Boss BR-864

Pretty easy.

Sound quality is up there.

It exports the mastered wav files to my computer half the time I try to, and I cannot back up data half the time either. It is very, very annoying. I need to call in and ask what the problem is. It is reliable for everything else except for the above mentioned.

I would have to buy it again if it was lost or stolen for sure. I probably couldn't live without it now.

I purchased this unit around 2004 and at first didn't use it because I was so busy. When I finally started using it, I had to read the manual. BIG DEAL! I went to school for a reason, and these complaints about the manual are embarrassing...our country is so lazy about learning it is ridiculous...okay...sorry.

The BR-864 really impresses me with time. I recently recorded a song for a friend and in one day we wrote, arranged and recorded a finished piece of music with drums, bass, piano, 2 acoustic guitar tracks, two electric lead guitar tracks and 2 vocal tracks. I mastered them after a few bounces and it was DONE. and it sounds about a clean and polished as a Nashville session....so it can deliver if you have the creativity inside of you!

So far, I can complain here either. A PreSonus micpre for my AT-4033 is giving me incredible results. Just need to pay attention to the gain of the micpre and on the unit and the sound is very clean and rich.

Boss impressed me with their service and I remain loyal to them for this. I taught guitar for 10 years and helped sell thousands of dollars worth of Boss products. When this unit needed servicing they were a bit difficult-I had to remind them of the term "symbiosis."

In the end, they rose to the occasion and I must admit they impressed me in this regard.

I am a versatile guitarist that has played rock, blues, country, top-40 and funk and now mostly enjoy jazz-rock fusion, blues and jazz. This unit is really working for me at this time. I plan to do the computer recording thing when i have the funds, but this BR-864( I think now a new model) serves me extremely well for the music I play and does not restrict my art.

I think it's reasonably easy to use this unit for basic multi-track
recording. The manual, despite comments of many others, seems
reasonable to me. The first part of the manual overviews the
entire recording, mixing, and mastering process, and the rest
of the manual goes into details. The thing is, this unit is
very powerful and if you don't understand anything about recording
it will naturally seem difficult to use all of its capabilities.
For example, the effects processors built into the machine can
be routed into the signal path in various ways. This options
will be familiar if you have some recording background, but
can be confusing if, like most of us, your recording background
is limited.

I recommend getting a general book on music recording to help if
you don't have some background.

A slight hassle involves setting drum tempo. If you define a
rhythm pattern and set the tempo and record, and then later
play your song back, the tempo will be the default 120 bpm.
The solution is not difficult but took me a while to figure
out: first define your pattern, and then define an "arrangement"
consisting solely of the pattern you've just created. The
tempo must be set in the arrangement, because the arrangement
data will be stored with the song. If you do this, the tempo
will be correct when you come back to the song later.

It is tedious to modify effects patches because it is done
entirely through menus and one or two knobs -- not lots of
knobs as on dedicated guitar multi-effects devices. Programming
the drums is also more painful than with a dedicated unit.

A significant hassle stems from the fact that there are four
level sliders for 8 tracks, especially when mixing. The newer
BR-900 overcomes this limitation.

Hooking the unit up to a computer via USB to save songs is also
a pain, but Boss provides software that allow you to plug your
flash memory card into your computer and then convert the
(mastered, stereo) song into wav format. Much better than using
the USB connection.

Compared to 4-track cassette recording this is so great!
I used to hate dealing with all the hiss and the noise
accumulated when bouncing. So, I find the sound quality
very good. A wide range of effects are provided for guitar,
bass, bass simulation (allows use of guitar as bass -- works
ok), vocals, and general effects like modulation. I think
the guitar effects sound quite good compared to multi-effects
boxes out there. Also very handy is the ability to plug in
a guitar and a mic and to use the predefined guitar/vocal
patches. Of course you can define your own patches, too,
and there is even a synthesizer built in that can be driven
by your guitar signal!

I think the drum sounds are reasonable.
It's cool that you can provide your own audio for the drum
sounds but I haven't tried this yet.

I specifically chose a hard-disk-free multi-track for
reliability and
low noise. With large-capacity flash memory now cheap
it is too bad that it is hard to avoid hard drives when
you move to machines that support more than 8 tracks.
What is also nice is that the "boot" process is very
fast, just a couple of seconds. I bought a standalone
multi-track so that I could get recording quickly when
I have a bit of time.

I almost forgot to mention, I recently tried to use the built-in
mic, and it didn't work. It was my first try with that mic so
I'm not sure if it ever worked.

I've never tried to contact Boss.

I use mine mostly for recording 3 or 4 track musical ideas.
I also use it for recording complete songs, and also for
recording improvisations. For doing jazz and blues improvisations
I wish more predefined rhythm patterns were available.

I've been playing a long time and own quite a bit of gear.
Unfortunately, when I had the time (before marriage and
children), the only affordable home-recording option for
me was a Fostex 4-track cassette deck. Worse, recording guitar
was just about impossible, given: I lived in an apt., had no
decent guitar amp, and had only one mic. Now the technology
is fantastic and affordable and I have very limited time.

Overall I'm think the Boss is a powerful unit with no major
weaknesses. It would be neat if Boss offered a memory card-based
12 track supporting a 4GB memory card, having 12 different
track level sliders (and no CD drive), and supporting maybe
4 simultaneous recording tracks.

First. This really has 65 tracks including the Rhythm guide (1) and the 8 virtual tracks for each of the 8 playback tracks.

This is where some people get the headache: The manual appears to have been translated into english and there are some obvious errors & omissions etc. But it does tell you just about everything that you need to know to get up and running. Like anything that's more complex than soccer ball, there is a little bit of a learning curve before you remember all of the functions and how to access them. I have crappy short-term memory so I keep the manual handy for reference. I found the bouncing and mastering functions to work exactly like it should when i followed the step by step instructions. I didn't see it in the manual but you can move the faders while bouncing to adjust levels on the fly for solos or vocals etc... Contrary to the post below this, the original tracks do not disappear forever. Once mastered or bounced, the machine defaults to the v2 or v3 tracks. (Each of the eight tracks has eight choices of alternate tracks that can be played, that's why they claim you can record 8 takes on each track and then choose which one you want to use when playing back.)your original tracks are still there under the v1 if that is what you originally recorded them on.

I play primarily rock tunes, so I have been quite happy with the drum sounds provided and have not tried to add any yet via the tone load. I could see adding a flammed snare to replace a tom and maybe adding another cymbal as well. (I have a Roland e-drum that I will try this with.) It all seems pretty easy from the manual (which, in my opinion, is completely satisfactory.) It is quite easy string together drum parts and most of the basic rock beats are already provided as presets. Once I string all the basic pieces together, I go back and edit the tune to add cymbal crashes, adjust the velocity to make the song sound more dynamic and tweak the hi-hat or ride accents to make it more interesting.

Score: 10-1 for the manual, since it sounds like so many reviewers have trouble with it. The remaining score of 9 is supported by having a lot of great features which really are quite easy to use. Don't let the learning curve frustrate you and don't be afraid to sit down with the manual. it really helps.

I have not tried to mic up my amps yet. I just plug in to the unit and use the COSM sounds. The effects are very powerful. There are a lot of choices and many that sound fantastic. Plus just about all of it is fully editable.The clean guitar sounds are very good-warm, full and still crisp. The distorted sounds are also pretty good but my first reaction was that they sound a little scratchy. However, when combined with the other instruments and tracks, they are still quite impressive and my first impression became less meaningful. One of my favorites for hard rock leads is the "fixed wah" preset (#67 or #69-i forget)Think Michael Schenker on steroids. I also like to do two mono rhythm guitar tracks and pan them hard right and hard left. Bass can be mono to use up less memory. I just bought an acoustic guitar but have not had a chance to try it yet.

