Boss BR-900CD

I've had this little beast for over a year and have recorded a ton of stuff on it. You MUST read and re-reread and re-read the manual to get it down.. you know...RTFM! The DVD was pretty useless to me, was WAY to fast and not deep enough.
The trick to this is to start simple and as you go on, read the manuel when you get stuck, read again...and keep doing it until you KNOW it! Otherwise, you'll just get frustrated. Mine looks 100 years old by now.
I can lay down tracks and get a song up and running in 30 minutes, and that includes mixing. A friend who bought one, but is too lazy to read the manuel, can hardly turn it on!
So with some patience and the manual near-by, you should be able to get it down.

I used to record directly through the machine, but got rather fed up with the internal sounds (which you can edit...but will go back to their normal settings if you turn off the machine).

So recently I have been micing with a shure sm57 my bass amp, and smaller tube guitar amps and am getting a great sound. I turn off ALL the effects and record dry, then later add effects during bouncing and mixing. I have found this results in a more real and natural sound, while using the effects can give ear fatigue and sound boring after awhile. (I even turn the preset reverb to 0...not leave it at 10)

I play all original music heavy funk punk blues (I guess), and by using the smaller amps, I can hear the drums over the headphones. If I use my Marshall, it's too loud in a small studio...(unless I cover it up with blankets and go into the next room...and which I do, taking the boss with me, attached to a long extension chord!

All the effects are fun at first, but in the end, you should create your own sound with amps, real drums ect.

The drums are nice and creating patterns etc is easy enough...but they are a machine...and of course a drum machine is really just a metronone... but you can get some great ideas down, and then build on that with real drums.

Tip: watch and trust the levels. It's very easy to trust your ears and not the levels, but after mixing into MP3, you will be too harsh and loud. Also, mix your bass with a lot of treble...if it's too bassy, it won't come through when you mix it down and into final MP3. (you can hear it fine with the headphones, but over cheaper speakers, sometimes it will get lost)...bye bye analogue quality...:(

The mixing is a GREAT feature. Once you have created your tracks, bounced them, and mixed them, then for the final mix, it is always surprising to listen to the professional quailty...as long as you did everything else right!!

I also use an old tube poweramp to run it through my monitors and with the drums or a live band, with use a mixer.

My biggest gripe is, wish it had more mic inputs.

So far so good, going on 1+ years... still rocking and I use it 4 or 5 times a week. And on Sundays record my church's sermons. Have burnt 100's of CD's and have had no problem.

Excellent...call up boss and they will spend hours on the phone explaining anything

I play buesl, punk, funk, psychedelic noise, etc...and it works great. I also use it to record tracks, down load to my PC, convert to MP3, send off to my friends, and have created a lot of stuff that ay as well.

Been playing since I was 24 am 50 now. Been recording for 5 years..ahh.. to be able to re-record over and over a 100 times without sacrifsicing quality as witha tape, is WONDERFUL. It also helps you to FORGET about the machine..

I love it, take it on vacations, (even have recorded outdoor sounds then use them on recordings) to weddings, funerals, whatever. Makes a great gift to give someone a CD after their wedding and say, here...alwasy a treat.

My final say is, I would upgrade to another one with my inputs, like the 1200, and all the effects are great, but after awhile, I rarely use them. Oh yes, get the 1 gig sound card...otherwise you will run out of space with one song.

Look, I love my Br900cd, but the fact is this item is terrible when it comes to ease of use. In fact, I imagine my review is gonna seem odd, because I am rating everything great save for the ease of use. It's actually because the product can do so damn much that makes it difficult to use. With so many abilities, and so few buttons it was designed so that often you must use combinations of buttons to do seemingly simple tasks.

So the product is difficult to use...no biggie, right? As long as you eventually can read the manual and et it then it should be a problem. WRONG. The manual, I have read many times, and I swear to go still do not understand it.

I am sad to say that I have had this product for about 6 months and am currrently only utilizing about 15% of everything it can do. I read a review on musiciansfriend prior to buying the purchasing the item. The reviewer, whom I didn't listen to, but should have, said:

This is an item designed by sound engineers, not musicians" and that Man was very right.

I do not run it through an amp, but rather my own PA system. it adds no excess noise, and it keeps my strat sounding wonderfully bluesy. The effects are awesome too. I didn't buy the item for the effects, as I, and many musicians know, often presets that are built into digital products lack the spice that an actual set up will allow, however, many of the clean tones are great-and as a bonus, I was suprised at the quality of the acoustic and bass simulators. The only negative may be the distortions, there could be a few more cleaner ones, rather than the many "over the top gain effects."

It's boss. Meaning, it can survive a car wreck. I keep mine by a window, and one day to my horror, it was left open while it rained. I came into my room to see it covered in water. I freaked out because it's of it's value to me. I unplugged it, and wiped it down as best I could, but water had gone into the empty spaces where the input volume bars are. I let it sit for about a day and a half, pluged it in, and since then has been working fine. I'm very lucky.

haven't needed to/.

