# Boss Micro BR 80 discussion



## bostjan (Feb 24, 2015)

Ok, so I've had a Boss Micro BR-80 for about a year now. I thought I'd do a review and hope to get a little discussion going for my own benefit, and hopefully for other's, too.

Overall, I am super impressed with the little doodad. It's teeny-tiny. It has 8 tracks plus 8 virtual tracks per track (which can be bounced to directly) plus an independent rhythm track (drums) that's programmable.

It has the built in COSM and effect which I can safely say are very extensive. There are patches for Dual Rectos, Marshalls, Randalls, etc., and presets even for pretty specific things like a patch for playing Disturbed's "The Sickness."

The stereo condenser mic's are also great - very clear sounding and responsive. I enjoy using them because they sound so good and are super convenient.

Editing, for the most part, is really simple to do. You can mark a time while the song is playing and reference it for auto-punch, for cut/paste, or pretty much whatever, or you can input the time either by time stamp in HR:Min:Sec.xx or by Measure/Beat (in most cases).

The single jog wheel is actually nifty. The controls are, for me, pretty intuitive.

The thing records to a regular SD card. To program drums, you can eject the card, put it in a computer, then upload your .mid or .smf files to the card and it will automatically take the drum programs from the files.

Alright, so everything is great, but here are my complaints.

1. No fade out function. I know, I know, I can export my mix to a computer and then impose the fade out with recording software, but this seems like it would be a pretty simple feature to include, so that I can complete a song 100% of the way instead of 99% of the way using just the recorder. Since I'm not a huge fan of fade outs anyway, this doesn't bother me much, but again, I think it ought to have been a simple enough feature for Boss to have implemented.
2. Needs more drum sounds. Even though you input drum programs using General MIDI, you are limited to a six piece kit (which is fine) with a cowbell, a single crash cymbal, open/closed hihats, and a ride (no bell). Maybe I shouldn't complain about this, but man, how I would love to have a ride bell, a china, and a second crash available. What's more, if you program in the wrong crash cymbal in the MIDI, instead of parsing over to the available crash sound, the rhythm track just does nothing. This really irks me, although I feel extremely petty being irked by this.
3. Here's probably the big one - If you stop the recorder in the middle of a rhythm pattern, then press play again, everything picks up right where it left off, *except the rhythm pattern*, which starts over. To clarify, if you stop the recorder at 1:27, for example, and you are one and a half measures into a rhythm pattern, then you press play again, the audio continues from 1:27, but the rhythm pattern will start at beat one of measure one of whichever pattern it was supposed to be playing, then will correct itself whenever the next pattern is set to start. I thought that this might be a firmware issue, so I updated the firmware, and the problem persisted (maybe I'm just not "getting it"). Surprisingly, I can easily work around it myself, but it has caused a minor headache every now and again, especially if I'm too lazy to split my MIDI file into conveniently sized bites.
4. Even though there are hundreds of guitar sounds and plenty of cool stuff for vocals (granted, I'm pretty sophmoric in my abilities when it comes to vocal FX), there is very little useful stuff for bass - one or two decent clean sounds, and some pretty horrible OD and distortion sounds, which, for me, can't even really be used blended. I've had other Roland/BOSS recording consoles that had much better selection of bass COSM. This one, to me, just seems like they added the bass stuff as an afterthought.


The biggest advantages:
This thing fits in my pocket.
The thing, including SONAR software, cost me a couple hundred bucks US.
Besides being a recorder, there is a live recording mode and a really neat jam along mode which can pitch shift and speed shift (independently) songs you upload (you can also center cancel and access the COSM in that mode).

If BOSS made an upgraded version of this with more bass COSM and a few more cymbal sounds available, I'd be all over it.

Now, here's where I might need your help. Before you tell me to modernize and just get a recording PC with decent software, etc., keep in mind that I am not a professional recording studio, and I have little room for that kind of stuff. I'm sure you'll tell me anyway, so I guess I'll just accept that. Anyway, congrat's for reading this far. Does BOSS/Zoom/TASCAM/etc. make a recording console that has awesome COSM and MIDI-programmable drums like this, but with more flexibility? More tracks would be kinda nice. More cymbals would be great. More bass tones would be spectacular. A fade out feature would also be pretty great, even if it's done by fader during mixdown.

