Boss BR-8

VERY EASY TO GET IMPRESSIVE DEMOS OUT.TWEAKING PATCHES HELPS TO SHAPE YOUR OWN SOUND ESPECIALLY COMPRESSION WITH DISTORTED GUITAR.MANUAL VERY INFORMATIVE BUT DIDNT SAY HOW TO USE IT FOR SEND&RETURN.(CAN BE DONE,TRY IT WITH BEHRINGER ULTRAFEX PRO3200)DIDNT KNOW ABOUT UPGRADE!WILL LOOK INTO IT.

USING LES PAULS&TELES.NATURAL TONES ARE QUITE WELL RETAINED.RECORDING DIRECT WITH MARSHALL AVT2000 WAS PERFECT WITH DOUBL"N OPTION.BEING CAREFUL,NOISE WASNT A PROBLEM.HAVING PROBLEMS GETTING MY FEMALE VOCALIST HAPPY WITH HER SOUND.THE LACK OF NO MID E.Q DOESNT HELP.MAY HAVE TO GET SEPARATE SMALL MIXER.I QUITE LIKE VOCAL SOUNDS THOUGH.

VERY DEPENDABLE.BEDROOM USE ONLY BUT IT WASNT DESIGNED PRIMERILY FOR RECORDING BANDS ANYWAY.

NEVER NEEDED TO YET.MAY CONTACT THEM TO ASK ABOUT BEST WAY TO IMPROVE VOCAL SETTINGS THOUGH.

Very easy to use, I was up and running in a few minutes

I got some amazingly good recordings out of the unit but if your trying to mike drums forget it! two inputs=bad drum track. Drum machine is the only way to sound decent.

NOT RELIABLE! this is the reason I am writing the reveiw. My unit just stopped working after zero abuse. I had it fixed @6 months ago and it just bit the dust again, only this time it's not fixable. The zip drive just froze and I can't even play back the tracks.

Didn't bother w/the company as the warranty is void.(I bought it from a freind)

I was very pleased until it went up in smoke. It's @2 years old

this br~8
Is easy to use booklet helps quite a bit
I'm not happy at all with the cosm effects can't get a good clean
marshall,hiwatt,clean raunchy setting
I've had some luck,shutting down all the presets except delay and noise supression,I USE A TECH 21 AND DIAL IN THE SETTINGS AND REMEMBER THEM,it will change everytime sound wise

very dependable unit

when it came to customer support
not much help..with cosm they said well just keep trying
keep dialing the cosm well to this day I'm still dialing in effects
If any 1 has some great patches which I highly doubt....... Please contact me thanks

I'll keep working with it
I'M not happy with the final product mixdown
kinda cheesy compared to the studio
but this is a good unit for practice and getting ideas down before ya forget them....

It is very easy to use, to mark places and jump form one song section to another, the auto-punch in/out is SO helpful. It takes no time to go over a section until it's just the way you want.

the effects patches are okay, especially the acoustic guitar effects, but the distortions are cheesey. Some of the compressions are weak, but the vocal patches are actually surprisingly good.

Never had a problem with my BR-8, I've had it for 2.5 years.

never bothered to try.

I actually prefer it to Protools when doing demo stuff, mostly because it has knobs and straightforward effects patches.

The BR8 is really easy to get started with but later when you get into a few more complicated situations, there seems to be a lack of info in the manual that comes with the unit. Bouncing tracks, once you do it it gets easy but for the first timer it can be a pain. My br8 stored my bounced tracks on a v track and I had to really study in order to find them and bring them back to a track in order to use it. Other than that I have no problems and like I said once you get use to it its easy to master its recording abilities.

I'm using a Fender 12 string electric acoustic, a fender strat, Keyboards, and a live mic. Mainly recording my own songs to send to publishers. The COSM effects are really nice, Needed that bass. All in all the sound quality is really good and if you take your time to tweak things a little you can make a recording that is good enough quality to send in and not be embarrased.

Ive owned my BR8 for 2 years and never had any trouble with it. Take it to shows, throw it in a gig bag and go on

Never had to call

Over all a very good dependable easy to use unit for the beginner. Would recommend it to songwriters, great songwriting tool, get the sounds you need to go with those lyrics you worked so hard to get right.

