Upgrade? BR1200

[chip]

Hi folks. I have recently been on a gas attack. As you may know I bought the SR16 which is ok but as was pointed out it has a different clock to the BR80, however I still have it. Anyway I bought the Korg Microkorg synth which I must say is very cool and the arpeggiator  almost matches the BR80's clock.

So, the shop near me has had a BR1200 cd for sale for about 6 months, I kept my eye on it as it was £250 and in seemingly good condition, I went in last week and the price was now £220. Now, the people who own the shop no nothing about recorders of this type, so, I asked if I could borrow it for the weekend and see if everything is working, they agreed.

I took it home and set it up and it appears it all works, I have not got round to writing a cd but the transport buttons work fine and it records and does what it supposed to do ( as far as I can tell?) I went back to the shop and they sold it me for £180, however it does not have the descrete limited edition drum cds, so I got them off a auction site in America for £15 delivered. It has the original box and manual, the original packaging, no major scratches and all inputs/outputs work fine. I must say it looks huge and very business like and seems easier to get around than the BR80. I have also ordered the DVD tutorial, although I have worked out many of the functions, there is a lot more of them than the BR80.

To be honest it's a little daunting particularly ( you guessed it) the drum side of things which have threw me because the BR80 drums are far easier to work with as their format is more straight forward. But this thing has midi, which has me confused more than the drums. I remember during the SR16 topic that members were informing me that the only way to sync the SR 16 to a recorder was by midi?

I now have a midi cable. Now, I know you can't hear midi, so whats the point of using a midi cable to sync the SR16/Korg to the BBR1200 if in fact you can't hear anything? Or am I completely off the beaten track. I searched the forum and the net and can't find much about the BR1200 and midi, I noticed in another old thread I found that 64 mentioned using the sub mixer to hear the drum machine while using a BR?midi it may have been a different recorder though,but , I couldn't understand it anyway.

Why have I done all this?  The BR80 is a fantastic recorder that I have done so much with, but , I started feeling a little limited on what I could or could not do, being reluctant due to my nature and aversion to using computers for music I decided to have a gamble on a bigger recorder. I may well regret buying the BR1200 but it may well be a great move, I still have the BR80 and may well hold on to it, just in case.

I may have to ask loads of really silly and obvious questions during this transition because, although there are many similar functions between the two machines there are vast differences in other areas, the drums being one of those  areas. I sort of got those figured out with the MBR and the BR80 but this is a different ball game??

Anyway I must go upstairs and study. Cheers Chip.

[bruno]

I love the Midi on the BR1600 - it allows you (on the 1600 at least) to make the BR the clock master. This means that you can drive synth arpegiators off the master clock (time sync the SR16), so everything sync's. I also use this for the Boss Slicer SL-20, which is very cool.

Here's an example with a synth midi time sync through the slicer

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=19871

The timing is mastered from the BR, so the slicing effect is perfectly in time.

[64Guitars]

I now have a midi cable. Now, I know you can't hear midi, so whats the point of using a midi cable to sync the SR16/Korg to the BBR1200 if in fact you can't hear anything?

There are two main ways you can use MIDI with the BR-1200 and your SR16.

1) Instead of playing the BR's built-in drum sounds for your drum arrangements, you can send the arrangement/pattern data over MIDI to the SR16 and have it play the drum sounds triggered by the BR's arrangement/pattern using the SR16's internal drum sounds. To do that, see pages 243 and 244 of the BR-1200 manual. Connect the MIDI cable from the BR's MIDI Out to the SR16's MIDI In. The SR16 doesn't do bass, so set the BR's "Bass Ch." to Off (step 5 on page 243). Set the BR's "Drum Ch." to 10 (step 4). In the SR16, set the channel either to 10 or Omni (see page 42 of the SR16 reference manual). Omni just means that it will respond to MIDI data from all channels. Now play an arrangement or pattern on the BR-1200 and listen to the SR16's output. You should hear your BR's arrangement/pattern playing from the SR16 instead of the BR. You can change drum kits on the SR16 if you like.

2) You can sync the BR's transport controls to the SR16 and do all of your drum programming on the SR16 instead of the BR. When you press ZERO on the BR, its counter is set to 0:00:00 as usual, but the SR16 is also set to the start of its drum arrangement. When you press PLAY on the BR, the SR16 drum arrangement begins playing at exactly the same time as the BR's tracks, so your music is in perfect sync with the drums. And the SR16 will use the BR's clock instead of its own to ensure that the music and drums stay in sync throughout the song. So, effectively, it's like the SR16 is a part of the BR-1200, replacing the BR's internal drum machine.

To sync the BR with the SR16, see pages 245 and 246 of the BR-1200 manual. Connect the MIDI cable from the BR's MIDI Out to the SR16's MIDI In. In the SR16, set CLOCK IN to ON (page 45 of the SR16 reference manual). That should do it. Now play your songs on the BR in the usual way using ZERO, PLAY, STOP, etc. and the SR16 should follow the BR in perfect sync.

