[Stratrat]

Has anybody looked at/played with one of these yet? Looks like it would be a very handy recording tool, with a lot of other cool features in addition. 4-track recorder with 8 "virtual tracks" for each track, mp3 player, expandable memory, onboard COSM modeling effects and amp (play through headphones/speakers), tuner, ability to slow down mp3 tracks (for learning) without changing pitch, ability to save your tracks to mp3 and download them to your computer via USB, basic onboard editing effects, etc.

[Stratrat]

There is no USB cable included, but just about any USB cable with the right size connector will work - I use the one I have for my GPS.

As far as transferring the song to your PC - the way I've been doing it is to go into the edit function and "bounce edit" all your recorded tracks onto an unused track or v-track. That combines them all so you have a complete song. Once you've done that, name the song, save it, and transfer only the combined (bounced) track over to your PC.

I haven't tried recording in mp3 mode yet. Minstrelite referred to it above, I'm wondering if it still works the same as the "normal" recording mode (i.e. multiple tracks, v-tracks, etc.). Hopefully we'll start seeing more user-contributed information on the 'net now that these things are out and people are starting to play with them.

[Rojoyinc]

I've had one of these for a week now - it is FANTASTIC - I love tech toys - got a lot of them, sold a lot of them that I didn't like (Tascam pocket studio - SOLD!0

I can't say enough great things about this unit.
1st - it's great just for practice. Put in your pocket - and stroll around outside, on the dock, on the boat - where ever and you have all the sound you want to practice and play electric without a amp.

Next - add the effects/tones you want with their COSM effects - control them to the max - I'm amazed... very similar to my Toneport and Guitarport but portable.

Record! (without a computer) much like my GNX4 - but what 1/50th the size? - and portable? and battery powered... yeah it does eat the batteries - still 3-4 hours isn't all that bad for only 2 AA's. I read a review on their AC convertor dying (no one liked them) so I found a 9v I had laying around the house and it works great! - so fine for porch and practice around the house - just use the batteries for on the boat or playing on trips in the car.

Has drums and rythums - not only a repeating beat - but a intro, verse 1 verse 2 and endings - (better than my GNX4).

the one drawback - it is limited to 1gig SD card. I had a 2gig here for my camera and tried it - it worked, but was limited to 1 gig = ( so I swapped it out to a 1 gig card. BUMMER - would be nice to load up a 2 gig with mpegs. I like jamming with mp3's and backing tracks. Still 1 gig isn't to shabby - I can always pack 2-3 of them I guess.

Editing - is a bit of a choire, but I didn't buy it primarily for that - and it can be done - I recorded lots of "bits" of songs - then picked the best bits and pieces them together like a puzzle. Fun when you have nothing to do - like at Holiday family gatherings that are boring... I just lay on the couch with this thing and headphones and start playing with the buttons - putting together the best tracks for the song.

Yes the manual is a bit vague at times, but after several hours - it all started to make since and it layed out really rather well "once you get the hang of how it's setup".
It's all pretty logical now and easy to remember. Editing was a pain at first - I wanted to set my "A" point and "B" point and cut and paste and there wasn't any way to SEE the in and out points to move them a little. (was frustrating- I had very bad results) I then started cutting and pasting using "measures" and it worked like a charm!

Sound quality is impressive (I expected it to be like the Tascam - junk) it wasn't is quite good. I do wish there was a bit more volume, on the clean tones, but it's decent. I've also used the output into my little micro cube battery powered amp - to the input and it's fanastic. A computer studio/amp - all on battery power!

I can't say enough good things about this - it really replaces my digitech GNX4 (hmmm maybe I'll sell that). Don't hestitate to get one of these - it is remarkable - and just great fun to mess with as well. Haven't used the internal mic - doesn't sound bad in the demo - I'd use a plug in mic personally - but would be fine to record a "riff or song in a pinch before you forget it". I LOVE the BR.