Vocal presets are really cool and add enough karaoke to keep things interesting. The model that replaces the 864 has phantom power for condenser mikes-which should be a big advantage.

All-in, The sound quality is very good. Remember this a portable device that isn't meant to be substituted for a full computerized setup. It sounds a zillion times better than the Yamaha cassette 4-track that i bought in '86.

I have had no problems in about 2.5 years. My friend bought one when I bought mine and has had no issues either. That makes for a sample size of 2.

Not Applicable since I have had no problems with the machine.

I am sure there is a U.S. support office but I suspect, based on my experience with the manual, understanding Japanese my be usefull...Sorry guys, but you asked for it by releasing a draft manual that should have had more editing done. I couldn't resist.

In order, I play Metal, Hard Rock, Rock and Electric Blues. I have been playing for 20 years and can now afford more toys than when I was mowing lawns for beer money. One cool thing about this machine is that I can great sounds out of inexpensive guitars. My last recording, entitled "In Your Face" had a $100 used squier HH Strat (including the George Lynch SD pickup) and an Essex Pbass copy with EMG's ($110 for the bass and $50 for the EMG's which were on sale but not advertized at GC for some unknown reason, talk about being at the right place at the right time!) I also have a G&L Rampage (1985-bought new at Russo's in Trenton NJ), a white american strat, honeyburst LP standard (I love these two guitars), an Essex LP Junior with fake p90's (solid mahogany with a clearcoat finish. I had to level the frets once but this thing has more sustain than an organ...but its very heavy also), an Epiphone LP Custom, Spirit 5-string Steinberger copy, Spector NS2A and my first acoustic electric which is a Gretsch Sierra Jumbo. I have a 50w jcm800 head, a 100w JCM800 head, 1 1960a and a carvin 4x12 straight front with celestion g12m70's. GK RB800 and RBH410 cabinet.

This was the best sounding and most flexible unit for the money when I was shopping. I shopped quite hard and ended up at GC. To do it all over again, I would probably just spend the extra money for a computer set up since the portability was not as much of a factor as I expected it to be. However, I have been able to program drum patterns and arrangements while riding the train (NJ Transit) back and forth to work. That is a good way to justify the portability.

I grew up on Boss effects pedals. They always appealed to me from a styling, durability and sound quality perspective. I think they have maintained the same product positioning with this product. I use it all the time and have no intention of selling it. It is super handy because it is so self contained. All you need is a guitar and your ipod headphones. In the end I feel a 9 rating is appropriate based on what it does (and does it well) as well as the superiority to its competition.

A couple of pet peeves:

1) the constuction feels a bit plasticky, especially for something that cost $350-$400 when it came out and is meant to be portable. I will note that the controls feel better than all of the other portables that I tried and that i have had zero trouble with them.

2)Styling seems like an after thought. The replacement, they call it the BR-600 or something like that, looks like they addressed this-it also has phantom power if I read the ad right.

3)You have to buy the AC adapter for $15-20. This did not set well with me. Yeah, I bought it.

The manual is terrible. Its seems its been written in Japanese and then lost something in translation to English. The whole machine setup is not very intuitive. For istance after recording 7 tracks and then bouncing them down to one track. At no point does the machine or manual warn you that once this is done you can't go back to the original tracks and rebounce them. Its too late, they've gone. I wasted a whole afternoon after getting my levels wrong. One chance is all you get with this thing! And as for the drum machine - don't even bother trying its a complete waste of time.

Sound quality is excellent, especially for a unit of this price. The COSM effects are pretty much like those found in Boss stomp boxes. This is what sold the machine to me.

I've had this nearly 2 years and never had a problem with the card or the machine.

Never had to use them.

Its a shame - the sound quality of this machine is excellent, Its portable and reliable. But learning to use the thing is a nightmare. I'm no technophobe - I'm a computer programmer by day (unfortunately). But you kind of have to teach yourself how to use this thing because the manual is useless and the design of certain functions has not been well thought out. I've come close to literally throwing this out of the window on a few occassions. Instead of making the recording of music easier, its whole purpose, it just makes everything more of a hassle. I definitely would not buy it again. Once you've spent hours figuring everything out and deleting and losing stuff along the way it is quite usable - but should it really be this difficult to get to that stage?

Okay, not sure why everybody seems to have an issue with ease-of-use. I've had a Tascam 424 MkIII Portastudio (4 track cassette), which is supposed to be much easier, because each button or knob only does one thing, but I have never been able to get the hang of it. Once I got the BR-864, everything clicked, and you don't have to worry about busses (right & left), etc until you bounce down and master. And the virtual track feature is a breeze, and very easy to understand and use. I also don't have a problem with the manual. It's 200 pages, sure, but everything is in there. The quick start section of the manual gets you going quick. The questions that come up during use are answered in the rest of the document.

I think it will click better if you take a bit of time to read through the sections of the manual you need, and don't try too hard to think back to 4 track tape technology.

Also, I use this in leiu of Cakewalk. The portability makes it a breeze to get ideas down quicker, or scurry off into a quiet room while the wife is sleeping to get a couple of tracks down.

I love that you can run it on batteries. Will come in handy for recording live gigs or livingroom jams, too.

Only missing feature, in my opinion, is phantom power (with on/off) for the XLR input.

I friggin' love this thing. Finally got me off my butt and recording. Prior to this thing, it was always too big of a pain in the ass.

Sound is superb. No hiss, no noise, no hum. I record direct with Bass or electric, through the XLR for miking acoustic, or for miking my amp cabinet.

So far, so good.

Never had to use

I've been playing for, oh wow, 20 years now. I play mainly surf instumental, both electric and acoustic, some other mellow stuff, too. I wish I had found something this easy to use years ago. Get on line and check out the user's manual, and if it makes sense to you, grab one. I only paid $140 for mine used, I think it was the deal of the century for me.

Recording simple straightforward ideas isn't hard.
Learning to do more heroic things with it takes time.

The manual is very, very bad.
So much cross-references (see sound quality)...

the sound quality is ok. of course an expensive hd-recorder sounds better.
effect patches are easy to use (see ease of use) once you know how to use them (see overall rating).

One card reading error in three years time.
Had to erase track 6 of song 005.
No problems since.

It's light-weighted, small, there's a good microphone on board.
It sounds ok. Everything is possible.
Just keep things simple, because this recorder isn't!

For many people the br864 will be either too extensive or too limited (see sound quality).

I searched a long time before going with the BR-864. I had a very reliable source tell me that when you're buying digital recorders, make sure that most of the buttons only do one thing...not where a lot of the buttons do a ton of different things...unfortunately, I didnt listen. I think this machine is incredibly complicated. I blame 90% of the difficulties on the manual. I hated it. Its not very helpful at all, seems like they leave off steps that to them must be common knowledge, but to me, it wasnt. Recording tracks on this thing is really simple, its making the tracks bounce down to one track and then putting it on your computer thats the hard part. I think BOSS could have put a little more thought into that.