Thanks.

Also, my typical procedure for recording a song:

1. Program MIDI and import drums
2. Record rhythm guitar as follows:
a. track one bridge PU + Recto SIM
b. track two neck PU + Recto SIM
c. track three bridge PU + Marshall SIM
d. track four neck PU + Marshall SIM
e. track five bridge PU + Randall SIM
f. track six bridge PU clean
g. track seven bridge PU + randomly chosen SIM
h. track eight neck PU + randomly chosen SIM
3. Pan and mix rhythm guitar tracks, mute rhythm and bounce down to two tracks
4. Record lead guitar as follows:
a. track three bridge PU + Recto Solo SIM
b. track four neck PU + Recto Solo SIM
c. track five bridge PU + Marshall SIM
d. track six bridge PU + Randall SIM
e. track seven neck PU clean
f. track eight random PU + random SIM
5. Pan and mix, mute rhythm guitar and drums and bounce to two tracks
6. Record bass as follows:
a. track five neck PU + compressor
b. track six both PU in series + compressor
c. track seven neck PU + OD
d. track eight both PU + OD
7. Pan and mix, mute guitars and drums, then bouce to two tracks
8. Record vocals on track seven.
9. Record backing vocals on track eight
10. Pan, mix, and master.

Pretty staright forward. I get a good sound, to my ears, this way. Only outboard stuff I need is a guitar, a bass, a cable, and a bass OD pedal. I use my computer only to program the MIDI for the drums, and then to store the final mixed down product as a .WAV file.

Any thoughts?

Again, thanks so much for reaing all of that wall of text.


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## bostjan (Mar 2, 2015)

I guess there's not a lot of discussion to be had and/or my wall of text was TL;DR. 

I think I need a good place to do vocals.


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## bostjan (Mar 9, 2015)

Anyone else have one of these gadgets? (Micro BR-80?)


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Mar 9, 2015)

Never looked into the Micro. Had a BR1180-CD that I sold about 5 years ago once I went to DAW only. All in all, these things are great sketch pads, but I wouldn't classify them as full on recording media. I did import a track or two from mine into Sonar with some success, but overall, they're not going to replace a DAW for recording.
Mine had on board guitar amp sims, so it was nice for capturing ideas.


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## Justin Campbell (May 4, 2020)

bostjan said:


> Anyone else have one of these gadgets? (Micro BR-80?)


Hi there
Probably a long shot for you to reply.
I was wondering could you help me.
I have a boss BR-80’s micro.
When I compose a song using MTR, then attach my laptop to export.
Everything goes on successfully except the rhythm. I’m not sure if I have to bounce the drums onto a track so I can export it or what.
Any help would be great.
Justin


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## LeoPollaPsemata (Jul 6, 2020)

Hi, i want to record in MTR without rythm, no drums at all, i haven't found it.


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## Descent (Jul 7, 2020)

I have a Boss Micro Br, the one before yours.
4 tracks, 1 condenser mic:
https://www.boss.info/us/products/micro_br/

it works great for what it is.

I can't seem to program drums on it to save my life. Did try at some point but once I reboot I lose the tempo and it doesn't sync unless I chain it as a song or something.

I use it mainly as idea creation, rehearsal recording, practice tool. Used the slow down on it to learn some music for a band I was auditioning, that works really good.
Most of the editing I do outside, but usually it starts me on a song and then I move it to the DAW. Great little unit, could've been a little easier on quite a few things, but it does what I want it to.


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## Dell (Sep 26, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Anyone else have one of these gadgets? (Micro BR-80?)


There is a fault with the BR-80- If you are recording guitar on say Track 3 and wish to record another take, then it switches to STEREO recording on tracks 2&3 for the next take, overwriting whatever you might have recorded on track 2. It can have disastrous consequences!


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## bostjan (Sep 27, 2021)

Dell said:


> There is a fault with the BR-80- If you are recording guitar on say Track 3 and wish to record another take, then it switches to STEREO recording on tracks 2&3 for the next take, overwriting whatever you might have recorded on track 2. It can have disastrous consequences!


Mine's never done that. Maybe your unit has an issue?


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