Overall, it is extremely easy to use. If you don't like the provided internal distortion settings (as I did) you can patch in your own internal sound using some editing tools the BR-8 has. I came up with some fairly convincing/realisic tones -It did take some work though, but the tools were there and clear. It is very difficult to record an entire band on the BR-8 considering the amount of time the 100MB disk has to offer and too much bouncing has to occur, however I painstakingly manage. It would be nice if the BR-8 had a mid level EQ, but it was the machine that got me started and it doesn't take too long for anyone to become an expert on it.

For mic recordings I usually use my AKG C3000B which is designed to compliment the COSM effects the BR-8 has. It works very well with smooth vocals and acoustic guitar. Internal clean effects are great too, but when recording drums and overdriven guitars, it is a different story. I mostly use a Marshall Valvestate halfstack turned up to anywere between 3 and 4. I understand about condensers and loud guitar, but I am forced to drop everything down and sacrifice alot of tone just to capture some sound which is usually too quiet. I attempt to beef it up with the BR-8's EQ, but it is difficult to reach any toneful sound without "farts" or feedback occuring. So I move my mic around everywhere and mess with my mixing board settings for a couple of hours (by now the band members I am recording are becoming extremely tired and impatient which also falls onto me). However, after these hours I will eventually get something that sounds... well, okay. The BR-8 seems to have bass trouble and struggles a little on capturing some highs. The effects that it comes with sound bassy until you put them with the drum set you recorded at almost professional volume level (where they disappear or become a deep fuzz in the background). The bottom line is internal or external, if you want to get comparable tone out of the BR-8 (as far as rock or metal goes) you have to avoid crackling which I haven't quite figured out how to do yet in the 2 years I have owned it. -and oh yeah, to the guy who tried recording acoustic electric internally: don't blame the BR-8 for that -try again on another machine -you'll never get the right sound -micing is the best way to go with acoustics!!! Subscores: internal clean:9 internal bass:5 internal electric(altered):7 (unaltered):4 Mic Acoustic:9 Mic vocals:8 Mic electric:5 Mic Drums:6.5

Never record for too long as I did one time -You'll burn out your zip disk. I had clients who were going to take their demo to L.A. the next day. I had gotten pretty far far on one song (the best sounding one too) but a problem occured after I was done bouncing some tracks. I optimized the song, but I couldn't get my time back and 6 out of the 8 tracks were erased and lost forever. I about had a nervous breakdown, but redeemed myself by recording them live at a show they played that night. The recording was kind of poor, but people listening could still hear the song and hear how the band played. This mishap only occured once though.

I'm about to try that 250zip drive conversion deal, but so far I guess everyones been okay.

It matches great with acoustic stuff, keyboards, solo stuff and clean stuff. The BR-8 can crank out a great gentle song, but has a tough time with the heavy or loud stuff. I use a Behringer mixer with it, but I dont have any gates, limiters or pre-amps yet -so I hope that they can help with the problems I've been having. If it got lost or stolen, I would not get the BR-8, but instead would get its bigger brother the BR-1182? (I think thats right). I like the idea of the extra master tracks, the dual XLR inputs with phantom power and the 20 gig hard drive! I love its simplicity and quality, but I don't like its lack of time, plug-ins and other features that limit input ability. But I see BOSS has been fixing those things with their newer studios. I've been using it for over 2 years now and I've been enjoying recording on it, however the songs I write are complex and demand alot of time and tracks, and the bands I record are loud. The BR-8 started me off well, but I think it is time for me to upgrade to a BR1182. It is a revolutionary machine and alot of studios are taking on some qualities of the BR-8. Overall I would recommend it for its price.

Just an update from my previous review; the unit is still functioning perfectly but geez Louise- copying a track or song from one zip disc to a second is a major pain in the ass- it writes one-three percent at a time, and you have to continuously swap discs back and forth. Very primitive, and will obviously wear on the the eject mechanism over time. For those complaining about lack of depth for vocals and unwilling to buy a better mic, try this trick- copy the vocal track twice, pan one left and one right a little bit and play with the EQ and doubling on both copies- thickens up the sound a little very easily.

I have found that some playing with record and gain levels as well as mic placement can have a great deal of effect- this unit can be VERY good sounding with some tweaking. For the price and ease of use, superlative sound quality. A bit brittle at times, but it also depends on source being recorded, etc.