I do like the sound. There are a lot of nice guitar and vocal effects built in...Really nice, and theyre not hard to edit. Id say this thing can model every pedal BOSS has ever made. Ive played an SG through it, that was fun. A couple of different Taylor acoustics...sounded really nice. I even used my own BOSS drum machine instead of the drums that come on the BR-864. Everything sounded great to me. Not noisy at all, its BOSS quality as far as sound goes

Seems very sturdy,built nice. I dont think it would tear up very easilly

N/A

Ok its a love/hate thing for me. I do hate that BOSS doesnt supply you with a power cord for this thing. That seems logical to me. I depsise the owners manual with every fiber of my being. Its pointless...if you follow it step by step, youll most likely still be in the dark. Ive been playing for 10 years, so Im not new to this stuff....and Im sure if I was more educated in audio engineering that Id be able to figure out more about this thing. Like I said before, recording on it is no problem, bouncing the tracks down to one and putting it on your computer has me completely lost. I wish I'd saved my money on this one. If I had it to do over again, I would buy something easier to use, even if it costs a little more.

Tough at first, but it gets easier with use, pretty big learning curve compared to old analog stuff, and harder to learn than Fostex mr-8. Manual is maybe 80 pages but still some details are lacking, just a couple sentences here and there would have saved a lot of frustrating trial and error.

using old used fender strat, fake p-bass, drums with old realistic electret mics

Sound is extremely good - no noise, no hiss, no hum, no distortion at all. You can turn off the reverb, it's automatically set to "10" out of 100 on each channel. Be sure if using LINE IN that you turn off the Cosm effect button, unless you want effects on it. Some of the LINE IN effects just degrade the sound in the quiet passages.

Have recorded about 15 songs on it (they all fit on the same 1 GB flash card - awesome!) no problems at all.

surf, silly rock, experimental. The built in mic is fine, but I bought an old Realistic mixer on Ebay for $25 that has 3 mic inputs and a couple line inputs, I use a pair of old electret mics for drums and a third for bass drum. You can use a mic in the guitar input, too. I am amazed at the number of features and sounds in this box, and I've only just scratched the surface, maybe will never even use a lot of them. Just having a built in drum machine is pretty awesome, and the samples sound very good. It's harder to use at first than the Fostex MR-8 but sound quality is definitely better. The Boss has no noise, including when you are using reverb, and that's very important. Also, the reverb is excellent, it sounds very natural. The Fostex mr-8 reverb sounded fake or unnatural to my ears, but the Boos reverb is superb. USB wav output is slow but works well. Boss br864 definitely sounds better than Fostex mr-8. I took a chance on Ebay with a buy-it-now and a new seller for $270 and it was a great deal. Bought a 1 GB Kodak CF card on Ebay for $50 and that made it excellent indeed!

I don't think it's easy to use. I have this item since more than 1 year, and still I feel the display is awfully small. It took me quite some study and practice to get accustomed to all the "bouncing", V-tracks, "mastering", and - above all: many different knobs to push just to get one logic step. There are so many under-levels and under-under-levels that it can be quite confusing. I'm not so much a programmer-crack. I'm just an ordinary guitarist / bassist / singer that wants to record these golden moments of inspiration, but so far it more hindered me in my inspirative flow than really helped it. It's such a hassle to get things right, in my opinion...

No noise, very good sound quality, over all. I like the guitar synthesizers, and also the many presets. The sound universe is huge and you surely will find something that fits!

Oh my dear Lord, that is just the reason why I thought I HAVE to write a review. I'm sorry, folks, above all I'm sorry for those who are a fan of that BR-864 in terms of reliability. I so much envy those guys who wrote that they never had difficulties. Well, to be honest, I was having nightmare after nightmare with that thing. I'm not so terribly dumb, and I'm sure I'm using it correctly. But - imagine this - after 7 hours of recording and twisting and getting the tune finally to where I wanted it, all of a sudden the display says: "ERROR! Card read" What a shock! The whole data not accessing anymore! And it's not that it were a big piece, I especially bought a bigger memory card for much money (138 Swiss Francs, ca. 100 US Dollars) and that thing is still collapsing regularly! I also experienced heavy troubles transferring the data onto my computer. In about 50% of the cases the computer would say that "parameters" would not fit, but - hey - I did everything meticulously according to the manual! And my computer was okay also.

No, no, not with me any more. I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to get my ideas from that bloody unreliable piece of electronics into my computer so that it does not serve my original motivation to buy it at all: I hate it, I fear it, I cannot trust it. It's not my friend, it's my enemy, and it has destroyed about 40% of my recordings!

Imagine, you write a most wonderful poem onto some piece of paper. You put the paper into a closet in order to look at it again the next day, when you're woken up again since you were working all night long on that poem. Then, the next morning you want to take out that poem from the closet and - it's not there anymore. The only thing left is some piece of litter, with no writing on it anymore...

That's about what I have experienced with this box. And, I tell you, don't blame me that I would have done something wrong. No, I've wasted nights and nights on this box - just in order to having not gotten anywhere. I'm frustrated, and I feel somehow betrayed and alone.

I just contacted the company this night when I was writing this review. I cannot say if they answer me or if they even can help me. God, if only I knew that I'm not the only one to experience this nightmare!

I was expecting a lot from this little box. It would suit me perfectly, being a guitarist / bassist / singer, in order to let my fellow band-mates know what kind of ideas I had between our rehearsals. But - so far the frustration is 60% while the happy output was only 40%. Imagine that you become nervous when you transfer your recorded data from the memory card onto your laptop, because you don't know if all your work turned out to be in vain or not! I always was very very relieved when I knew my data safed onto my computer, until then - I never could relax and dedicate myself in a creative manner to the generation of music. This, for me, definitely is a torture. It should not be, if it were a reliable tool.

Was I just unfortunate to get a "bad" item within the whole chain?

IF IT WOULD FIT IN MY TOILET I WOULD ATTEMPT TO FLUSH IT
The manual is USELESS
The sound effects are good..BOSS quality.

Ive used Electric, Acoustic, Bass, and a boss drum machine with this and they record pretty well. It doesnt sound bad at all

Its reliable in the fact that it works, I just cant believe there isnt an easier way to bounce and master tracks

IF THEYRE AS HELPFUL AS THE MANUAL, DONT EVEN BOTHER

I may not be very bright, but this cant be the best way to get songs mastered onto a CD. This thing stinks like my big foot.

I think I hate this machine. I originally bought it because I liked the ability to plug in directly, with modeling, etc. Recording a track was easy enough. But bouncing and mastering gave me a huge headache. Do I pick the V tracks, or regular tracks that everything gets mastered on? How do I master to just two tracks? I could swear I read the directions thirty times and still could not figure it out.

Maybe I'm not computer savy or something, but the effort needed to understand what takes only minutes on other units made this machine not worthwhile for me. No wonder there are always so many for sale on Ebay.

My only hope is that someone writes a "BR 864 for Dummies."

OK, but adding your own samples is a bit tricky (hey, that it is doable at all is vry impressive).

The main issue for me with this unit is that it is impossible to input the mic and guitar with separate reverb for live (or recording) performance. This is REALLY stupid on Boss's part (they did the same thing with the GS-10, which is an incredible unit except for that.

Reverb is an effect which should be adjustable (or turned off) separately for guitar and mic.

Eventually, I sold it on EBay and got a GNX4, which does it all, except for battery operation............:-)

Boss effects are always very good to excellent.

Ok, from their phone t/s. (They did verify that the mic/line reverb separation was impossible......

It is a great product EXCEPT for that damn reverb mic/guitar issue. If it weren't for that, I'd buy it again in a NY second. As it is, it is a showstopper for me.

I had this thing up and running in about 10 min, but that's considering the fact I didn't look at the instructions, which meant I lost about 4 songs before I got the hang of everything. That being said, the machine itself isn't bad, just make sure you know how to do everything before you jump right in.

