Boss BR-8

If you know the recording basics, getting a good clean sound is a breeze. Manual is easy to read.

Sweet. Effects are really abundant and nice sounding.

So far so good. 3 months. Upgraded to a 256 MB card. flawless. I have pretty much been all over the thing. It delivers. My big consern was added noise of hollowness sounds of bounced tracks. Mix, bounce, mix, master The sound makes you smile.

Really should be a 10; but, The manual could have been a little more clear on moving files to and from your computer. I figured it out my self and am cruising. It is so easy to use and sound so good that it is never a hassle to power it up and spew into it before the insperations bird flies away.

When I was a kid I made my own old reel-to-reel set up to play guitar and make effects. This was very fun to create, but a pain in the arse. So I took to buying a Fostex X-28 4-track cassette recorder. The 4 track was excellent - probably the best analog sound I have had! Unfortunately I had to sell it. Years later I got the BR-8 when it was brand new. Maybe 3 or 4 years ago. Anyone that has used an old 4-track cassette recorder will have no problem using this.

I will give the sound quality for digital home recording a 7. My setup is pretty good... Good guitars and effects, amps, etc. Everything goes into my mixer and into the BR-8, then the optical line goes to my computer. Sometimes I go direct to the BR-8 and into the computer and that sounds OK as well. The BR-8 sometimes makes a hiss, or buzzing sound, but if I stand far enough away (about 3 feet), the unwanted sound is gone. The effects I really like. Some are crappy, depending on the instrument used, but that can be changed when you edit the effect. Using different instruments I find that one effect can be terrible with guitar, and the same effect will be great with an accordian! The bass effects are OK - but they sound really great with a recorder or flute! As far as getting the sound of favorite artists - well, nothing beats an all analog Steve Albini recording. Digital is inferior to analog.

The good: I certainly can depend on it! I use it all the time. When I upgraded my computer I thought I would sell the BR-8, but I still use it for making demos for myself and putting them on minidisc to listen to while on the bus - and I even use it for the effects and mixing with Pro-Tools and Cakewalk on my computer. I have used the BR-8 as a test in a live show. Meaning my guitar was hooked into the BR-8 and then to my amp. I used the BR-8 as my effects for my guitar, and for background stuff pre-recorded on the ZIP disc. It worked very well.

The Bad: The recording time is limited! That really, really sucks beyond belief! To make a high quality recording, the better the quality - the less time you get! So on - say - "standard" - if you record using stereo (2 tracks) a, say, Jimi Hendrix tune - the time will run out! This is why I upgraded my computer! A five minute song is nice every now and then, but often one wants to make a 10 minute+ song! This is why I rate the BR-8 reliability a 5! And for the price I paid, I should not worry about upgrading it, downloading software, etc. That is stupid! This is the problem I have with the BR-8, and it is a serious one. I know I will sell it one day because of this, and Boss won't care because they already got my money... Not like I'll get a free upgrade from them!

I've never had a problem, so I never needed support.

I play psychedelic, rock, experimental, and whatever else suits my fancy. It is a good match for rock, if only using the BR-8 as the time is VERY limitied for $800+ dollars. I've been playing 12 years. The other gear I own is a computer, mixer, and instruments (with some pedal effects). If it were stolen or lost, now that I think about the time you can record on the ZIP drive - well, no, I would certainly not buy this product again. I would go for something with more time to record. The 64 V-Tracks don't mean squat because the time on the 100MB ZIP is soooo limited. Also, the digital output is very cool - but I should make the reliability a 4 because there are no digital inputs! For a guy that uses samples and field recordings, and wants to rework live stuff recorded on a minidisc/DAT - this is terrible that, again, for $800+ there is no digital input!

What I love about it is that is sounds pretty good! Easy to make idea's that I can expand using my computer - even though I should not have to use my computer - but the timeframe you can record on the BR-8 is shitty.

I didn't compare it to other products because it was not advertised as a great recording tool with limited time! I chose this product because it sounded nice, was easy to use, and I had no idea of the limited time!

