New BR model - the BR-800

[Geir]

Oh ... one more thing. You might want to get a headphone amp with enough outputs to all of you!! Especially if you're going to plug one or more instruments/voices directly in the BR800.

[NateFreezy]

Hi everyone,

I know I'm jumping in here on a long thread with my first post, but wanted to ask how people have found the built in mics for recording acoustic guitar and vocals?

This would be my first foray into recording, and I'd like to initially use the unit to just capture acoustic and vox (separately, then mix together).  At some point I'd like to get an external mic for better quality, and also hopefully get into recording full tracks with electric guitar, drums, etc.  So it seems like this unit would be great for handling the full progression from the most basic use to more complex ones down the road, but again wanted to check that I could reasonably use it first for just those most basic purposes.

Thanks!

[Geir]

Hi Nate and welcome !!!

Tho I now have got myself an external mic, I find the buildt in mics to be of excellent quality. I've recorded quite a few acoustic songs with them and the quality of the recording has been improving from the first ones I made. The "mistake" I did on my first recording was to use the presets, which in my opinion are far from optimal to get a good acoustic recording. Most of the presets are quite heavy on the use of compression, resulting in not only a squashed sound, but also unnecessary noise. My advice is to tweak the effects a bit, use a limiter instead of compressor, and set the noise-gate as low as possible for the room you're recording in.

Good luck, and please post some of your recordings soon !!

[joey_threads]

cheers Dunny & Geir, both fantastic responses - i will most definitely be trying out the tips you have both given.

I'll post some of the recordings we got so far when i get home & back to my mac - be good to hear what you think!

Thanks again, much appreciated - glad I found this forum 

Hi Joey!

I've got the BR800 and have used it both for making songs track by track, recording myself "live" in the livingroom, recording the meeting with 3 great people from this site as they came over this september and now last weekend I recorded a live gig.


I don't know what gear you have, but one option that might be a solution for you is to use the 4-input mode. If you're not gonna use an external mixer, I'd suggest the following setup:

Use a condenser for the drums into intput 4.
if the guitar and bass-amps have line-out you can plug them into 1 and 2 and the vocals though a dynamic mic into input 3.
If the amps don't have line-out, I'd plug the bass directly in and mic the guitar with a dynamic mic.

Obviously all the mics will get more than the sound they're put to record, but experimenting with mic placement I do believe you can get a great sound!!

You say you get a good sound using the built-in mics. It would be great to hear one of those recordings !!

Do please tell us more about your band. Music style, how many you are, instruments used .....

[pequeño téo]

Hola. I just put an 8 gb sdhc card (Sandisk) in my BR-800 and the remaining recording time in the sketch mode is only 3 hours and 25 minutes. The screen should be showing 12 hours of remaining time.. for the sketch mode...I formatted the card in the br800. I am really dissapointed..Any help? please. Thanks. (Sorry again for my english).

[Geir]

I was under the impression that the filisystem on the BR800 only supported up to 1GB filesize. That will give appr 3h25m of a mono wave file I think. But I looked in the manual and the table you must be referring to implies that longer recordings should bee possible in sketch mode. My guess is that the table is inaccurate. That You can record up to 12 hours on a 8BG card in sketch mode but not in a single file

[pequeño téo]

Yes! Thanks Geir!-- "... You can record up to 12 hours on a 8GB card in sketch mode but not in a single file.." That's it...  The remaining time shown during recording is for a single file. I just checked the information section of the sd card, in the menu, and the remaining time is more than 12 hours, so everything is correct. I'm happy, I thought something was wrong. Thanks again , Geir. 

[sanfi4u]

Thanks to all the participants! I've found a lot of interesting and useful staff in this thread. I think I'm about to buy myself a BR-800.
I expect myself to use it often as an audio interface as well. Does anybody find unexpected restrictions in this mode? Any driver problems in a Windows 7 environment? How I connect active monitors in this case: to BR line output or line out of the computer soundboard? Any delays in a latter case?
Any personal experience on this use case is highly appreciated. 64Guitars, any comments?   

[64Guitars]

One person has commented that he's having trouble connecting to the BR-800 with Windows 7.

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=9016.msg126854#msg126854

It's not yet clear whether the problem is with Windows 7 itself or the Roland BR-800 drivers for Windows 7. A few other members are using their BR-800s with Windows 7 and have not reported similar problems, so maybe the problem is unique to that one member.

[sanfi4u]

It's not yet clear whether the problem is with Windows 7 itself or the Roland BR-800 drivers for Windows 7. A few other members are using their BR-800s with Windows 7 and have not reported similar problems, so maybe the problem is unique to that one member.

I remember the case and it looks like a unique one. Any other possible problems? Any delays? What output is used for the monitors?