All of the effects are certainly usable, and there are a lot of them, but none of them are particularly special. I have nothing to compare with as far as final quality goes but I'm sure it could be better. I do enjoy using the built in drum machine, but only because this thing would suck ass at recording an actual kit.

After having several songs randomly erased, and occasional freezes, I've pretty much begun exporting everything that I do onto my computer before moving on. I did get this machine used though, so it could be that it's just old. Also, get a bigger memory card, you are going to need it. The exporting of a file requires anywhere from 25 to 60MB (depending on song lengths) so if you're working on a 128, you basically have enough to get 2-3 stereo tracks, then bouncing, and that's it.

I haven't used them, because I'm on a used machine.

I write my own stuff, and record everything myself (Piano, guitar, bass, vox, bg vox, drum machine, etc.). So, if you're a solo multi-instrumentalist that has a good grasp of the art of acceptable recording, this is a good bet, if not, get yourself into a band.

P.S. I record my piano grand effect on my keyboard into this thing using one of the acoustic guitar effects, as I can't seem to get a natural sound out of it. It's acceptable, but far from the real thing.

Overall, easy to learn if you stick with simple recordings, very straight forward. Still, some things do take a while to learn, mostly the rhythm tracks. I did an firmware upgrade and it went w/o a hitch. The USB port helps in this regard but is slow. Moving files to the PC is also a slow process, specially the conversion to WAV algorithm, but it works flawlessly. Upgrading the 128gb to 1gb allows using the machine with several projects without needing frequent PC backups. The manual is ok, explains most funtions, but detail is lacking. It just seems that it's written for someone who really understands recording theory.

So far, most guitar recording I've done have been direct. Sound is very good, even though it's Boss' MT2 compression algorithm. Wish they allowed non-compressed recording. Nevertheless, the sound is good. I'm also using a Nady SP-33 and a MXL-990. Both sound great. (remember, the room you record in has a lot to do with mic sounds also, and I'm NOT in a studio). BTW. Just purchased a TC-Helicon Quintet and used its mic preamp into the 864 and my SP-33 sounded 10 times as good. So the mic pream on the recorder is decent, just not the best. Given that the Quintet costs as much as the 864, that's expected I guess.

Had it for over 6 months, no issues whatsoever.

Other than the ease of downloading the patch and upgrading the firmware, never needed customer support.

This machine is great. It's my first recorder and I'm very happy with it. I record Blues/Rock with my Fendel Strat, Ibanez Acoustic electric, Yairi classical guitar and anything else I feel like that day (this is mostly a hobby for me). The 128mg NEEDS to be quickly upgraded to 512mg+ cause otherwise you're limited to about 2 3-4min songs if you use all 8 tracks per song. The guitat/mic patches are decent, some useless (ie. Vader). The mastering patches are good. With the price dropping to $395, this unit is an even better bargain. Things that Boss should've included: uncompressed recording option, Phantom power and maybe an option to a CDROM drive... oh wait, I just described the BR-900... ;-)

It takes some time, but after you've mastered teh basics - it becomes a breeze. Very intuitive. The manual is but confusing but essential. There is no excuse for such a bad manual.

Very good. A clear difference with analogue.
The preset effects are a mixed bag. Some of them are satisfactroy to good, but others are a just totally unusable. Luckily you can tweak every parameter, which renders this unit very deep indeed. I own a Boss GT-5 (which is a great multieffect), but if one has sufficient time one can achieve results pretty close to the GT-5.

The drums sound very good - especially if you think that they are only there as a rhythm guide. I think the drums are absolutely excellent.

I use this with both a Gibbo LP Standard and a 50th Ann Deluxe Strat. Both guitars sound great through teh BR-864.

Had it just one month. Couldn't tell. So long so goog.

Excellent!
This is the perfect tool for bedroom recording and much, much more.
Recording, bouncing, mixing, drumming, effects - all in one great box that is so intuitive to use. You really can't ask for more at this price.
I have to say that this was definately built with the guitarist in mind though..

The more time you spend on this unit, the easier it will become to use. Once you understand all the features, you should be able to record guitar, drop drum tracks and add anything you want in a very short amount of time. There are a lot of buttons and menus and you must spend hours of playing around with the features and reading through the manual which is pretty thick by the way but absolutely necessary. The difficulty comes in when mixing, mastering and choosing guitar sounds. There are so many options, your sound is limitless. It's fun tweaking though because you'll keep inventing new sounds leading you to new ideas.

I think for $400, this thing is awesome and I love it. If you want to doodle around on your own or with friends, this will make recordings you can move to your computer, e-mail to friends, put on CDs, on your IPod, it sounds great. Don't believe me? The link at the bottom is a sample I made done completely on the BR-864. I used an American Strat, a Spector Euro bass, a Shure mic and a Monster Cable. All sounds came from guitar, mic or the BR-864. Obviously for $400 you can't get the best sound quality, but damn, I think it sounds great.

https://webspace.utexas.edu/newlinjr/The%20808.mp3

Never had any problem with it and I throw this thing around a lot. I've taken it on trips, airplanes, buses, cars...no problem. It can run on batteries so you could take this to the beach with a guitar, bass and microphone and jam out on the beach.

Never had to deal with em.

This is definitely made with the rock guitarist in mind. You could also do some rap on it because it's easier to connect lines into. This only has inputs for guitar a mic and other electronic things such as keyboard or sampler. You could record acoustic instruments because of the mic in, but drums are a no on this. Drums require multiple inputs and this does not have it. If you want to record drums I'd recommend another model of the same line from BOSS with enough inputs. It may cost twice as much though. Buy this if you've always wanted to make your own rock CD's in your bedroom. Contact me for more sound samples or more in depth questions. I've put hundreds of hours in on this thing and it's my favorite toy, probably the most fun thing I've EVER bought. When I went to the store I bought this without really researching it. This had every feature I ever dreamed of and then some. 10+

I bought the unit as a Christmas present to myself last year. I have wanted to do multi-track recording for a while but didn't care much for the tape stuff and never seemed to do well with the computer stuff, although to be honest I never really gave that a fair shake. Out of the box on Christmas Eve my brother and I were laying down guitar, bass, and vocals til 3 in the morning.

We used a few of the patches at the time and I've probably experimented with most of the others since then. Read the other reviews on the board, some are good, others not so good. Some are really bad, but that's not really what I bought the unit for.

I play in a band also and thought it would be useful for pulling together some demos, but with only two inputs its a little more work, but only a little since we do have a mixer and other toys.

So - out of the box? Great.

I've been reading about the drum sequencing and being a guitarist/bassist I was at first very frustrated by what seemed to be a very counter-intuitive interface. It has taken some time, but once you understand how the rhythm pad works and understand that your sequences don't acutally become part of the music until you bounce it down, it becomes much more user-friendly.

As with anything it takes time to get to know how to make good sounds with it, and over the past 10 months I would like to say that the production quality has improved as my experience has grown.

I have my own amps and some effects pedals so I don't rely too much on the built in stuff, although the JC-Clean with an acoustic is pretty nice.

As with anything - garbage in garbage out. I have found that most of the time when there was noise on a channel it was more due to emi from other sources not the BR864.

I have another BOSS machine (DR Rhythm) that someone gave me and it looked like it had been handed down a few times before that. I had my doubts about it, but it powered up and worked fine. Boss seems to make their products with the musician in mind, and while I don't throw my 864 around - I have no doubts that it will be very reliable for a long time to come.

We actually have used it to record the band live through a single microphone in several bars and were able to get something decent out the other side. Not great, but decent.