It helps me make music... Pieces of songs. I have to put the pieces into the computer due to the time limitations though. Now that I think of it... Even though the computer is harder to learn - once I have my programs mastered I will probably not use the BR-8 BECAUSE of the time problem.... Overall rating is a 3. The 3 points being for the ease of use, sound, etc. It is all very good. But the lack of time, no digital input, etc. makes this product lose 7 points.

It's like a big tape deck, really !!! I read the manual very quickly, and I still refer to it from time to time, but this machine is so easy to use, the manual is for reference only !

It's a very intuitive machine and very user-friendly.

The guitar patches are incredible, the bass simulators are horrible (...well, I have guitars, a bass and a drum machine. what the hell do I care !), the acoustic simulators a waiste of time. The integrated beat box is a great idea, although the sound quality SHOULD be better. All the effects are either very good or usable.

I don't bother trying to sound like someone else. I make my own pre-sets. Some distortions settings are not very good: they sound too digital. The reverb, delay, chorus, flanger are impressive.

I never had a problem with recording/mixing any form of signals (microphone, line-in). There is, however, a strange digital sound; like a consistent digital "dzzzing" in the background. Overall, this unit has a crystal clear sound, great definition and no added noise.

I think the only way to record with a microphone is to use an external mixer pluged in the LINE IN. You can use the USER PRESET "U01 CMP+ FAT EQ" for vocals, which I think is very good.

MIC 1 and MIC 2: If you record two different signal using two microphones, any sound going into BOTH mic inputs (from microphone bleed-through) will get canceled/eliminated. This is so you can record (for ex.) guitar/vocals and not have the guitar sound OVERLAPING on the vocal track and vice-versa. READ THE MANUAL !!!

Tweaking the pre-sets can get annoying because you have to go left-right/ up-down in the menus.

Never had a problem. I've had this unit for almost 3 years now. It's still working like it's brand new.
I also use it to record live gigs (2 tracks, 25 minutes/disk). Sounds great.

N/A
Dowloaded the upgrade software from BOSS. Works fine.
Have not modded with 250Mb ZIP drive yet.

A great machine for demos a semi-professional sessions. The secret to having a great studio-quality sound is not the machine itself, but the one operating it.

Recording a maximum of two tracks at once is limiting.

I play different styles of music, and I find it suitable for all of them. An external mixer is a must for using a microphone. Get yourself something compact and practical (like a BEHRINGER EURORACK !)and it will make recording much easier.

I compared it to different other portables multi-track units, and the major bonus with the BR-8 is this : COSM guitar preamp, integrated beat-box and a removable storage medium, ZIP cartride, so you're not stuck with an internal hard drive where you have to do a final mixdown if you want to erase everything.

A USB port would be very benificial; you could download all your tracks separately, convert format, and mixdown using your computer.

Actually, it can be done (!): if your computer has a ZIP drive, you can download from the Internet a software that can convert BR-8 to .WAV files. All you have to do is put the BR-8 ZIP disc (containing your song) in your computer's ZIP drive and then...convert !
You then use ProTools, Cakewalk, Cubase...to do your final mixdown.

The name of the software is "BR8WC.EXE"

I strongly recommend this unit. If you have experience in recording, you will love it. If you are a beginner, you will still love it !

The Boss Br8 is very easy to use. A little problem with the effects, can't seem to find the perfect effect for a lead vocal track. Other than that a child could use it.

Like I said before the effect section seems to be a little weak, some sounds are really far out like the Darth Vader effect, cant see where a person would use some of the effects. Maybe Boss should have installed a more basic setup on the effects section.

Very dependable, I carry it when Im playing live shows and its never given me a bit of trouble.

Never had to contact the company, although have found several sites containing tips on adding 250mb drive.

I'm a songwriter and use the BR8 everyday, its very adequate to prepare a song demo with enough quality to send out. If it were stolen I would probably buy something with a little more memory capabilities. Yall have fun and keep playing. Life without music would be a bore. ( Thomas Flanery)

It is very intuitive. Like a computer, which it is, basically. Upgrading to the newest software is easy, too, which is always recommended. I downloaded the manual in pdf as I bought this unit at a pawn shop, and it's a good manual. Simple.
I bought the Accessories pack or whatever on Ebay for like $25, and it was worth it I guess.