Rating overall quality is difficult, because the studio can do so much, so excellent, yet lacks such because of how difficult it is to use. Honestly, if it were stolen, I probably would search for a more easy to use product, however, I believe most studios would probably be difficult to use, and have half the capabilities the RP900CD has.

I have not seen the DVD item that can be purchased that is supposed to make it easier to understand using it. After reading some of the above reviews, I am goin to immeadiatly purchase and watch it. Hopefully it will help.

This is a fairly complicated piece of gear that takes a little research to get all the goodies to work properly. The DVD is a must have, it opens the world up and more. Once the basics are understood, this is the bomb!!

I play guitar, bass, keys, vocals, acoustic guitar and stand up bass with this straight in and if anyone else who owns this thinks there is anything wrong with the sounds they get, they need to look at their gear or read a little more in the manual. I have had this for about 2 months and have already recorded 43 full length songs. The first few were so so, but the latest ones sound as good if not better than most of the crap that plays on your favorite radio station. Musician friends and non playing friends alike cannot believe that what they are hearing is just me and my br900.

Not a single problem yet except composing rhythm arrangements, but I haven't read that far into the manual yet. Give me time, I'll get it.

I play what I like to call Downtempo Trance Groove, sounds like NIN if Reznor were on painkillers really, I also love to play metal and funk/groove/r&b/soul/jazz. You name, I play it. I have been playing for going on 21 years and never in my life have I been so addicted to playing and recording music. I've been to 2 or 3 PRO??? studios and spent many hours trying to get that sound only to go home and realize the reason it sounded so damn good there was that we were listening to it through $2000 speakers, not the speakers normal people have in their cars or house. This is capable of creating very complex, and professional sounding recordings if you pay attention to the sound you are putting into it. I have been trying off and on most of my life to make some sort of impact in the world of music, and now I am only about 1 year away from doing that. I truly believe that if you spend the time needed to get things right from the get go, you will be shocked at the results!!!

hI There can any one tell my how to put backing music on my boss 900 and then play my guitar throw it and record it on to a CD thanks RAB

It definitely helps to read the manual, which is very extensive, but not definitive. Supplemental resources, such as forums, user groups and other sources, should be utilized to truly de-bug real-world experience problems. A DVD is also available which makes life easier for the noobie, but those familiar with recording techniques, will most likely jump right in the mix, so to speak.

At a sampling rate of 16bit/44.1khz, (CD quality) the sound is relatively good for home-made demos and other projects. The sampled drum sounds work well for getting ideas down, and prior to the release of the rhythm editor, it was a pain to experiment with the drum sounds. The upgrade in software also is a big plus, showing Roland's commitment to its design and its customers.

I've thought about using the unit as backing tracks for my solo work, but I'll have to put it to the test in the field. At home, it is rock-solid.

No need. The product is well-made and has never given me problems requiring contact with Roland's corporate offices.

I have laid down tracks to a sequencer, overdubbed one track at a time and have simultaneously recorded two tracks at a time, usually with my Roland FR-7 v-accordion, playing everything from acoustic stuff to more electronic experimental material. I've been playing for over 12 years and it is nice to finally record the ideas in my head and burn them to a CD. Prior to this one, I had the BOSS MicroBR, but the limit on tracks forced me to go this way. I like the shift to more tracks and manual control of the faders, rather than buttons. Going from idea to recording is a big step, but one that each of us needs to take to get the sound out there. The BOSS BR-900CD is a great compact tool that helps musicians accomplish this goal.

I wish it had upgraded firmware to recognize higher capacity compactflash cards.

This machine is fairly easy to use if you've used any other kinds of 8-track recorders, however there are some functions i cannot figure out no matter how many times i read the manual. I get confused tring to use the v-tracks, i still haven't been able to structure a complete drum pattern and i don't know what the hell i did but for some reason my master fader is not working but instead my track 3 fader is working as the master fader. Can anyone can figure out how that might have happened?

The sound quality is very good and has every possible option available to get the sound the way you want it. The preset reverb is a little too high for some songs at 10 so you might need to turn it down a little. It's tough to get the right guitar sound with the presets too so you might need to play with the settings.

I have had this machine for 2 1/2 months now and have had a few problems. First as i already mentioned about the master fader getting switched with my track 3 fader. Second when using the internal mic sometimes you get feedback. Like any machine you will notice little glitches from time to time.

I still have my 8-track under warrenty so i have not needed to deal with the company.

This thing is very complex to use .
You simply cannot use it without reading and re-reading the manual.
Having said that, once you get the hang of the basics, it quickly becomes second nature.
The DVD really SHOULD ship with these - its frankly a disgrace that you have to pay extra for it.
I havent edited patches yet, but did download and install the new version 2 patches with ease.
Check the Roland site and the excellent 64Guitars [a BR expert] site, plus the yahoo group for great ideas and information.

