Micro BR-80

[na_th_an]

The problem may be that your mixing equipment is expecting line level and the BR is outputting "phono" level, as you are using the only output, which is a headphones output. The "trick" is setting the BR to a very, very low volume. If used the BR as an effects processor (for example, for guitars). Also, check the COSM settings. Maybe the effects have heavy compression (some of them have, as they are mostly designed to be used with the onboard mics, it seems). Disable any compression, or adjust to fit your needs. It shouldn't feedback. I can't remember the exact settings I used (it was an improptu jam session with some crazy stuff going on some months ago, not something I usually do, so I can't remember quite right), but if I find the time I will fiddle a bit with them and try to help.

[chip]

The problem may be that your mixing equipment is expecting line level and the BR is outputting "phono" level, as you are using the only output, which is a headphones output. The "trick" is setting the BR to a very, very low volume. If used the BR as an effects processor (for example, for guitars). Also, check the COSM settings. Maybe the effects have heavy compression (some of them have, as they are mostly designed to be used with the onboard mics, it seems). Disable any compression, or adjust to fit your needs. It shouldn't feedback. I can't remember the exact settings I used (it was an improptu jam session with some crazy stuff going on some months ago, not something I usually do, so I can't remember quite right), but if I find the time I will fiddle a bit with them and try to help.

 Thank you... The other problem is, I have been using a 1/4 inch jack to the mixer, I reckon a XLR would be better. So I need a Male XLR to mini Jack. The mixer has no /or not much eq on the 1/4 inch channels. This may help things considerably. I just need more time to tweak but any help speeding up the process is great.

We only use the small Behringer 1002FX mixer which has two XLR inputs, the rest 1/4 jacks..... Bass drum mic'd and vocals x2, 1.5/8K front of house and 600 watts foldback the latter being active. We have no need to mic the whole band up, but if we did... we would need a better mixer. We have all the mics to do that should we want to, but that's more wires, more hassle and more things for me to trip/fall over once the beer kicks in. We do get spillage from the guitars into the PA anyway which boosts the whole volume.........

[Aknod]

Hello!

Just tried to use BR-80 with Overloud TH2 (virtual amp like Amplitube, GuitarRig, etc.) and faced with following problem. I hear both input sound (clear sound or sound after COSM effects) and output sounds (sound after Overloud effects). I was unable to find any way to mute input sound or disable monitoring (whatever it is called).

Somebody suggested to decrease Rec Level, but it doesn't work in my case. Decreasing Rec Level cause decreasing input level in Overloud software.

I appreciate any solutions, suggestions, etc.

Thank you in advance!

[64Guitars]

How is the BR-80 connected to your computer? You should use only a USB cable. There should be no other cables connected between the computer and BR-80.

Are you monitoring on the BR-80 or on the computer? You should monitor only from the BR-80, so turn off your computer speakers.

The following booklet describes how to use the BR-80 as an audio interface:

http://cms.rolandus.com/assets/media/pdf/BR80WS05.pdf

[Aknod]

Thank for quick response!
I've looked through that instruction already...
I'm trying to use my BR in following way
 - BR is connected by USB to my laptop with Overloud TH2 software running using ASIO drivers
 --- both Input and Output are used by the software
 - guitar is connected to Input, and
 - headphones is connected to Output
 - BR in either MTR or eBand mode (it doesn't change anything)
 --- In the MTR mode I tried to choose tracks, press record button, etc...
And, I have two sounds in my headphones. It is very easy to notice using high gain distortion-like effects in Overloud. I can clear distinguish clean sound (if no COSM effects are applied) and distortion sound (after Overloud). Also if I mute output in Overloud I can hear clean sound in my headphones still...
Thank you again!

[Aknod]

I gave a call to Roland/Boss support and got answer...
Somebody said that there is no way to disable sound from an input except adjusting input and recording levels.
Unfortunately it doesn't work in my case because it disables input level in a software that is used.
Probably BR-80 can not be used with software amps like GuitarRig...

[worldrevolver]

Just picked one of these up and I am liking it a lot so far.

I owned a micro br so I pretty much know my way around the BR-80.

One thing I don't like is this silly cymbal crash on a lot of the built in patterns. What I would like to simply do is export that pattern as smf, delete that cymbal hit and then re-write the same pattern back over the original.

Not sure that is possible. I see that you can create smfs and load them over the original patterns so that is an option. I tried that using hydrogen and didn't get very far.

I downloaded the sounds of heroes patches and those are great fun to mess around with, eband is nice to jam along with the built in patterns and I have imported rise and fall...spiders from mars and have been playing along with Mr. Ronson. The BR-80 has a lot more versatility than the micro-br in my opinion. I have not tried the mastering tools yet but from the manual it looks like the micro-br had more going on.

I lined-in and dumped some garageband songs on it and they sound pretty good on the stereo tracks.

So far so good with this thing. Now I just need to cook something up with it.

[64Guitars]

One thing I don't like is this silly cymbal crash on a lot of the built in patterns. What I would like to simply do is export that pattern as smf, delete that cymbal hit and then re-write the same pattern back over the original.

The BR-80 doesn't support SMF export; it only supports import. In any case, the cymbal sound isn't stored in the pattern. It's stored in the drum kit. The BR-80 has 9 drum kits available. Try changing the kit to see if you like the cymbals in the other kits better. See page 72 of the BR-80 manual (4th edition).

I see that you can create smfs and load them over the original patterns so that is an option. I tried that using hydrogen and didn't get very far.

As I said above, the cymbal sound is stored in the drum kit, not the pattern. So even if you imported a SMF to a pattern, you'd still get the same cymbal sound with that drum kit. To get the cymbal and drum sounds available in Hydrogen into your BR, you need to export the drum arrangement from Hydrogen as a WAV file rather than a midi file. Then you can import that WAV file to a pair of tracks on the BR. Of course, as a WAV file, you can't edit the arrangement in the BR and it uses up a pair of tracks, but that's a small price to pay for the benefits that Hydrogen provides.

To learn more about using Hydrogen, see the tutorial and videos on their website:

Tutorial: http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/node/7

Videos: http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/node/44

If you have any questions about Hydrogen, ask them in the DAW & Music Software board. I've used Hydrogen on most of my recordings (for example, check out "Father Christmas" or "Poison Ivy"), so I should be able to answer your questions. Hydrogen has many excellent drum kits and you can import drum samples of your own to create your own custom drum kit. So you can have any cymbal sound you like with Hydrogen.

[worldrevolver]

Thanks very much for the info 64.

I think I need to be a bit clearer...by silly crash sound I mean the one that seems to lead off most of the patterns.

So I just need to create smf's that don't start the pattern with a cymbal crash. I will try changing kits.

This is just in comparison to the Micro BR which had most of the V patterns being more basic and less busy with the cymbals and the F patterns would contain cymbal hits. Which is very similar to how the BR-80 works except there is that bothersome cymbal hit to start many of the built-in V patterns.

[worldrevolver]

Basically if Boss/Roland would update the BR-800 rhythm editor so that it exported SMF then everything would be perfect.