AWESOME sound on guitars, bass, drum machine, but I can't get vocals that are loud enough or sound good enough. I'm using an SM-57, and that could be the problem. Anyone recommend a good mic for 200-300 bucks or less that has good results with the BR-8? Also, would a mixer be the way to go, or what? How do I make the vocals kick? And get a loud enough CD?

So far so good. I replaced my 100MB Zip with a 250MB. Piece if cake. And now they just came out with 750MB Zip drives, but I paid like $25 a piece for my 250MB drives at Hitechcafe.com, so I can't complain. The 750MB ones are like almost ten times that, and I need at least two to upgrade, so forget that. I'll wait until they are on Ebay.

Never dealt with.
Oh, I had a DD-3 crap out on me years ago, so their stuff is good, but not infallible, of course. Bummed me out, though. I still have the broken stomp box, I don't know why (probably because it was so expensive at the time) :-(

I play alternative/christian/punk/jazz/classical/folk/whatever and I find the BR-8 is great for guitarist's who aren't engineers. But I have yet to discover how to improve my vocals so I don't have to make CDs that are too quiet to compete. I will experiment with it, though, and I love the BR-8. One day, however, I want to go 24 track digital uncompressed.

The BR-8 is like everone says, very easy to get up to speed on. A little tedious at times..things like cutting and pasting require a lot of little key punches on that tiny, ill-placed interface buttons and your eyes will strain on the little screen.

I came from the cassette four track world so to me the sound is crisp and clear. I like playing with the patch effects because it inspires ideas. I don't like the fact though that the tracks record in mono so to record one of those funky stereo effects eats up two tracks.

I have two problems with my machine whick I would classify as a minor one and a major one.
The minor one:
For some reason, instantly one day and since my effects thingy is messed up. When I have say a guitar plugged in and want to add an effect, when I hit the effect button, the square in the screen that is supposed to have an effect is blank. I have to turn the dial a bunch of times until the effects show up. Pretty weird. Maybe I need the software update, but unfortunately I don't have a zip drive on my computer.
Major Problem:
My second track is no longer usable. The slider seems to have gone foul. There is only a little spot on the slider that lets the music I record on that track be heard. I thought it was a 'dirty slider' so I go some contact cleaner and sprayed amply to no avail. I have not used this machine that i bought brand new a whole lot thats for sure. Pisses me off.

Never bothered

I have to say I like the ease of use and its small size. I don't like that you can only record on two simulataneous imputs (at reduced levels) but hey I mostly record alone anyway. I think if you have a great song, the BR-8 will do it justice.

Very easy to use, without spending more than 30 minutes skimming the manual. Everything is laid out intuitively, and the unit has fair ergonomics.

The sound is only fair on this machine. Of the many master recordings that I've burned out to cd, NOT ONE of them has sounded great.
The effects are marginal. There are a ton of presets, but only a handful of them, I would consider passable. Even when I created a bunch of effects settings (for guitar, bass, and keys), none of them were enough to soil myself over.

You get what you pay for. 'Nuff said.

It's now a very reliable paperweight.
I think the zip drive went haywire; the thing just destroys all data on any disc I try to read.
It tends to piss a person off when they lose days worth of hard work.

Don't bother with this steamy turd. Spend a little more and get something that big people play with.

It would be well worth your time and money to buy a better recorder than this if you intend to use it for production of any kind. The amount of data I could store on this thing was laughable. It left me severly wanting of more time for more tracking and depth.

The recording process is very limited; not enough simulataneous recording capability. It lacks proper Midi connections. The sound is weak.

If you find this unit for less than $200 U.S., and are only looking for something you can beat on and travel with, go for it. If you need something more, spend a little more money to get a hell of a lot more quality and functionality.

I feel confident about using this machine to use as a doorstop or paperweight.