[SteveB]

Congrats, Chip, on yer purchase of the BR1200, a thoroughly wonderful machine (now discontinued I believe ). From purely personal experience, the on-board drums (and bass) are a nightmare to programme (though possibly this is more to do with my low-threshold of attention than deficiency in the BR).
I use the DR880 for drum input, which seems to work well for external drums - I also have zillions of 'beats' in Sonar DAW - so I'm spoiled for choice.
If well looked-after, your BR1200 should give you years of recording pleasure. Good luck with it. 

[chip]

Thanks for the replies. 64, I shall certainly give your recommendations a try.

I have just recorded a 20 second song using the Korg, I used  tracks 1 through to 8 then bounced them down to 11/12 v tracks 2  11/12, I recorded two more parts on v tracks 1and 2/ v2 then bounced to 11/12 v3. I then mastered to 11/12 v4. After, I wrote a cd, finalized it and played it on the stereo, it worked. Possibly a bit long winded way of doing it but it seemed logical? I did another short song using the same method without burning to cd. However I am not sure if I bounced the drums twice?

Is it fair to say that after the first bounce the drums are now locked in with that bounce and if I still have the drum fader up during the next bounce, are the drums bounced on top of the original drums that were bounced?

Being used to the BR80 I have sort of forgot some of the procedures. However I possibly won't have to bounce so much, in saying that, I now quite like using stereo tracks, I put this down to the Korg

The resulting sound of the first song is quite pleasing when played on the stereo. I like the machine, it's bigger, logical and easier to get around than the BR80, more importantly, I can see it better. One thing for sure is, using the MBR, the BR80 plus the invaluable help of  forum members has helped me no end with using these type of recorders.
Not forgetting David Wills too.
Cheers

[64Guitars]

I have just recorded a 20 second song using the Korg, I used  tracks 1 through to 8 then bounced them down to 11/12 v tracks 2  11/12, I recorded two more parts on v tracks 1and 2/ v2 then bounced to 11/12 v3. I then mastered to 11/12 v4. After, I wrote a cd, finalized it and played it on the stereo, it worked. Possibly a bit long winded way of doing it but it seemed logical?

Since you only recorded a total of 10 tracks, you didn't need to bounce after the first 8. You can record all 12 tracks before you have to bounce.

I did another short song using the same method without burning to cd. However I am not sure if I bounced the drums twice?

Is it fair to say that after the first bounce the drums are now locked in with that bounce and if I still have the drum fader up during the next bounce, are the drums bounced on top of the original drums that were bounced?

Yes. Every time you bounce, the drums are included if the track 9/10 fader is up. So you should always lower that fader before starting a bounce, except on your final mix bounce. That way, the drums are only included once.

You should also set the send levels of all your loop effects to zero before each bounce except the last. Otherwise, these effects will be included in each bounce and compound with each subsequent bounce. So only apply loop effects to your final bounce. An easy way to set the sends to zero on the BR-1200 is to press F1 (MIN) in the loop effects settings screen (see page 125 of the BR-1200 manual).

[Hook]

Stereo tracks rock! Congrats on the new machine...I want one!
Multi Track On!

[AndyR]

Nice one Chip - you won't regret it

I use a BR1600, got it a few years back. My gut feeling from what you're saying is that you won't take long to get into the BR1200 and make it do what you want. Btw, I've kept the Micro BR and use it occasionally for working out scratch ideas in the living room.

And from this thread... I'm now tempted to get my SR16 out the loft and plug it into the BR1600. I've never tried this because I took to the BR1600's drum editing quite quickly... but there are some things that jock me off about it, the fixed panning (left-handed drummer!) and fixed drum mix levels for one.

The SR16 does some crazy sh1t with allowing you to layer drum kits - you can create some fab sounds. ALSO, it has three outputs - stereo left/right and an assignable (single drum) output. This means you can EQ the kit properly in a mix. When I was recording in a DAW, I'd create the drum part in the DAW, using the SR16 as a sound source. I'd then record the kick, snare, hihat. etc, to separate tracks (and sometimes the whole lot to a stereo track as "room mics"). You can then mess with the kick at 50Hz, for example, without putting the same EQ on the cymbals (a bad thing!! - that you can't avoid using the fixed BR drum mix).

[bruno]

For me, I got bored of the discrete drums - and when and bought the betamonkeyloops - these are great loops in a style, for not a lot of money http://www.betamonkeymusic.com/

If you can use discrete, you can use betamonkey - and you have a real drum track. I use them pretty much the whole time, I can't be arsed with programming drums - I really aught to try on one track!

B

[chip]

"Since you only recorded a total of 10 tracks, you didn't need to bounce after the first 8. You can record all 12 tracks before you have to bounce."

Cheers 64. But, Lets say I record all 12 tracks. Do I then bounce to 11/12 v2, then use the remaining  10 tracks  on v2 to add more instruments etc ? Then bounce to 11/12 v3 then master to 11/12 v4. All those tracks wow.

 I am just taking things one at a time at the moment, trying to much and it sort of flies over my head. The bouncing is always one of those confusing issues I have along with the drums. The BR80 is easier in this department but once I know I can do the above then I reckon it will be easier still with the BR1200.

I am going to record on all the tracks (V1) and see what happens from there, right now. This will be another experiment as I need to get this bit right before composing anything serious. Once that's got into my head I can then write a simple song and think about the drums