[coldethyl]

I'm contemplating buying one myself, but I just have a few questions.

Firstly, if you wanted to play along to a slow blues backing track, is it possible with the BOSS Micro?

Secondly, can it be played plugged into an amp? I'm guessing that it can, but just need confirmation.

Finally, what effects does it contain? For example, wah wah, delay, distortion, reverb, etc.

[Rojoyinc]

play with blues - OH YEAH - you can play with your own blues progression - just lay it down then play along - OR record pentatonic lead over it. OR as you suggested - copy a mp3 to it from computer and play it as a mp3 - and jam over it.
In addition you can optionally SPEED UP or SLOW DOWN the mp3 track playback. since it doesn't change the "tone/key" in the speed change - it does deter quality and "break up" the sound of playback a bit. (but only if you adjust speed). This is mainly to play back say - a fast solo - so that you can hear "pick out" each note.

OH - this is even better - you can set "A" and "B" points and LOOP the mp3 - (so it doesn't end and go to play the next song) so it will repeat - OR if you want to play only a part of the track - in a loop you can set that. You can also set it to be only a part of a lead - so you can learn it in small parts (looping). You can play a blues progression (I-IV-V) one time through - recording it. Then set the AB loop on it and it will repeat as long as you like. (something I coudln't do on my GNX4 which was frustrating... if I wanted to record my own background track - I had to repeat it as long as I needed it to play. Let me clarify - quality without the speed up or down option is high quality (regular mp3 player quality)... the quality only degrades as you adjust the speed up or down. (which really wouldn't be used often).

There is ONE QUIRK - maybe I've missed and someone can help me!?!? When you save your work, the effect, the song, your recording... it seems to save everything EXCEPT THE TEMPO! This would be really dumb on their part. For example - say you make up a rythm. You pick one of 5 or so drum kits! You set the tempo, you get it all how you like it. Now you start recording tracks for your song with the rythm pattern. Now you save it and shut down to go do something - and come back to work on it again later. The TEMPO doesn't save and defaults back to like 130. (HUH?) you then go to play your song and the rythm doesn't measure up with the tracks you recorded... you can re-sync them IF you remember what the tempo was when you recorded it. (you can re-set the tempo speed) and all will be well. But this is a pain each time you go to load up a song you've worked on. The the way around this is to bounce the rythm to a track so that it is recorded into your song. (or tracks as in a stereo pair) so not that big of a deal... but I hate re-setting the tempo down from 130 all the time. I'd like to at least stay where I last used it.

YES YOU CAN PLUG IT INTO A AMP. I plugged it into the "LINE IN" on my Roland micro cube and it was awesome. You could then plug the guitar into the BR and run that into the line in too (if you want the BR effects) but more likely you'd plug the guitar into the guitar in on the amp so you can control both levels seperately.
I have not plugged the BR into the GUITAR IN on the amp - with the guitar plugged into the BR. I imagine you could, but the line out of the RB would be higher than that of a guitar. So TURN the BR output level WAY DOWN... I'm sure it would work, but I haven't had the need to do this. I used the BR on the amps "LINE IN" like where you would plug in a CD player for background tracks. the only way you'd want the BR's output into the guitar in on a amp is if you want to amp up the BR's "guitar effects" which would be desireable if you don't have a modeling amp, or toneport device for special guitar FX.

FX which ones? No wah wah - yes REVEB, DELAY, - distortion yes in the same way an amp does - has "PRE AMP on and off and PRE LEVEL" so cranking up the pre - and turning down the master volume on the amp model will give you the distrotion. There are 80 or so pre-effects levels and 80 or so you can save with your personal settnigs.
You can pick several different "AMPS" as a starting point - "clean or Stack with several amps to choose from" as well as MICing the amp settings! Mic placement etc. (amazing in this little thing). Has Noise reduction with settings to eliminate background his. And a "Bright" setting on or off to your effect. Delay settings - settings to adjust all the effects. Their included saved FX are also very good ( most) from clean jazz, to blues to metal and metal extreme.

