Micro BR-80

[64Guitars]

The Line in and USB in have no Input Sens, REC level, EQ ,or Reverb.

Are you sure about the reverb? If so, that's something new with the BR-80 because older BRs apply reverb to all inputs, including Line In, if the Input Send level is turned up.

[simont]

The Line in and USB in have no Input Sens, REC level, EQ ,or Reverb.

Are you sure about the reverb? If so, that's something new with the BR-80 because older BRs apply reverb to all inputs, including Line In, if the Input Send level is turned up.

Yep , positive.

[Greeny]

Oh Lord. I've been sitting on the sidelines wondering whether to get a BR-80. I'm not one of these early adopter types (see E.M. Rogers 'Diffusion of Innovation' technology adoption model below), so I wait to see what bugs emerge etc, and hope to get things cheaper, later.

Anyway - I really don't like some of the things I'm reading here, so that's one new customer lost.

[simont]

Compared to the mbr though I have found other dissadvantages as not being able to access the mastering effects and fiddle with them when going to master a song. They seem to be just there as presets.

You can edit the mastering effects as you are listening to the track.
Song>mastering>press enter again on the selected mastering effect preset and you can edit that effect while playing the track, if that's what you mean.?

You can also rename and save that tweaked preset in a user(U) or song(S) slot.

[Krasi]

Compared to the mbr though I have found other dissadvantages as not being able to access the mastering effects and fiddle with them when going to master a song. They seem to be just there as presets.

You can edit the mastering effects as you are listening to the track.
Song>mastering>press enter again on the selected mastering effect preset and you can edit that effect while playing the track, if that's what you mean.?

You can also rename and save that tweaked preset in a user(U) or song(S) slot.

Oh...I must have been lost while navigating...well now that is no more a disadvantage for me, everything looks rosy again Thanks Simont.

As I said, Sonar is the big difference - I can record as many as I like V-trax and dumping them into Sonar takes seconds. Then I find it really helpful being able to try different effects from Sonar on the go, and all those trax in front of me to play with not having to bounce at all!!! I'm a total noob with PC software but after spending an hour with Sonar I find it all soo easy now. And there is still many other features I have to learn about.

[Tony W]

I'm gonna do something ridiculous tonight. LINE IN on the MBR headphone out to LINE IN on the BR-80.

Why you ask? because I can.

If Krasi is anything like me, once I select a mastering effect, I want to go back through each individual track and adjust the volumes/panning/reverb/etc. You cannot do this while in the Mastering Mode.

[Gnasty]

The Line in and USB in have no Input Sens, REC level, EQ ,or Reverb.

Are you sure about the reverb? If so, that's something new with the BR-80 because older BRs apply reverb to all inputs, including Line In, if the Input Send level is turned up.

Yep , positive.

Yes this is another thing i noticed today when i wanted to bounce. I thought i was the problem.
I really just started getting back into the groove and recording and trying to finish songs.I hope this isn`t true.
I really think their manual for this isn`t very descriptive enough either. yeah, they want to just sell the video when it comes out i guess. Greedy F*cKs!

Another drawback i don`t like is the A/B punch. You have to press menu and then A/B punch ON and then the start and stop times or measures and then record over what you like. And then you have to turn it off. It`s very time consuming. It works for your electric but if you want to punch with the mics it doesn`t flow properly. I like the Mbr way better for punching. Much faster. Why fix what`s not broken?

Yes i love the other features. Mainly 8 tracks. I wouldn`t say don`t buy it but i`m a little pissed right now. Mainly because i`ve been spending a lot of time trying to get the best recordings possible which is the point!!

To me anyway!

[Gnasty]

I don`t want to eat my words so i`m going to experiment again. I did bounce EQ and reverb. What it comes down to is that the Mbr and Br-80 are not the same machine at all. You have to get used to the settings. They are way different from each other.. I`m not going to freak people out into not buying one.

I did do a nice acoustic recording earlier. The mics are better IMO than the Mbr.

Now i will experiment with the line in again. Maybe i missed something. I will also throw it in DAW to see and hear differences.

[Oldrottenhead]

i'm starting to get a bit like greeny now, i might just not bother upgrading. i use the line in on the mbr all the time using my keyboard for stereo  recordings so am a bit concerned that the mbr80 wont meet my needs

[64Guitars]

I think there will always be negative points about any recorder. You just have to ask yourself if the negative points are important to you and if they're outweighed by the positive features of the recorder. To me, all of the negative points that have been raised about the BR-80 are trivial and vastly outweighed by the BR-80's many positive features. If I wanted a pocket-size recorder (which I don't), I'd have no hesitation in buying the BR-80. I wouldn't even consider the original Micro BR due to its 4-track playback limit and its 1GB memory card limit.

I can't imagine that the Line In is a serious problem. If it is, then Roland should do a factory recall and fix it. More likely, it's just a matter of matching the Line In device to the BR's Line input. So you might have to turn up your keyboard's output level a bit more than you do with the original Micro BR. That shouldn't be a big deal.

Actually, looking at the specifications of both recorders, there shouldn't be any difference for the Line In. Both have a Nominal Input Level spec of -10dBu. The original Micro BR has an input impedance of 16 kΩ and the BR-80 has an input impedance of 10 kΩ, but that's insignificant. So I can't understand why people are finding a difference between the Micro BR and BR-80 on Line In. They should be the same according to the specs. Maybe the difference is because the original Micro BR has an input sensitivity adjustment and the BR-80 doesn't. With the input sensitivity turned up, the Micro BR's line input would have more gain than the BR-80's. But, like I said, that just means that you have to turn up the output level on your keyboard or other Line In device. That may be inconvenient but it shouldn't be a deal breaker.