This is not a review, just a warning to anyone considering buying the BR-8. I worked with one at my friend's house and we couldn't get it to record the line in (his keyboard) and the guitar together. The only simultaneous recording this unit is capable of is the guitar/bass input plus the mic, and when recording these two together there is a very noticeable dropoff in volume as opposed to a single input recording. Boss should be ashamed of themselves after putting this product out! I normally love Boss products, but I'm extremely disappointed with this one. Even my $200.00 Zoom MRS-4 can record guitar and bass together (not sure about keyboards, but still..). Save your money and go with a recorder that has multiple inputs that can be recorded simultaneously, unless you are playing all of the instruments yourself and don't need this feature.

Well, I can tell you this about the ease of use. If you can read, you can figure it out. The instructions cover just about everything your amature is going to use and the great thing about it, if your like me and you dont know JACK about recording, it gives definitions of things it can do as well as what it will do when adjusting. You dont have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.

I should tell you this and maybe you can judge for yourself the sound quality. My wife, she has no interest in my guitar playing, the songs I've written or how much I know about the guitar (get the picture). So, after playing with the BR8 and really getting serious about playing a song, getting it right and mixing it so it sounds pretty good, I recorded one of my songs I wrote. I put acoustic, electric, lead, bass, lead vocal, harmony vocals and added a drum track (comes with br8. I called her in there and told her to listen to the song from start to finish. She listened for about 30 seconds before taking the head phones of her head and said "That isnt you, you cant fool me boy!" The voice effects had me sounding better than I really do and trust me, I'm no singer. If I were to sum the sound quality up, I'd say, better than you expected you'd expect if you expected ALOT.

I have had problems, read the customer support to understand.

Here is where I had a slight problem. When I bought my BR8 I had it about a year before I noticed a problem of just shutting down (power off) in the middle of working, playing, whatever. So, I sent it in for repair. Cost me $145, seems there was a cold soder joint. 6 months later, same thing, same problem. So I took it to a different place, this time $100. You wont believe me but it happened again, same problem. But this time I called Roland, talked to the head Honcho in Customer Service, Mr. Dave Willman. I explained to him the problem, told him how pissed I was and I thought the BR8 was JUNK. Here is what he said "Dennis, send me the BR8, along with your reciepts for your repairs." I did, 4 weeks later, my beautiful machine returned to me fixed with a check for $245 bucks and a letter that said this "If you have any more problems, call me, I'll take care of you, signed Dave Willman." Now THAT my friends is customer service with a smile. Its been over 2 years since then, I use it every other day with no problems. Its like it never happened.

Here is what I say to those looking to buy a BR8. If you think your a decent guitar player, singer....... and you want to be better. YOU WILL NOT REGRET getting this thing. It does whatever, whenever and however you want to do it for us amatures. No more hunting down another guitar player to jam with, He's there with me in my bedroom 24/7 now. IF I want to work on my lead playing, I just lay down a rythm track and get busy playing lead. If Nickle Back, Creed or Third Day (whoever) comes out with a new song that I dig, I can go in the bedroom, shut the door and in an hour or two, have the thing figured out and recorded "MY WAY, MY STYLE, MY VOICE, MY GUITAR, MY SOLO, ME ME ME ME ME ME." Isnt that what it's all about ? THis will make you a better player by far guys, I bought mine when it first came out so I paid alot more than most but I've never looked back and said I wish I had that 700 bucks back. I'd pay it again if I didnt have one.

About five minutes after I took the Br-8 out of the box, I had erased all the included demo tracks and made my own. The owner's manual seems to explain everything fairly well. I remember having some initial concerns along the lines of "What just happened to...?", but since then, I can't even remember what the problem was, it was so trivial. I got it with the instructional video included, but there's really not much there, unless you've never used any kind of recording device before. You can edit your tracks pretty easily too, using cut and paste type operations similar to those on a word processor or image editor. The Br-8 even lets you "compress" recordings as you go along, via a function called "song optimizer", which usually frees up a few MB's of disk space every time you use it. The only real ease of use issue for me is the amount of time it takes me to fiddle with the COSM effects. More on that in the next section...