As mentioned 5-6 or so drum kites (drum sounds from Rock to techno to jazz and all between). You can ARRANGE the background rythms - to have a intro, verse1 verse1 chorus and ending.

Other than the NO WAY (it seems to me) to SAVE TEMPO setting - And its limit of only a 1GB card - it's perfect. Those are the only two problems I've found this far.
It would be nice to "SEE" the A B points as the user marks them. For example to step through the recording (Which you can do in very minute steps) and then have a little * show up or a "A" and "B" at the two points the user has marks as in and out points. This would help with moving them forward and back to make editing adjustments. Though with a lot of frustration in trying to control the A and B points this accurately for editing - I later found that if I used the "MEASURES" for editing it was right on each time. So I later found I didn't need to set A and B points to cut and paste clips - I could use MEASURE with extremely accuracy.

[coldethyl]

Thanks for the info Rojoyinc!

[Stratrat]

Royjoy - I found the same problem with the drums. I recorded a rhythm guitar track over the drums, then a lead track over that - and when I bounced the tracks together and played it back, the tempo for the drums was all botched up. So you're saying that if you lay a drum track and "bounce" it, it will save the correct tempo? I'll have to try that.

When you record in mp3 mode, do you still get the same capabilities as far as multiple tracks, v-tracks, etc.? I haven't messed with mp3 mode at all yet.

One more question, since you have a Micro Cube (I do also) - have you tried hooking the BR up to the Micro Cube's "Rec Out" and recording into it that way? i.e. - Guitar>Micro Cube>Rec Out to Micro BR. If it works, that would be a great way to record because you could use your normal pedalboard and/or the amp's effects and just record into the BR on a "clean" setting so it doesn't color what you recorded beyond the original. I just wasn't sure if the Micro Cube would act as a pre-amp and overload/damage the BR. I don't want to blow this thing up!!!

Neil (Coldethyl) - You can definitely record over a BT. The USB hookup allows you to import files onto the SD card from your computer, so that's not a problem. As far as effects, it has everything that Royjoy mentioned plus chorus, delay, flanger, phaser, reverb, tremolo, etc. - pretty much all the same FX you'd get from a pedalboard and/or multi-FX board. You can play through them live, or add them into your tracks in the edit.

[coldethyl]

Originally Posted by Stratrat

Neil (Coldethyl) - You can definitely record over a BT. The USB hookup allows you to import files onto the SD card from your computer, so that's not a problem. As far as effects, it has everything that Royjoy mentioned plus chorus, delay, flanger, phaser, reverb, tremolo, etc. - pretty much all the same FX you'd get from a pedalboard and/or multi-FX board. You can play through them live, or add them into your tracks in the edit.

Thanks for that. I'll definitely be checking them out next time I get GAS!

[minstrelite]

I'm having a new problem with the Micro-BR now. I'm recording with the internal mike, one acoustic and a singer. We've done this about five times, but the last couple of times, the level has been really low. I'm recording onto mp3 at 192kps, and I haven't changed anything. I took the mic level (Sns) up to +5, which ought to pretty high, out of a max of +8. But maybe that's irrelevant? Don't laugh, I'm just confused.

For some reason, the output level is really low on playback. I've got the volume on the Micro-BR all the way up, and my headphones all the way up. Once I upload them onto my PC, I'm sure that volume will be all the way up, too. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

[Stratrat]

Originally Posted by minstrelite

I'm having a new problem with the Micro-BR now. I'm recording with the internal mike, one acoustic and a singer. We've done this about five times, but the last couple of times, the level has been really low. I'm recording onto mp3 at 192kps, and I haven't changed anything. I took the mic level (Sns) up to +5, which ought to pretty high, out of a max of +8. But maybe that's irrelevant? Don't laugh, I'm just confused.