I had to call them after I misplaced my manual and got through with no problems.

For what I paid - its great. I like to write and record my own stuff independent of the band and this is perfect for what I do. I can see moving up to something with more inputs later on but for now this will do.

The unit comes with a 128 flash. The first upgrade was to a 512 meg card. Just went to Best Buy and bought what they had and it worked fine. You really do want to upgrade to at least 256 if you want more than one 4 minute song and want to be able to actually mix to a wave file on the unit.

I have been able to access the unit via Windows 2000 and XP with no problems. I can hook to it with linux (it mounts as /dev/sda1 if anyone is interested) but you can only pull stuff off the card with Linux (something to do with root permissions).

Details are given in other reviews. Some parts of this unit are easy to use, others take digging from the manual. For what it does and the package it comes in, it's pretty good. If you're not experienced at mixing and recording (and most of us buying this unit probably aren't!) you can get lost, but the good news is that you can get decent recordings without knowing much!!

As a recording unit I think the sound quality is very good. My recordings are fairly clean, with the exception of a little hum (60 cycle?), but very acceptable. Just last night I spent some time using this to transfer some favorite songs off old cassettes and burn on CD. The results are very useable, considering the source were 20-year old cassettes played on a medium quality boom box. To me this demonstrates that the unit has pretty decent sound quality for the $$.

There are several amp models in the unit. With the exception of a couple of the clean models, the rest are pretty lousy. I only use the built-in models if I'm just trying things out, otherwise I either mic up an amp or use a direct-out which both of my amps have (Mesa F50 and Vox Valvetronix) and turn off COSM. Effects quality varies. Reverb and delay are quite good, chorus is good, too, but some of the other modulation effects leave to be desired...can be used sparingly with serious tweaking. Generally I use my own pedal effects when recording.

There is a bass simulator that you can use with an electric guitar...not very impressive. It works if you have nothing else or just want something to use temporarily.

I don't use acoustic models either. My acoustic has a built in pre-amp that works fine, so I generally bypass the built-in pre-amps when using my acoustic.

The ability to do some EQing on individual tracks is a nice feature.

Seems to be reliable in the 10 months I've had it so far. Since I don't gig with it, there's no need for a backup.

Don't know...haven't contacted them.

Great little recording unit. What I like best about it is that you can have as much or as little control over the parameters as you want. In my case, I know completely nothing about mastering, so I just use their presets. I suppose someone who is knowledgable in that area might think the presets suck, but I'm clueless and happy! And if I want to learn about them and set my own parameters, I can.

USB is great...somewhat slow, but easy to make WAV or AIFF files. As I said, it's also allowing me to transfer some stuff from my 20-yr old cassettes to CD...BONUS!! :)

Just don't buy it thinking that with all the amp models it has everything you'll want to make great recordings...you'll still want a good amp that you can connect.

The unit is reasonably easy to use, but being a novice as far as home recording is concerned it did take me a little while to get to grips with it. Effects patch editing is very straight forward and intuitive. The rhythym guide is complicated and difficult to program. The manual is terrible; the manual that I received had missing pages and repeated pages. Transfer of WAV files between the BR 864 and a PC is very straight forward and easy.

I am using a Fender Deluxe Strat, a Fender Telecaster, a Kramer Baretta and a Yamaha Bass that I directly connect to the HiZ input. The clean amp simulations are good, in particular the jazz chorus (JC 120) simulation. The dirty amp simulations are ok for rhythm sounds but lack warmth for lead work. Most of the onboard effects such as delay, chorus and phaser etc are good. The wah-wah effect is terrible (hardly noticeable in touch mode).

Reasonably solid unit. Can't comment on the long term reliability.

I have attempted to contact Roland in the UK by email several times and they have not responded. Either they are overwhelmed by the volume of mail that they receive (not a terribly good sign?) or they are just plain ignorant.

I play hard rock music and this unit is ok for preparing demos. Considering the price, it is difficult to complain about the range of features or the performance. In fact the unit does a heck of a lot and should allow any proficient muscian to produce good quality demos. If it got stolen I'd upgrade to its big brother the BR 1600 -CD or the Tascam 2488 both of which allow greater flexibility in terms of inputs and have larger storage capacity. I intend to purchase a good quality guitar pre-amp (Marshall JMP-1 or a Rocktron Voodu) to generate better quality lead tones. My main grumble is the support offered by Roland - if you buy this unit you are on your own!

I find the BR-864 to be extremely easy to use. Plugging in, configuring effects, it's not that hard to take care of. The drum machine will take a while to get your head around though, definitely see the manual for that one. The manual is not as bad as a lot of Roland/Boss gear; it's not the best but easy to understand and it certainly points you in the right direction. The first day I had this I was able to record a full tune without too much of a problem. The sound quality of mastered tunes is really impressive, I wasn't expecting something so polished.

I've run a few guitars through this so far, most noticely an ESP Horizon II NT and a Les Paul. Both guitars performed well, running direct into the BR. The unit isn't noisy if you keep your input levels at a reasonable level. As for the effects included, they're okay. I have to say the preset distortions in this box are weak (some just terrible), but they can be tweaked to get a good usable sound out of them. Not a great sound mind you, but a good one. I wish the GT-6 engine had been used like the BR-1600 uses, though the engine used here is certainly usable. Aside from the distortions the remaining effects are polished and well done, from compressors to delays, chorus to harmonizers. I'm happy with the results.

One other feature about this that rocks is the USB out. While it takes seemingly forever to dump a track to your PC/MAC (why no USB 2?) you can still do it easily, which is great for importing audio into software if that's your deal. Once you've edited your audio you can dump the edited track back to the unit via USB too, which is great. The USB also works great for getting your audio onto CD, just dump your mastered tune to the computer as an AIF file and let iTunes take care of the rest, providing of course you have a CD burner!

I haven't had a single problem with this unit and would easily depend on it. However you will need a larger memory card, the 128 MB card included is a joke. If they included at least 256 I would never have anything to worry about. Other than that it's good to go.

I can honestly say that I have not had a problem with anything by Boss in my life, and I've been using their gear since the late 80's. As a result I've never had to speak with them.

I wouldn't say this is the best 8 track on the market for everyone, but for guitarists who need something to help take ideas and whip up tunes out of them this can't be beat. It's portable, you can plug direct using the COSM modelling and sound good enough to record some impressive work. The USB out is a great feature too that shouldn't be overlooked, it makes using the audio in multiple ways possible. If you don't want to splurge on the flagship BR-1600 this is the unit to buy.

this unit is easy to record on. i recomend going direct in at this time. (just finished my second recording and it came out great. its got alot of neat stuff for guitar players. a bass simulator that lets you play a bass part on your guitar.(studio quality here people)
for me the manual sucks!! bigtime . its very hard for me to understand. paid 479.00 and its well worth it!

the second time i went into the unit direct with a godin sd guitar
i guess i'll answer the questions their asking first, its not noisy. effect sound top notch, great verb!
amps. direct in . many amps to pick from and their tweekable.
i found a great SRV type tone (sky is cryin)
direct in i have'nt found a bad tone in it. well i did have to tweek a little.

dont know i've only had it a few weeks

never delt with them before. their a monster company so who knows?

blues and classic rock and country is what i play i'm still answering their questions people. been playin for about 31 years , yes if it were stolen i'd be pissed off bigtime and would replace it for sure. what do i love about it? the sound quality! burned a CD and its as good as what you can get in the stores. i chose boss because i've used alot of their stuff in the past and their batting about 90% with me and this unit just made it a 100% anything i wish it had? yeah! a free CD BURNER. and a vhs video to teach me how to use the thing. i gave up on trying to program the drum machine its a real bitch! but there are alot of pre programed stuff that you can speed up or slow down. i've never used a drum maching before and i'm hoping their not all as hard to figure out. burning a cd to your computer? the manual sounds like jiberish to me so i just went out and bought a CD burner and then put what ever on my computer with a CD. man! there's alot of stuff in this little box (smaller than a laptop. but a lot is really hard for me to understand. if they made a video i'd say get one! but just recording is a piece of cake. mono or stereo. if you got a tape unit and still useing it (i'm laughing at you!) man buy this unit. the guitar preamps kill! ( that means their great!)lol hey! straight up! this thing sounds good! if your used to the boss way of doing things, you'll find alot is easy to do. i'm still spending time and i learn somthing new each time. but dam! there's alot to learn!!!!

