Memory Card options

[Scorpios]

In everything I have read it seems the Micro Br will only use SD cards up to 1 gig. Has anyone tried using a larger capacity SD card, i.e. 2 gigs?

[Oldrottenhead]

i use a 2gb transcend sd card i got from my local computer store in glasgow, world of computing, for £12.00 uk sterling. its a superfast card designed for psps and gaming consoles and works a gem, had it for few months now, 4gb cards are getting cheaper and im sure if you buy a branded "fast" card it should work too and you'd probably be able to record a couple of prog rock concept albums on one.

[64Guitars]

i use a 2gb transcend sd card ...
... works a gem, had it for few months now

Glad to hear that a 2GB memory card works in the Micro BR. I've suspected it might but I wasn't sure. Unfortunately, you'll find that you can only access half of the card's capacity because the BRs can't address more than 1GB. If you're interested in the technical reason for this, see the explanation on my BR FAQ page (about halfway down):

  https://songcrafters.org/64guitars/BR/FAQ.html

Please let us know how the Micro BR behaves when you get to the 1GB limit. Hopefully, it will just give you the usual Card Full! error, but I'm not sure.

[Oldrottenhead]

ive not checked what the actually memory i have used but i have tons of mp3s and about 8,  4 min songs with each having used almost all of the v tracks  with no tracks deleted and when i record i have it set to show remaining recording time and its still at about 4 hours plus.

[64Guitars]

1GB goes a long way. The size of each song varies but lets say they average about 50MB. So your 8 songs will take about 400MB. The average MP3 file is about 4MB. If you had 100 MP3s on your Micro BR, that would only be another 400MB. So you'd still have 200MB available on the card before you reached the 1GB limit (1,000MB).

You should be able to see how much space is available on the card (in megabytes) by looking at the info screen for an MP3 file, as described on page 95 of the Micro BR manual. To see the total amount you've used, you could connect the Micro BR to your PC via USB, or remove the memory card and put it in a USB card reader, then right-click on the drive and select Properties (assuming you're using Microsoft Windows). On the General tab, you'll see the card's total capacity, how much is used, and how much is available.

The 4 hours remaining is just an estimate and, in this case, may be way off because the Micro BR probably calculates the remaining time based on the card's actual capacity (2GB), even though it can only use 1GB. So, when you eventually get the Card Full! error message, it might still show several hours remaining time.

[Oldrottenhead]

so i can save money buying 1gb cards then. i always back my files up to the pc anyway so a gigabyte should be plenty, and here was e thinking i had 2 gigs

[64Guitars]

There may be one slight advantage with your 2GB card. Memory card manufacturers state card capacities in decimal megabytes or gigabytes. So a 1GB card has a capacity of 1,000,000,000 bytes. But the FAT-16 addressing scheme used in the Micro BR works in binary and 1GB is 2^30 or 1,073,741,824 bytes. So, in theory at least, you should get an extra 73,741,824 bytes (73.7MB) of usable space with your 2GB card, compared to a 1GB card. It's not much, but it should be enough for one or two songs (or about 18 MP3s). It doesn't really justify the extra expense of a 2GB card versus a 1GB card, but 1GB cards may become hard to find in the future as device capacities increase and prices decrease, so it's good to know that a 2GB card will work in case that's all you can find when shopping for a new card.

[Oldrottenhead]

maybe boss could update their firmware to allow for larger cards

[Pedro]

The 4 hours remaining is just an estimate and, in this case, may be way off because the Micro BR probably calculates the remaining time based on the card's actual capacity (2GB), even though it can only use 1GB. So, when you eventually get the Card Full! error message, it might still show several hours remaining time.

That's interesting, Micro BR recognizes the SD card has being a 2GB but doesn't use it as one. I don't really get this move by BOSS. What do they win with this? Or is it a technical barrier? Makes one wonder...

There may be one slight advantage with your 2GB card. Memory card manufacturers state card capacities in decimal megabytes or gigabytes. So a 1GB card has a capacity of 1,000,000,000 bytes. But the FAT-16 addressing scheme used in the Micro BR works in binary and 1GB is 2^30 or 1,073,741,824 bytes. So, in theory at least, you should get an extra 73,741,824 bytes (73.7MB) of usable space with your 2GB card, compared to a 1GB card. It's not much, but it should be enough for one or two songs (or about 18 MP3s). It doesn't really justify the extra expense of a 2GB card versus a 1GB card, but 1GB cards may become hard to find in the future as device capacities increase and prices decrease, so it's good to know that a 2GB card will work in case that's all you can find when shopping for a new card.

But that just happens with a 2GB card? Doesn't it also happen with the 1GB? I'm a bit confused now.

so i can save money buying 1gb cards then. i always back my files up to the pc anyway so a gigabyte should be plenty, and here was e thinking i had 2 gigs

  BOSS got you there.

[Scorpios]

I think I understand, it will only use 1 gig of storage, even if you have a 2 gig or larger SD card.

The Roland VS hard drives are like this, you can install a larger hard drive but it will only use a certain amount of space.

That would be great if they make some upgrade to read larger capacity, I guess for now I will start collecting 1 gig SD cards.