Boss Micro Br Digital Recorder

It was Steve that pointed me towards one of these. He knows I would love to record. The reason that I haven’t done so far is because I don’t have enough brains to learn anything.

I took the plunge and I bought one of these two weeks ago.

http://www.roland.com/products/en/MICRO_BR/index.html

It’s powered by a pair of AA batteries (included). I turned it on and listened to the demo; it was the predictable heavy rock (yawn) song complete with gaudy (yawn) guitar solo. Good production though.

I plugged the guitar in and tried out the effects. Lots of utterly useless ones, but a few are decent enough. The 120 page manual comes with a ‘corrections list’. The list was not complete because I’ve found several things that don’t work like the book says it will.

I have spent many hours at this thing now as was evidenced by the numerous exchanges of batteries. Sourcing a power adaptor (not included of course) was not straightforward as I had thought. The proper Rowland one goes for around £25 ($50 or 40 euros) and I couldn’t find one. I eventually picked up a clone for £7 at the music shop I bought the BR in.

Other stuff bought since:

USB cable (Std to Small) – for PC link - not yet used

Micro Jack to Jack lead - for connecting the GT5

Ig SD memory card

Other stuff needed:

Condenser (powered) Mic

Bass guitar

Smaller headphones

A drummer, or a fully programmable drum machine

Never having used an SD card before, I removed the supplied one with a pair of pliers. Only when I put the replacement in did I realise that they have a push release (doh!). I was lucky not to damage it. In fairness to Roland, this was mentioned in the manual, (but not where I looked at the time).

At this stage I am able to use the thing to record 4 tracks quite well. I can add the drum patterns OK (but it wont do anything sexy like 5/4). The supplied drums don’t use up a track fortunately. Having chosen a pattern, I can exchange the drum kit, which is a very attractive feature. The STD1 kit & the Jazz kit seem the most realistic ones. What I cannot figure out is how to copy, paste and insert. So I have to plan the fills, breaks and endings etc with great care.

The onboard mic is ok for recording a band at a live gig, but has limited use as a studio mic.

There are several ways to cut, copy and paste track material, and I can’t do any of them. However, now that I have the rhythm planning sorted, I should be able to use the ‘timing’ method with any luck.

I am now working on the drum pattern for one of my songs. Next I need that bass guitar. I have yet to study mastering, bouncing tracks, exporting to the computer and converting to MP3 format etc.

Oh, and I need someone to press the record button too.