BR900cd

[The Gobi Desert Canoe Club]

Hi all, well it looks like my BR900cd is beginning to collapse under the fairly heavy use it gets, it's starting to cut out randomly which makes recording a bit of a trial. It may be a dry joint somewhere and I may open it up for a quick look to see if it anything obvious. I have changed the card so it's not that.

However what I would like to know is, is there another reasonably priced recorder that has built in drum patterns along the same lines as the BR900CD.

I could use a daw such as GarageBand which I am reasonably happy using but would much rather have a portable recorder.

Many thanks, The Gobi Desert Canoe Club

[guitarron]

That sucks  I've seen some BR900cd on Reverb for about 250 bucks.
 Reaper makes a really good DAW cheap.

[64Guitars]

Hi all, well it looks like my BR900cd is beginning to collapse under the fairly heavy use it gets, it's starting to cut out randomly which makes recording a bit of a trial. It may be a dry joint somewhere and I may open it up for a quick look to see if it anything obvious. I have changed the card so it's not that.

Are you certain it's the recorder that's intermittent and not your guitar cable or pickup switch, for example?

As you suggested, it could also be a bad solder connection at the input of the recorder. Or it could be a switch (record, track select, etc.). Does it cut out on all tracks or only certain ones? If it only happens on certain tracks, then I'd check the track select switches for those tracks (or just avoid using those tracks). Does it happen with all inputs (guitar, mic, line)? For example, if it only happens with the guitar input then I'd suspect the ¼" input jack or the input select switch.

However what I would like to know is, is there another reasonably priced recorder that has built in drum patterns along the same lines as the BR900CD.

The Tascam recorders are excellent, but they don't have built-in drums. If you need that, then the Boss BR-80 or one of the Zoom recorders are about all there is to choose from at the present time.

The BR-80 is good, but it's nearly 11 years old. Also, it's quite small, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your needs and how you feel about working with tiny devices (personally, I prefer bigger desktop recorders). And some BR-80 users have had problems with the scroll wheel.

I think the Zoom recorders might be a better choice, depending on your needs. I especially like the new Zoom R20. It looks like it would be really easy to use. And it writes the tracks directly to WAV files on the SD card (up to 1TB). This makes it really easy to get your tracks into the computer for further mixing or editing. There's also a USB-C port which will accept a USB flash drive. So you don't even have to turn off the Zoom and eject the SD card to transfer files to or from the computer. Instead, you can just copy your tracks to the USB flash drive right from the Zoom. Then you can take the flash drive out of the Zoom and plug it into a USB port on your computer to import your tracks (WAV files) into your favourite DAW. Alternatively, you can simple connect a USB cable between the R20 and your computer to transfer the tracks directly. You can even use the R20 as an audio interface (44.1 kHz, 16/24-bit, 8-in/4-out) and record directly into your DAW.

The drums on the R20 work a bit differently than what you're used to on your BR-900, but I think you'll find that they're easier and perhaps even better sounding. There's no built-in drum machine like the BR900's. Instead, the R20 comes with 150 internal drum loops. They're organised in a similar way to the Boss, with separate loops for intro, verse, bridge, chorus, and ending for each of the 30 genres. You insert these drum loops into your drum track as "regions" or "clips". You can have as many regions as you like in your drum track, however there is a total limit of 50 regions per song project. This includes audio regions as well, so the number of regions you can have in your drum track depends on how many regions you've used for your audio tracks. For example, if you just use one region per audio track and you record 8 audio tracks, then you can have up to 42 regions in your drum track. On the other hand, if you've recorded 14 audio tracks and each one has, on average, 3 regions, then that's a total of about 42 regions, so you'll only have 8 regions available for your drum track. There is a way around this limitation. Let's say that you've started a song project by building a complex drum track consisting of 40 to 50 regions. Once you're satisfied that the drum track is finished, you can render it to a stereo audio track comprised of one region. Now you can delete the drum track, freeing up all its regions which can then be used for your audio tracks.

In addition to the 150 drum loops built in to the R20, you can find lots of drum loops online which you can import into regions of an audio track on the R20 and arrange into whatever sequence and length you need using the R20's touchscreen.

The R20 also has an internal synth which includes a drum patch. So another way to create a drum track is to use a synth track and input the individual drum hits using an attached MIDI controller or the R20's piano roll editor. Synth tracks can have up to 80 regions. So you could create your own regions for different parts of the drum track (intro, verse, chorus, etc.) and repeat each one as many times as needed by enlarging the region for as many bars as you need.

I could use a daw such as GarageBand which I am reasonably happy using but would much rather have a portable recorder.

With a modern recorder like the Zoom R20 you can have the best of both worlds. It's a portable recorder with built-in drum loops, effects, editing, mixing, etc. But it's also very easy to transfer tracks between the R20 and your DAW, or even use the R20 as an audio interface and control surface for your DAW. Definitely worth considering.

For more info and comments about the Zoom R20, see the following topic:

https://songcrafters.org/forum/index.php?topic=31810.0

[64Guitars]

If the problem only occurs on the guitar input, a relatively inexpensive workaround would be to use any device with a guitar input and a line output as your guitar interface to the BR-900. For instance, you could get an inexpensive mixer (as long as it has a Hi-Z guitar input) and connect its line outputs to the BR-900's line inputs. Since you'd be using the BR's line input rather than its guitar input, you shouldn't have any of the problems that you're currently experiencing with the BR's guitar input. And you'd still have access to all of the BR's guitar effects. You'd just have to switch the effects bank from Line (the default for the Line Input) to Guitar.

Perhaps you already have a mixer or other device that you could use. For example, my Marshall MG50DFX guitar amp has a guitar input (obviously) and a stereo headphone jack that doubles as a Line Out. So I could plug my guitar into the Marshall and connect its Line Out to the BR's Line In.

If you don't already have any gear with a Hi-Z instrument input and a line out, you could consider buying something that does. For instance, this Citronic U-Pad mixer would do the job for £59.99. Or this Soundcraft Notepad 5 mixer for £114, or this Allen & Heath ZED-6FX mixer for £159.

Do you have a USB audio interface or are you thinking of getting one? They usually have a Hi-Z instrument input and line output. For example, you could get the M-Audio M-Track Solo for £39. Or this one from Native Instruments would do the job for £79. Not only would these solve your BR-900 guitar input problem, they'd also allow you to record directly into a DAW on your computer if you want to experiment with that as well.

[Redler]

The BR-80 is good, but it's nearly 11 years old. Also, it's quite small, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your needs and how you feel about working with tiny devices (personally, I prefer bigger desktop recorders). And some BR-80 users have had problems with the scroll wheel.

I had that problem on my BR-80.  There's a video on YouTube where a guy dismantle his recorder to clean the wheel. I solved the problem within few seconds; I turned power off and sprayed grease remover into the wheel. (Electrical contact cleaner may be better). After that, the wheel worked normally for year. Then I repeated the spraying and he we go again. Sorry for off topic, but just let the folks know if they face the scroll wheel problem.

[Mibnyt]

Does anyone know how I would tell the difference in the br900 v1 to V2 by looking at it? I'm looking to buy one 2nd hand but I only want the V2.
Is it shown on the box? Or are they the same and can you just download the software onto v1?

Thanks

[T.C. Elliott]

It's a firmware update. You can update it if needed. To be honest it's been so long since I did mine that I almost forgot that it was a thing.