The sound quality seems to be the achilles' heel of this unit. All of the included COSM effects are fully customizable, so if there's a specific kind of sound you're looking for, it would be hard to imagine that this unit is incapable of reproducing it at least approximately. However, because of the way the patches are set up, it may take you hours and hours to get the sound you want out of it. I think it would work better if they gave you a bank of effects, and let you program them into each patch one by one, rather than forcing you to twiddle endlessly with the default setups that they think everyone wants. The other side of this problem is that once you've taken the time to shape the sound just right, its very easy to make a misstep on the machine and completely undo everything you just spent hours adjusting. This happened to me once or twice, and I'm now very careful to bank the patches I create before I actually start to record. Also, if you want good sound from the Br-8, it is key that you also adjust the input/sensitivity knobs each time you mess with the COSM. The Br-8 tends to produce a digital "crackling" when improperly tuned, which is a lot less charming than the analog "fuzz" you might've gotten from a 4 track cassette recorder. For some reason, the patches I have the most difficulty working with are the Bass simulators. Since I'm not a very technically proficient guitar player, it creates a horrible warbling sound whenever I strike two strings simultaneously in one of the bass patches. My solution to this is to play very simple bass lines that don't require too much finger movement. This works for me, but would obviously be a drawback for many. I haven't ever tried to mike my amp (a fender champion 110), so I can't comment on how that would affect the sound quality.

With the exception of about three incidents (one of which I still can't remember clearly) the Br-8 has never given me even the slightest hint of a problem. The other two or so incidents it did so were when I had just spent an hour or so messing with a patch, and I forgot to bank it immediately before I started recording. When you do this, the Br-8 stores it as "TMP" (temporary?), and restores the previous settings as soon as you switch to another patch. It is very important that you save your settings on the COSM BEFORE you start recording. However, on both of those occasions I was pretty much wasted, and doing some very late night jammy jamming, so I guess the machine itself isn't really to blame. On the other hand, I pretty much baby the thing - who wouldn't after all?, so its never been put through too much physical stress.

I've never had to deal with them, but having just looked up the Roland website, I see that they still have operating system upgrades and the WAV converter software available for download.

I play pretty lo-fi rock to begin with, so the sound quality issues really aren't a big deal to me. This unit suits me just fine. Before I got the Br-8, I used my friend's Yamaha 4 track, which was very good. However, the Br-8 is much much more powerful, if for no other reason than the digital editing. The only drawback to it is that I spend so much time adjusting the COSM effects that it sometimes wears me out. If you're the type that's prone to sudden flashes of inspiration that disappear just as quickly, then this will definitely frustrate you. Once you play with it for a couple of weeks and really get the hang of adjusting the patches (and remembering to save them), then you'll probably notice it takes less time to lay down some tracks than it did when you started.

What I love most about the Br-8 is the ease with which you can fiddle with your recordings once you've laid the tracks down. The editing is very simple, and even allows you to produce "cut-and-paste" collage-like recordings in the style that is so ubiquitous today in pop music.

I definitely wish it had a programmable drum machine built in instead of the rhythm guide that comes with it. this would make the Br-8, or any recording device for that matter, a formidable piece of equipment indeed.

I play a fender stratocaster, and I always plug in directly. I imagine that if you use a better guitar or if you take better care of yours than I do, then you will get a proportional increase in sound quality too. I am curious to hear what kind of results other users have gotten from external effects processors plugged in or mic'd to the Br-8. The only pedal I have is a Boss digital delay, which is already built in to the COSM.

If I were to lose my Br-8, I would probably try to replace it with something cheaper and simpler, like the Zoom ps02. The Br 1180 seems nice, with its built in cd burner and hard drive, but honestly, I don't produce nearly enough music to justify the expense. It is my understanding that you can replace the 100mb zip drive with a 250mb zip drive, thus eliminating the recording time limitations that some people complain about. I bought my Br-8 on ebay in march of 2002, so by this time, I expect that current recorders on the market have improved upon the things that frustrate me with this unit. The bottom line is that once you learn to work around the limitations of this machine, there's really nothing you can't do with it.