Easy to use from my limited experience. I wrote a song on it right our of the box and then packaged it up to return it, so I think that makes it pretty easy to use. Didn't look at the manual. But, I also did not try the rhythm feature and many others said it's hard to use.

I purchased this unit thinking that it would be a good portable recorder for recording at other locations and then uploading it into Cubase SX but it didn't pan out. Primarily I wanted to take the unit with me when I travel and get friends, who play instruments I don't, to lay down a few takes on my songs. And, I wanted to take it to my Mom's house so I could use her grand piano on some tracks. (yeh, I've got Steinberg's Grand VST plugin, but it's not the same though I do like the Grand plug).

I didn't realize that the BR uses a compressed signal at about 2.3:1, so I was disappointed (though not suprised) that it did not show any sparkle on playback of high quality source material. I believe it's good for what it is; it's just not what I wanted.

Also, it only has one XLR and no phantom power, so you can forget about easy miking using condensers unless you have ones that take batteries or you bring a small external mixer.

It is very much geared toward guitar players, so if you are one, go for it.

It's Roland, so it probably has a half life of 500 years.
The card slot door looked a little flimsy - I guess you'll just have to be careful.

Like I always say...they're good once you get them...once you get them.

Good for what it is - just not what I needed. I returned it for a Yamaha AW16G, and I returned the AW16G for a Tascam 2488. I'm happy now. I believe the BR is more geared towards guitar players; I'd bet if I could play guitar well I'd probably have had a lot of fun with it and have liked it more, but it still would not have been what I needed. My overall rating is based on what it is - not what I wanted, so it gets a decent grade based on price/features/performance...still, there is a lot of new gear coming out now that is going to make people think "hey, for a hundred or so more I can get a whole lot more." - it's an interesting pricepoint. I liked the portability of it and I liked the clarity of the display - I don't think I'll be pulling the 2488 out of my pocket on the plane like I could have with the BR.

BOTTOM LINE: Good for you - not for me.

I picked up this unit on ebay for $385 U.S. almost new. I have never had any kind of recording device other than a cassette tape player. This thing is very easy to use. In just a few hours I had recorded three songs. I found the Manual a little wordy and hard to folow the first time through. After i played with the machine for awhile it began to make sense.

I got great sound out of this unit. I am not a strong vocalist so I found the patches very useful. There are 40 of them. The drum patches sound like drum patches but are more than usable for practice and getting down ideas. I think there is 99 drum patches. I hooked this unit up through my stereo. I can't afford studio monitors right now. and it sounded GREAT. Very little noise. And the noise I had i was able to get rid of.

So Far so good.

Don't know. I've been able to get a pretty good handle on the unit by reading the manual so far.

I really like this the BR-864. I am already recording and learning about the other functions. Well worth the $385 i paid for it. I am very satisfied. If you can't get yours to work right try reading the manual. I think this is the best unit for the money. i spent a good deal of time researching on the web reading reviews, features, etc.

Learning how to switch through stuff like the effects and etc. is cake. Recording is easy too. What's not easy? The rythm guide...which magically deletes your patterns and songs. Prgramming it is also very difficult and a pain in the ass. Don't buy this thing to use the rythm guide. Its terrible.

The effects are not great sounding at all. The only thing that doesn't sound processed is a clean tone guitar and maybe some chorus on it. The distortions are terrible. It does have a good amount and versatility of effects though.

After I turned it on one day to record all my drum files were gone. Reliable? Not for me.

I've dealt with boss before. They aren't the greatest but there are worse customer services out there.

I planned on recording about 15 songs then selling this thing. The drum machine ruined that for me and I need it to go on. Now I'm going to record only a couple songs without it. What a waste of time and adrenalin. I wish it had: an easier progammable drum machine, more realistic sounding effects. It got in the way of making music. If you're impatient like me and don't like having drum files that took you several hours(just for one goddamn song) magically deleted, then don't buy this thing. Go for something beteter. Boss should stick to making delay and tremolo pedals cause thats all they seem to be good at.

I imagine that this unit is nowhere as easy to use as the 1180 or new boss units, but, what the heck, for anyone willing to spend a little time investigating and experimenting, minimal manual reference is needed. If a computer clod like me can figure it out, anyone can. Editing the guitar and bass patches is a breeze...and they sound pretty fantastic.

I mainly use a Peavey Wolfgang guitar and Ibanez bass with this unit. When I use acoustic guitars I use Takamines only...classical and steel string. I do have trouble getting a lead guitar sound that I like, but all the rest is great. I have no complaints at all about the other sounds that I get. As good as a Line 6 POD? No. Good enough to sound professional? Most of the time, yes. As for the finished product when all the mastering is done, color me happy. For $370 I am simply floored by what this thing can do.

The guy who shipped this to me (2nd hand) put it in a 8 by 8 by 12 box with only a few pieces of magazine paper for packaging (ARGH!!!) But even a trip though the US postal service did not seem to hurt this baby. It seems to be built like a tank.

I have had only one discussion of any length with the customer support at Boss. Good folks. They spend plenty of time working through problems I raised.

I play mostly hard rock and classical music although I am recording classic rock with some buddies of mine. This unit works perfectly in every context.
How happy am I? I have been playing guitar now for about 16 years religiously and I think this is the best piece of musical equiptment I have ever invested in. I would recommend it to anyone. If it were stolen, I would definitely buy another. If anyone is interested in recording on a budget or simply getting their feet in the water when it comes to recording, this is the way to go.

This is the first "home studio" I've ever purchased, but it seems pretty easy to use. The Manual explains everything you'll need to know about it...or you can just fuck around with it like I did.

First, I always record everything direct. The unit has a built in mic but I've never used it, so I can't tell you how that sounds. The sound seems quite good. The effects are useful, and if you don't like 'em, you can always use your own. The only problem I'm having with it is mastering, the mastering tool kit tends to make everything sound a bit fuzzy.

I've had it now for about 6 or 7 months, no problems yet.

I actually emailed roland with a question I had about exporting .wav files. They responded within a couple of days.

I'm no expert, but this seems to be a good unit. It's especially easy to use because of the onboard USB port. I think if I broke this, I would probably buy another one.

I am a 40 year old with screaming kids & no time to waste learning how to program an electronic device. This was a breeze. I am educated in home recording, first through tascam recorders (644 midistudio when I was a bit younger) and them the Sony MDM X whatever 4-trak digital recorder (cool piece for its time) and then Sonar for the computer. Except for the Sonar, which has a much higher learning curve as far as getting the MOST out of the recorder, patches, drums etc... this is the best sounding and coolest unit of them all.

