of ONE problem that completely ruins my ability to make anything sound good on this machine: STEREO DISCRETE LINE-IN.

as mentioned before...the effects can sound good, and the unit has several different fidelity/bitrate modes of recording.
the guit/bass and mic MONO ins work jus fine...minimal noise...

the REAL PROBLEM in sound is that the LINE IN is a stereo RCA IN jack...which when used, automatically records to tracks,
but the 2 line-in tracks DO NOT seperate the stereo in.
it seems to automatically collapse everything coming in thru the stereo ins to just another MONO...and the "PAN IN" parameter that you can set for each of the 2 tracks only lets you set how far left or right the MONO LINE IN is panned, and the two component tracks of the stereo line in cannot even be set to seperate pan.

...so all the awesome stereo-rich texutre coming out of my drum machines and samplers (different cymbals set to different sides, ping-ponging percussion, and samples sweeping from one side to another) is turned into MONO GARBAGE...

Oh SURE, this box has stereo effect in it, and the manual even advises you to pan tracks around to that things won't get "too buried in the (center of) the mix"...

maybe I'm overlooking something, but if I'm right.

WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING BOSS?...
do you expect guitar players (and anyone else in your target market) to only hear or think in MONO...
GOD DAMMIT...
I really hope that this just a(nother) case of boss writing crappy manuals and doing NO help to convey the conceptual nature of their products. I could not find any solution in the manual, so if there is something I'm overlooking, please SOMEONE HELP.

EVEN if this machine can record stereo ins as stereo discrete tracks, then the machne AND the manual should make it a LOT more obvious.

small, compact, black
(I'm SO glad boss got over thier orange fetish...).

It's stury and well built. so it would take quite a few throws at the wall before my frustrations would be fully satisfied.

neither boss nor roland (their parent company) has manuals availble for online download (...yay KORG), and it is futile to try to get help via email.

I would rather

again I'm rating this a "1" in terms of
'what a hunk of junk' ACCORDING TO MY NEEDS.

god dammit, god dammit. I don't know about the rest of you, but I hear the world in stereo.

for guitarists sitting in their bedroom, this thing is a godsend. sure, there is a great virtue in havine "scratch work templates" for recording that can do so much, allowing you to (as mentioned before) to 'lay something down before you forget it'...

however, just like like CD-burners-built-into-synths/sequences/grooveboxes, computer programs like acid loops, and the over-powered "backing/accompaniment" grooveboxes that roland builds, this is just one more piece of marketing filth that will have WAY too many people thinking they can "make a record...maaaaan" from within the confines of their bedroom and a set of joggers headphones.