Boss BR-600 Digital 8 Track Recorder

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Editorial reviews

Product Description
BOSS has a long, celebrated history as the worldÕs premier compact-effects manufacturer, but now the BOSS brand has become synonymous with portable digital recording as well. The latest arrival in the BOSS recording line, the BR-600, is bound to raise BOSSÕs recording profile even higher.

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Customer reviews

review by: garyyokel date: 2008-10-19 rating:
Excellent Piece of Kit
I've had my BR-600 for about a month now and have been really pleased with it. I spent a while researching what was available and, most importantly, worked out what it was that I wanted from a digital multi-track. If you don't know, then chances are you're going to be disappointed.

I'm an ethusiastic guitarist who plays a lot of different styles and wanted a way to develop stuff on my own and have a bit of fun with it. I don't need the ability to record numerous instruments simultaneously, so number of inputs was of little consideration. I also just want some good quality recording, but with no need for 'super' production quality - as long as I can burn it to a CD and enjoy it myself and have something I can play to a few friends, that will do me.

What the Boss BR does have that I did want is an in-built drum machine with a good number of kits and patterns. This has already been more than adequate and I look forward to developing my own patterns using imported sounds. It also has a fine Bass sim, which means I don't need to enter protracted negotiations with the wife about getting yet another instrument. There are also a reasonable number of guitar effects, which are fun and useful if I want to get an idea down, but probably could do with some tweaking. Finally, the stereo mikes are better than the poor mics I have picked up in the past and again is useful for when I grab a free hour and want to get down a bit of guitar, vocals and harp (ok, a bit of a Dylan-freak).

If you're looking at getting a digital 8-track (and I guess that's what brought you here) and the above sounds the kind of thing you want, then I couldn't recommend the Boss BR-600 more.

To the gripes other people have had, I'd have to agree on the adapter issue, although I use one that I had for an old effects pedal and it's been fine. I bought a 1Gb SanDisk Ultra II card for a tenner and it initialised immediately, so I'm not sure why other people have had such trouble finding extra storage.

Finally, the ease of use. You've got to remember that this isn't Fisher Price - and I think that I would be disappointed if it was. However, within 20mins of turning it on I had jammed a few rounds of blues with bass, 2x guitar tracks and a pre-programmed drum track. The next evening I was overdubbing and playing with the EQ and panning, and by the end of the week (perhaps a total of 4 hours) I was cutting and pasting tracks and bouncing virtual tracks together, before exporting it to my laptop. How did I do it? Reading the freaking manual! If you can't be bothered, fine, but don't complain when you can't work it out ;-)

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review by: date: 2008-08-31 rating:
Great value, very good, but.....
On the whole the reviews left in here already are largely accurate.
I used to use p.c recording programmes years ago, which was very costly, and the quality offered on the boss meets (or exceeds) that at a fraction of the price.

The recording quality is very good all round, and i was surprised by how good the built in Mic is. The effects are great. There is lots to get your head around with this machine, but it is easy enough to get started and get recording.

On the downside, The obvious drawback to the boss is the number of tracks. As another reviewer said, it is NOT an 8 track recorder. Tracks 7/8 are for mastering, 5/6 is one stereo track. This, in effect makes it a 5 track recorder. You can get around this and use both tracks 5,6,7,8 indiviually but it affects the quality of the mix. Just another two tracks would make a world of difference, and i often find myself wishing that were the case. I found the instruction manual to be puzzling. It is comprehensive and includes everything, but it is sometimes unclear and it feels like you have to interpret what is written rather than following simple, step by step instructions. As for the drums, i think the quality is very good, but after three months of using the machine i still haven't figured out how to programme my own drum track (although i used to use a boss drum machine) and i think it is going to take a lot of my time to figure it out.

It may be that problems like the manual and drums won't be issues for most people, but the number of tracks is an issue that there is

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review by: date: 2008-06-28 rating:
Good but not great
Although this is an excellent piece of kit it falls down on a couple of points. First the power supply: it doesn't come with one. I have a Tascam four track and it came with a power supply: the manual mentions not to use another power supply, but if it was that important surely they would have included one? So a big boo to Boss on that point. And don't be fooled into spending a lot of money on the Boss power supply, a competent and sturdy standard power supply works just fine.

The second major falling down is its poor connectivity to computers. Given that it's got a USB slot and is digital to start with I find this a major let down. Connecting to computers is straightforward but it is stop and start. For example, to export four tracks as wav files you have to connect and disconnect to the computer four times, and manually move the file from the flashcard to the computer each time. You can 'mix down' the tracks and perhaps it is possible to create a final mix on one track and copy that across as a wav file but I haven't worked with it in enough depth yet.

Next up is the fact that it's not technically an eight track; it's a four track plus. Tracks five and six and six and seven are joined.

Given that it comes with a two hundred page printed manual you should get an idea of how in depth the Boss BR-600 is. And, having pointed out it's faults, I can tell you that you do get a lot for your money. You have in effect a guitar effects pedal, which alone can set you back fifty pounds or so, and there are some excellent effects to be had. Plus there are also effects for vocals. There is an in-built guitar tuner, a phrase trainer so you can connect a CD player and learn all those complex riffs by slowing them down and an on board mastering kit.

Be prepared to sit with the manual and go through it to get the best results. Some of the procedures can be tricky but everything is explained well in the manual. After a few days use I am comfortable with the basics and once you get used to it the whole process is pretty straight forward and much quicker than tape based multi-tracks. It comes with one flashcard and at 128MB it should be enough for most people provided you are exporting wav files and copying them to a computer.

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review by: thespiralarchitect date: 2008-05-17 rating:
What is says on the box!
This is a cool bit of kit. Not perfect but look at the price! As long as you are reasonably comfortable with technology you can be up and running making some basic recordings pretty fast. But beware if you want to do anything beyond the "musical notepad" level you need to spend some "quality time" with the manual.

Pros:
1 The price, what you get for the price is amazing
2 Most everything you need to get started is on-board (decent effects & amp simulation / bass simulator / drums)
3. Quick & easy to get started
4. Sounds great

Cons: Very little realy, but being picky

1. To get beyond the very basic level recording you need to spend some time with the manual and requires a little patience.
2. Drums a little tedious to programme
3. Manual suffers a little from "translation syndome" and it can take some time to hunt down answers to niggly little problems.

On the whole I have been delighted and my "cons" are picky


review by: jbuckleyfan date: 2008-02-22 rating:
Great machine
For the value this is a great device. So many features for such a small price. It has a drum machine, the quality of sound recording is very good, lots of really good guitar, vocal and bass effects etc etc. I would strongly suggest purchasing a power adapter and memory card. My only gripe is that the drum machine facility doesn't have 3/4 or 6/8 drum loops but that's a small thing compared to all the other things it has to offer.

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