For what it is for, and even a bit more, this is a great sounding unit. I'm rating it based on its category and not "best in the world" sound. Are you going to get a finished product as good as expensive home based software or a big expensive studio? No. I'm pretty sure this was designed so you could record a whole song with drums (built in, fully programmable drum machine!!!), guitars, vocals and more instead of just hitting record on an old tape deck and recording guitar and vocals at two in the morning (I do miss that though).

You gotta remember, it's digital and not analog. I'm still learning this. Peaking the meters once in awhile on an old analog unit usually doesn't hurt anything. This, like any other digital recorder gives some really horrible buzzing. I love the guitars and bass sounds built in as well as the drums. The effects for vocals are more than adequate. Again, will it sound as good as a miked Marshall or Mesa? Hell no! But mic a Marshall or a Mesa and it will sound great.

I've only recorded two songs but they both sound better than the quality of the 24 track stuff I recorded in the late eighties. The vocals came out punchy and full using an AKG C-1000 S using only the 9v battery. Acoustic guitars? Awesome (at least to my ear)

Only had it a few months--so far so good.

I called them once, just before I bought it to question something I read in these reviews about which operating systems it will work with. I have Windows Millenium, they said it will work fine, and it does. They answered quickly and were pretty friendly also.

I play rock, metal, middle of the road, thrash--whatever I'm feeling at the moment. This unit seems to be able to record anything. I've been playing 25 years and have lots of great stuff like a Les Paul, Epiphone Casino (1968), Strat, etc... I also have a Crate Blue Voodoo BV-60 with the slant cab loaded with Eminence Legend speakers and a 2-12 Avatar cab with a Vintage 30 and a G12H30. If it were lost or stolen I'd get another one that day--I can't live without my portable battery powered recording studio. I'm old enough to remember the days when a simple 4-track with NO features was around $2000 and a crappy drum machine was around $500. To an old, hairy, washed up old rock n roller like me, this is a freakin' bargain and a half!!!!!

I was going to get a digital four track at first but this was only a little bit more and it had more sounds, a drum machine and eight tracks. I thought that was a no brainer. The only other thing I wish it had was a John Bonham clone that could jump out and play along with me so it wouldn't take me a whole day to program the drum machine! (totally on me, not the drum machine).

Get it--you won't be sorry.

As far as "out of the box" sound goes, this unit is superior to all others I have used (with the exception of the 1180 which it is patterned after). Tha manual is relatively easy to follow (although I owned the 532 for some time so I was familiar with the features).

I go directly into the guitar port with my RG and S series Ibanez guitars. I also use a Fender acoustic with an acoustic pickup and get virtually no outside interference or noise. I have been recording for years and have never been able to achieve such a sweet acoustic sound before this unit. The sound seems true although some of the patches need tweaking for better saturation. I played for years through two Boogie full stacks with an unmanagable amount of rack effects. I actually like what I can do with this better (as hard as that may be to believe) as it is obviously much easier (and cleaner). I am able to achieve all the sounds I shoot for or at least get very close. I have not attempted to simulate any artists although I would like to go for a good Van Halen sound (I'll report back)

Never had any problems with it! Period.

Haven't needed any.

I play alot of rock/metal which has been no problem with this unit. I have been playing guitar for 32 years and have played on alot of different equipment over the years. I would absolutely replace this unit if needed. I wish the slider controls were setup a little differently as they all cannot be controlled simultaneously during bounce/mastering/playback modes. I also wish it came with a larger media card although you can back it up directly to your pc so it is only a minor inconvenience. I am able to create entire songs in a matter of hours (and the more I use it the quicker it gets).

Gotta read the manual. Many of the functions record, rewind, etc etc are pretty straight forward. But...the in-depth stuff, copy/paste bounce you need the manual. Hooks up are easy. Guitar/Bass input, mikes and AUX type plug adjust and Go.

The nice thing is that the menus and buttons are user friendly, EQ, PAN easy to figure out. Moving through the menus is a breeze. Clear and bright display. To many options to give it a 10.

I mastered those basic record functions in about 2 hours.
The in-depth stuff well, I'm not ready to Bounce or Master as of yet
but if the other features are any indication. those will fall into place nicely.

Yes this thing sounds great I use a set of Digital powered Philips speakers to monitor until I pick up some real monitors Edirol?
No noise I can detect with my Sennheiser cans.

One or two of the guitar patches are a little on the noisy side (you know the massive distorted/metal ones!) Being a drummer, I'm guessing that they represent the actual amp noise? Alot of the patches are super quiet no hiss at all.
Acoustic sims are pretty cool.
Bass sims work.
Something that I found kinda cool was the SYNTH sims HEY! I didn't expect that ;-)
Bass amp patches sound too boomy to me. I record the bass straight in. comes out the cleanest.

I've had the unit about a month... nothing yet. Roland/Boss products
are pretty reliable so I'm not expecting any failures in the near future.

No need yet.

I'm using a Les Paul Custom, Ibanez Roadstar, Yamaha DTXv2 Electronic drums and Fender Jazz Bass. I don't plan on using the MIDI functionality but it can trigger through MTC.
I was recording with a Yamaha MT50 which has great sound,
but it's tape YUCK!!!
You can't go wrong with the rewind to zero function or repeat function in the digital world. God I hated rewinding that damn tape deck.
Set up your repeat, a section or the whole song and practice to your hearts content. Over and over and over.

Haven't used the phrase trainer. But I have played with the
built in drum machine. It is functional. Not the greatest but hey
its free!
Everything is laid out cleanly. I was recording right out of the box, granted it was basic one track, and it did take the manual to point out that you have to select two tracks to record from the AUX inputs
which is where I placed my DTX. D'OH! again the manual clearly says...

First thing to do if you plan on recording onto the included 128mg card is to erase the Demo song. This will give you a great look at the
menu navigation right off the bat. The Menu navigation makes so much sense I started guessing the other functions without the
manual within hours.

OK I recorded three instruments, guitar/bass/drums. 8 tracks is plenty. 64 V-tracks I'm in trouble.

I recorded two guitar lines, two bass lines and stereo drums played them back, "WOW I suck". Sounded great though.

Mixing tracks that are monitored (it plays back 8 tracks) you set the faders for each track which is done by selecting the appropriate "track" adjust the fader, do the next track then the next switching between using the TRACK BUTTON. No big deal, 8 faders would be nice but one click and your on that track. Even a drummer can figure that one out!

My next item to get it a larger card. 512mg or higher but the manual
recommends a particluar brand. They seem a little pricier than other CompactFlash cards on the market. The documentation doesn't say they won't work but...?
And don't forget the dump/master function to the computer is only
Windows XP compatible. I don't own a MAC but I think it is compatible.

I joined the YAHOO groups that deal with this unit and the BR-532
great place get other user input and experiences.

In comparing this to the Boss BR-532, I would have to say that the patches have been VASTLY improved. Out of the box, the majority of the patches can be used without tweaking.

There is a lot of depth to the amount of tweaking that can be done. It is set up much like any of the other multi-effect units that are out there - the even added the ability to connect an EXPRESSION PEDAL. The expression pedal can do anything from adjusting the volume to acting as a wah pedal.

Editing patches is very easy and almost intuitive. There is a lot of depth in terms of what can be tweaked - moreso than in some of the multi-effect pedals than I have seen.

The manual is typical - Japanese converted to English. And as usual, unless you are familiar with any of the Boss units, there can be some confusion - this confustion usually revolves things like setting up the rhythm guide, but there is a lot of help on the web to help you get through that.