Dead reliable so far.

This started out being used for song demos (and it still is) but I'm no longer limiting it to one guitar and one vocal; I've been adding harmonies, leads, rhythms with shakers, etc. Works great for a stand alone unit, and sounds nice mixed down to CD. Perfect, no, but you're not going to get the same results at home in an evening as a million dollar studio with engineers and producers with years of experience either! That being said, I am amazed how good this sounds, and I have been an audio buff since 1975 or so. The accessories seem overpriced though, and I found the two videos near-useless if you have any experience recording at home.

Very easy to use right out of the box. The manual is pretty straight forward.

The sound quality blows away every cassette tape recorder and even some bigger studios I've used. I find that good sounds are easy to get if you know already how to get a good sound out of your gear. If you are relying on this for guitar sounds, you might be a little disappointed. The sounds are good, but you're going to want to use something else or mic your amp for a truly great sound.

I've always had good luck with Boss and Roland products. I'd like to try recording a live show with it. You'd have to mic everything and run it through a mixer since you can't record more than two tracks at the same time.

I've never had to deal with them yet. I've had pretty good luck in the past though.

I absolutely love this. I was considering trading it in for the newer BR-1180 with the 20 GB hard drive. I actually like using the zip disks. I have about 20 zips that I don't really use that often, so the storage isn't a problem. I'll record as many tracks as I want, take the zip over to my computer. I'll convert all the tracks to .wav files and import them into Cakewalk. This way I can use all 64 virtual tracks and more if I want. Then I'll burn it to a CD or convert it to an .mp3 to post or email to my band. For my situation, I can't think of a better recorder to use.

Real easy to get started; to get more involved you will need to check the manual and make a note, some things are not in the manual and places like this site are great to learn more.

Very good sound. As you would imagine you'll get better as you go along. I have this machine about 8 months and find myself remixing my stuff every so often. I don't have an external mixer so I am recording 6 tracks and bouncing them to the last two. Then I am converting to a .WAV file on my computer. I was micing my amp but now use the COSM (internal sounds). Like you are reading in other reviews, the sounds are kind of digital and you will need to mess around to get a better sound. But there a lots of options, just trial and error. Make a note, the "drums" on this deck can not be recorded. So if you are going to listen to your stuff on something other this deck (and I assume you will) you'll need a drum machine. Also, I don't know if the BR-8 would be ideal for a band. I am a solo guitarist and it's perfect for me. Bass simulater rules.

8 months and not a problem.

There were a few things I was unclear about and called to get answers. The people were great. I see in some reviews people had a hard time...I find it hard to believe. I have called about 5 time with nothing but great, kind service...and got my answers too.

Like everyone else has said...this unit is TOO easy to use. I bought this unit not only to record myself and home to do demos of my original material but I want to get back into having bands come in and do small demos...a good way of making a side income. But after reading a few of these critics on the unit I was curious....could I record a band into this without a lot of problem? See, I have my first band coming in to record a 6 song demo....drums, guitars, vocals, bass, and solos. Now...this is how I was going to record drums. I have a DOD 420 resistance mixer and the band has something similar that gets the same job done...which is to be able to put 4 mic inputs into one track....hence being able to record 4 mic'd up instruments into one track. I was going to this this with 2 mixers into both inputs on the br-8 using 8 mics. Then guitars, guitar 1 and then guitar 2, overdubbs, and then a solo. Then bass and vocals. Now...I was curious with the zip disk. Will it be able to record all that? Any info on this would be greatly appreciated...please e-mail me at rifmaster01@hotmail.com with any suggestions, advice, pros and cons....whatever....and soon....ASAP....the band wants to come in early to mid march...thanks.

Great sound quality.....like they say....you get for what you paid for....or something like that...you get what I'm trying to say.

Hard as a rock.....take it anywhere....I bought the display model at Sam Ash and it works like it's brand new. Missing two knobs when I bought it but I snatched 2 knobs from another display model at mars music

Never dealt with them. I'm curious though....is there any upgrades for this unit? E-mail me with answers....rifmaster01@hotmail.com

Pretty kick ass....only worry about it is the zip drive and passing the music on to a CD...I have the BR-8 hooked up to a phillips cdr600 cd recorder....any info or suggestions or advice on that....please e-mail me ASAP.....rifmaster01@hotmai.com