Excellent - the new patches are frankly brilliant for heavy rock and metal.
Plug guitar directly in, line out to your Hi- fi and away you go.
No background noise.
We record the drums live - initially using two external condensors, but soon to be a full drum mic set - mixer- BR , with overdubbing of bass and guitar tracks
The results are excellent though it takes a bit of practice to understand bouncing tracks and mastering .
I use it to record my sons , and so far have been impressed with what it can do.
At this price you cant expect more than two channel [track] recording, so we are going to experiment with recording drums, vocals and guitar live [ 9 mics to drums, 1 vocal, 1 to guitar cab] mixing on the fly and sending the two tracks to the BR to add bass, rhythm and lead later on.
Some may argue that a computer set up would be better for this, but the BR is such a versatile little beast with built in COSM effects, portability, battery power that software based options dont tick my boes, not at just over 300GBP anyway!

so far fine, but havent had it long

downloads are good and software support seems excellent

The band are metal and the BR was largely bought so that the principal songwriters, my sons, can put down ideas and play around with them.
It will also be used to record live performances with decnet external condensors
Initially I was going to get the 600, but bigger size, more functions on the unit rather than hidden in menus and easier inputs for phantom power, line etc made it the better choice for me.

I wish you could record more tracks at once, but to be honest, the other features make up for this deficiency.
Its a tool - you will not get studio quality sound, but you will have something to let you write more easily and make your mistakes before paying for studio time.

I'm writing this short review to rebut the review below that
claims that the rhythm track tempo is lost once a track is
recorded. I originally had this problem myself with the BR-864
(which I've reviewed on Harmony Central) and thought others might
have the same problem. Apologies for the slight abuse of this
space.

The problem is that the tempo of a rhythm pattern is not stored.
So if you set the pattern tempo, record a track, and then come
back to your song later, the tempo you used when recording is
lost, and the default 120 bpm tempo is used.

The solution is to create a rhythm *arrangement* for your song.
It is very easy to create an arrangement that contains just a
single pattern. The tempo must be set as desired for the arrangement.
The arrangement and its tempo will be stored as part of the
song data, so when you return to your song the tempo will restored
correctly.

Well, I consider myself fairly good with looking at a machine for 5 minutes and figuring out the buttons right away and making things work the way they should, but this one is definitely not one of them. Reading the manual helps, but it's still not very easy. You're gonna need the DVD manual to really understand what's going here. I wouldn't recommend this machine to people who are not familiar with recording techniques/terminology and people who are not patient.

Effects are great and they sound fairly clean, overrall. The drum machine sounds pretty realistic and have a thick sound to them. However, I wouldn't recommend this drum set for musicians into techno, new wave, or dance music. The drum set seems geared for rock and r&b musicians.

I've only had it for 2 weeks. So far, it hasn't done anything strange or give me errors.

I play all kinds of music, but I'd say that this machine seems geared for guitarists. I compared this machine to other products and I'm very satisfied with my purchase, and I think I made the right decision. This is definitely helping me write more music and even inspires me, but I would definitely recommend that you get the DVD manual and learn all the features and techniques before you can truly appreciate what this machine could do.

This product does take a little time to become familiar with and appreciate all the bells and whistles provided. The manual is well written and explains things clearly - at least for me it did. This is my second recording product from boss the first was the VS-880 so I do have experience with these types of manuals. After a little practice things will become much clearer. I give this an 8 because it does take time to understand the machine especially with all the possibilities it offers.

For me the sound and effects are perfect. I have recorded a few songs within 2 weeks and I am very happy with the quality. If you use good quality equipment you get good results. If you input junk then you get junk in return. I was able to borrow a $1000 mic and I couldn't believe the quality this recorder is capable of for the money. The effects are great and can be manipulated to your hearts content. Distortion effects sound really good, as well as the vocal, drums and other effect simulations - remember this is Boss. I did burn a MP3 CD and yes it sounded great. I give it a 9 because a 10 would be for home studios more expensive than this (i.e Br 1600cd)

I have owned it for 2 weeks. I do baby it - no jerking, banging, shaking or dropping the machine - it's digital. If you fail to treat it with care and respect your asking for trouble. I give it a 10 - no problems thus far.

Never had to deal with the company. So I really can't leave an opinion.

I used it to record acoustic guitar and vocals - which it did beautifully. I used it to record hard rock, again it did it beautifully. I recorded with a Yamaha LL6 and Godin Sdxt - not only was I impressed but my friends as well with the sound quality. If it was stolen I would definitely purchase another one - it has motivated me to record my music and made it very easy and convenient doing so. My only wish for the Br 900 is that it had larger and dedicated drum pads. In order to access the other drum sounds you must push a button which is inconvenient - but nothing major. When I donwn load to my computer the file is transferred in wav. format - a large file - luckily I have freeware that converts it to MP3 for burning CDs or down loading to my website. I give this a 9 - I am personally very happy with this machine and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to record their own music.