The sound quality on this is awesome. I use this with a set of studio quality nearfield monitors and a host of supporting guitars, keyboards and vocal mics.

I was getting some hum, but was primarily due to ground loop hum. Easily fixable.

I've ab'd this by recording a CD to the 864 and then switching between what was recorded and what was being played back. There was no appreciable difference between the two.

I have never had any issues with any Boss products.

Since this is a recorder, it can work with virtually any type of music, although the patches are geared towards guitar/bass/vocal. There are no really lush keyboard amp sims or things of that nature, but with some creativity - you can create any effect that you like.

I have owned several Roland VS-Studios, and the predecessor BR-532. This is by far superior to those from the perspective of a guitar player. Unlike the VS-Studios, you don't have to worry about which bus you are applying effects to or anything of that nature. As far as comparing to the 532, you can see what's going on with all 8 tracks at a time, instead of having the ability to only look at 2 at a time.

If it were stolen, I'm not sure that I would replace it, simply because I do more gigging than recording now.

I love its portability. I can grab a handful of batteries and my Stewart RoadRunner Guitar (http://www.stewartguitars.com) pack my tent and go out to the middle of nowhere for the weekend and record till my hearts content.

There is one feature I WISH it would have... since there are only 4 faders for this 8 track any time you switch between using the faders for tracks 1-4 and 4-8, the faders jump to the current fader location once the fader is moved. So, if the fader is set at Unity for track 1 and all the way down for track 5 and you want to gradually increase the volume on track 5 at some point during the mixdown the volume on channel 5 will immediately be where the fader is set to and not where you want it. This is annoying. It would be cool if the fader did not have any effect until the slider was actually moved.

Just a bit of info that is not that obvious from the BR-864 promo
material (inc. Roland website): the USB interface on the BR-864 does
not support Windows 98 and according to Roland Product Support, it is
unlikely that a driver will be developed for Windows 98. I suppose
that this shouldn't be a surprise since Windows 98 is getting a bit
long in the tooth but it's a shame for those who have it and don't
wish to upgrade.

On a brighter note, the BR-864 USB interface does seem to work with
Linux.

This unit..>ROCKS!!!! 8 recording tracks. Uses Compact Flash media, and includes a 128meg stick to start off with. I sold my BR1180CD last week because it actually had more than I needed, but since I've owned one I'll continue to make comparisons between the two, because so far there's not much difference between the two. I will not compare this unit to the Boss BR-532 since the 864 is VERY close in form, function, and features as the BR-1180. Other than being relatively close in size to the 532, there isn't much siliarity between the two. Anyway, the onboard amp simulators and effects seem to be identical to the 1180. There's 99 guitar/bass patches, 40 mic patches, 50 line patches, 50 simultaneous patches, and 19 mastering patches! In fact, it appears to me that there the same number, names, and parameters as the 1180! I thought for sure they would have scaled down the options on the 864, but I was relieved to see the were essentially the same!! Editing the amp sims is actually just as easy as the 1180. The biggest difference is that the 1180 has an icon interface that does make it easier to read and navigate. The 864 has a double line display that has characters which is just as easy to navigate through. Like the 1180, you have user patches and preset patches. The manual is JUST as thick as the 1180 (Almost 200 pages!) No matter how easy this unit is to use out of the box, I recommend reading the entire manual, since this unit has TONS of features that can only be realized by reading everything at least once. Since I received the first unit my store recieved, I'd have to assume I have the first firmware version. The good news is the USB interface should make any future revisions a no-brainer. The controls are laid out almost identically to the 1180, with the exception of having only 4 track sliders, but it has a shift key that re-assigns tracks 5-8 to the 4 sliders, which makes it a little more work to switch back and forth to the tracks. I've owned a lot of digital recorders recently, and BOSS still makes the most intuitive recorders made. If you've used the 1180 before, you should need very little time to get things rolling.

I run my Jackson solist straight into the 864, and get superior results. I actually prefer the built in amp sims over my Line 6 PODxt! (With less clutter and setup time.) I'm sure others will disagree, but the sounds this thing can produce on it's own are truly amazing. When I'm not recording, I've started to hook up the output to my keyboard amp to practice. I mainly play hard rock/metal, and I can nail the sound that I like. Sure, it does'nt sound like a mic'd Marshall or Mesa, but I don't care. Even the acoustic amp sims are pretty nice. No, it doesn't sound exactly like a true acoustic, but they make a nice alternative to a dry clean sound. The patches sound IDENTICAL to the 1180!(which is good!) The recording quality seems to be as good as the 1180 as well! I see myself getting a 512meg stick, since there's not a ton of time using the supplied 128 stick. In fact, using all 8 tracks will only let you record one small song at high quality. The good news, is that you can save it to your computer and start fresh. If you want to work on another song, bring it back and keep rolling. Another cool feature, is the onboard drum machine. Unlike the BR532 which was a glorified metronome, the 864 has sampled drum sounds that are MUCH better. If you want, you can load .wav drum sounds to customize the kits, or even add a sound effect. I have an Alesis SR-16 that I'll continue to use since it's easier than programming the BOSS, but it's a cool feature if you don't want to spend the cash on a dedicated drum machine.

Every Boss product I've ever owned has been a workhorse. The main reason I like this unit over the 1180 is that there's no hard drive to break, and no flimsy laptop cd burner to break. Based on my 1180, I would expect this to last. (knock on wood) Time will tell. I usually wait a while before buying a new line of anything, but I feel confident that this unit is solid. The fact that they tout this unit as being a take-anywhere portable studio leads me to think they have a lot of faith in it's durability, so we'll see. Since it's new and untested, I'm gonna give it a "7" for now.

I used to work for a music store years ago, and (in my experience) they had the worst customer service I've seen. I hope times have changed, but luckily I haven't needed them since that time. I hopefully will never need to test them.

I know this review is mushy and gushing, but it's rare that I buy a piece of equipment that I actually get excited about. I sold my BR1180 because it actually had more than I needed, and was expensive. I would spend an hour or two once or twice a week with it, and it just didn't justify the price to me. When I had read the NAMM reports here on Harmony Central about it's upcoming release, it had my name written all over it! For the money, this thing will NEVER be beat!(at least for the next couple of weeks anyway;) I really can't believe that Boss made the 864 so similar to it's bigger brother. Sure, there are more features on the 1180 for the hardcore users. But on the whole, for what I do, the differences aren't worth the extra $600. To record years ago, I had bought a Yamaha 4-track cassette recorder, an entire effects rack, a master cassette deck, and microphones that cost about $1000. For less than half of the cost you can now get more tracks, better effects, less setup time, and superior results! For me, the 864 is about VALUE, which this thing is loaded with. Gripes? Yes...I think they should include the AC adapter. I don't see the point of making the unit battery powered. I really can't see someone lugging their guitar, cords, headphones, and recorder to the park for a day of blissful recording. I would think the people pointing and laughing at me would be so distracting I wouldn't get much work done. I wish it had all 8 sliders, as it does get tiring having to set the sliders for tracks 1 to 4, then hitting the button to get to tracks 5 to 8, and doing it all over again to tweak a track back on tracks 1 to 4 again. Again, for the money it's a small concession. I wish they included a 512meg stick with the unit. I can't imagine anyone complaing that they just have TOO much recording time. More is always better than not enough. Other than those minor issues I'm thrilled with my purchase. This little guy earns his keep in so many ways that I just can't say enough good things about it. If you're a "sometimes" recording musician that doesn't need the Cadilliac of recorders, think of the 864 as the Honda Civic of recorders. Not much money, reliable, and gets you where you want to go.