For some reason, the output level is really low on playback. I've got the volume on the Micro-BR all the way up, and my headphones all the way up. Once I upload them onto my PC, I'm sure that volume will be all the way up, too. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

The only thing I can think of is the singer being too far from the mic. It's worked pretty well for me, but I had it pretty much equidistant between my guitar and my mouth....it picked them up pretty equally. You could also try editing your tracks and bringing the vocal track forward in the mix.


Aside to Neil (Coldethyl) - regarding your above question, I did exactly that for the track I posted in the "noob collab" thread in the collaboration forum....loaded the BT onto the MicroBR from my computer, converted the mp3 to a "track", then played over it to add my guitar to it.

[Smokey Joe]

Very nice thread especialy since I just purchased a new micro br today. This thread has already pointed me toward some answers as to how do I do this or that, thanks.
I too am impressed with the capabilities of this unit and looking forward to beeing able to navigate my way around and use all or most of them.

My first recorder and I hope to get a recording on here using the micro br before long.
Smoke

[minstrelite]

About my recordings turning out with a really low volume, it was worse when we recorded yesterday. Then I noticed that the input level "knob" on the right hand side of the unit was in the middle somewhere--maybe it should be all the way up? I might have glossed over this in the instruction manual. I don't think it's a thing of the singer being further away from the unit, because we haven't changed anything since the first day we've been trying these, and we've met every Wednesday for four or five weeks now.

I really need to get a louder output signal, otherwise I can't do too much with these. She and I both sound like we're a million miles away.

[Stratrat]

Try turning the input dial up as you suggested - that may make the difference. Perhaps it inadvertently got turned down when you moved the recorder. Also, when you have a song loaded or a new song created, hit the "Utility" button and try adjusting the "Master Level" up (use the +/- keys).

[minstrelite]

Originally Posted by Stratrat

Try turning the input dial up as you suggested - that may make the difference. Perhaps it inadvertently got turned down when you moved the recorder. Also, when you have a song loaded or a new song created, hit the "Utility" button and try adjusting the "Master Level" up (use the +/- keys).

Believe it or not, I am still having the same problem. I even just did a paid gig where I sent an mp3 to a customer at 192bps--pretty good quality--and I had to make mention that the volume level was unusually low.

OK. I've got the input dial all the way up. My headphones, and the volume control on my system, are all the way up. By "utility control," do you mean that thing that says "SNS" when I'm using the "MIC" input? I noticed it was at -1 (for some weird reason) but when I put it up to +4 it's still at at the same low level. (I'll have to check and see if it's sticking at +4, or somehow "defaulting" back--you know how techno-gadgets can be).

Finally, I'm a dude who's never even owned a digital cam, much less a digital audio recorder. I care what my music sounds like, a lot more than I care what I look like. Could this possibly be an issue of needing a new digital card? I've re-initialized the card several times now.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, since the customer needs the job done over again. I also use the Boss every Wednesday for my students, and it's starting to become a drag.

Originally Posted by Stratrat

You could also try editing your tracks and bringing the vocal track forward in the mix.

Say--since in this case it's just a single instrumental track, is there a way to edit it to get the volume higher when I re-send it?

[minstrelite]

Anyone know of a Boss tech support number? I can't find one on the web site. Thanks. I hope my Micro-BR isn't simply defective, because this really sucks.

[Stratrat]

Originally Posted by minstrelite

....By "utility control," do you mean that thing that says "SNS" when I'm using the "MIC" input?...

No. Press the "Utility" button, and you'll see a display that says "MasterLevel: XXX" (with "XXX" being the current master volume setting). If it's not at 100 or above, use the "Value" keys to change it (the "+" key will raise the master volume). I'm currently keeping mine at 110. Once you're done, hit "Exit" and try recording again.

As far as the memory card - I can't see how that would affect your volume. If the memory card was bad, you'd most likely be having trouble saving/loading songs.