New BR model - the BR-800

[BuleriaChk]

The R24 doesn't have the Toneload feature, which sets Roland way ahead of other machines for my purposes.  So you can use your own percussive souinds, which for me is critical.  There were some other issues, but that was the deal breaker (again, for me).....  OTOH, that may not be important to you...  If it isn't, then the R24 has features the BR-800 doesn't... (as I remember from when I looked at it some time ago - hey, more faders, anyway.  Can't have too much cowbell or fader... ...

But if you already own a BR-600 or BR-900CD, the upgrade is more problematic, IMO...  the latter are very impressive in their own rights, and their effects are excellent, and you can get them very inexpensively on EBay.

So the BR series acts as a sequencer-sample player as well as a recording device (and, of course, a guitar processor - and I do think the amp models and effects are a big step up (but I've only tried them briefly, since I am an acoustic guitarist)...

[64Guitars]

The Zoom R16 and R24 have Control Surface and Audio Interface capabilities but, as a stand-alone recorder, they lack some of the features of the BR-800.

Can you be more specific, which features do you mean exactly?

I'm not as familiar with Zoom recorders as I am with Boss, so there may be some inaccuracies here. But, from what I've read of the Zooms...

• No drum machine in the R16.
• Fewer tracks. The R16 has 16 tracks and the R24 has 24. The BR-800 has 64 tracks.
• Very low resolution level meters (only 4 segments) in the R16 and R24. The BR-800 has high-resolution, peak-holding level meters.
• The display in the Zooms is much smaller than the BR-800's. So the BR-800 can display more information simultaneously. This makes it easier to adjust settings such as effects and drum arrangements because you can see the current values of several parameters at once.
• No loop recording in the Zooms.

The Zooms are excellent recorders for the money and some people may prefer them. But I prefer the BR-800 for the reasons above. Also, some people have said that Boss's effects are much better than Zoom's. I don't know how true that is because I've never had the opportunity to try a Zoom, but it's something you should check out if you're trying to decide between a Boss and a Zoom recorder.

[Henky]

• Fewer tracks. The R16 has 16 tracks and the R24 has 24. The BR-800 has 64 tracks.

Well for starters that simply isn't true, you're mistaken real tracks and virtual tracks here.
If we're looking at the number of tracks that can be SIMULTANEOUS played back, the BR-800 can only do 8, the R24 can play 24 tracks.
The R16 can playback 16 tracks simultaneous, which is still double what the BR-800 can do.

The 64 tracks for the BR-800 you came up with, are virtual tracks.
And this is where Zoom beats the Boss by far and I will tell you why...
Zoom skipped the concept of virtual tracks all together instead you can assign any ordinary wav file (yes no conversion whatsoever) to any track.
This simply means you can do as many takes as you want and the number of v-takes is endless as long as it fits your SD card.
So if we look at it this way then the BR-800 "only" has 64 tracks, the R24 (and the R16) however have UNLIMITED tracks.

And you might not have noticed but the R24 has a different (bigger) display then the R16, in fact it is 128 x 64 pixels which is exactly the same as the ... yes, the BR-800.

Don't get me wrong I'm not entirely pro Zoom, I do own a Zoom HD16 and a R16 but also a Boss BR-600 and a Micro-BR, but I did thought you were not completely fair regarding the R24.

[64Guitars]

Well for starters that simply isn't true, you're mistaken real tracks and virtual tracks here.

While it's possible that I'm mistaken about the Zooms (as I said in my earlier post), I assure you that I'm not mistaken about the BR-800. It has 64 tracks, all of equal capability. The term "virtual track" is merely a reference to which of the 64 tracks is currently assigned to a particular input channel of the BR-800's mixer section.

If we're looking at the number of tracks that can be SIMULTANEOUS played back

I wasn't. I was referring to the total available recording locations.

Zoom skipped the concept of virtual tracks all together instead you can assign any ordinary wav file (yes no conversion whatsoever) to any track.
This simply means you can do as many takes as you want and the number of v-takes is endless as long as it fits your SD card.
So if we look at it this way then the BR-800 "only" has 64 tracks, the R24 (and the R16) however have UNLIMITED tracks.

I was aware that the Zoom records directly to WAV format (a great idea which I wish Boss would adopt), but I wasn't aware that you could change the name of the wav file assigned to a particular record channel. If the Zooms can do that, then the number of tracks would indeed be limited only by the available memory card space. Cool!

The number of tracks I mentioned for the Zooms was from their specifications in the R16 and R24 manuals:

	R16	R24
Track count	16 (monaural)	24 (mono)
Maximum number of simultaneous recording tracks	8	8
Maximum number of simultaneous playback tracks	16 audio + metronome	24 audio +metronome

And you might not have noticed but the R24 has a different (bigger) display then the R16, in fact it is 128 x 64 pixels which is exactly the same as the ... yes, the BR-800.

I noticed that the R24 has a bigger display than the R16 but I didn't realise that it's the same resolution as the BR-800's (I should have checked). Although, judging from the pictures, it seems like the BR-800's display is a bit larger. So, even though the resolution is the same, it might be easier to read. But pictures can be deceiving. Perhaps the size is the same.

[sodalimon]

When it comes to practically recording and managing that on the device itself, Zoom R24 seems to be a lot more functional than the boss BR-800. The file management approach is the main issue here.

But I have doubts about the sound quality of the r24. It says, one cannot use effects when using a 48kHz sample rate. And I kind of remember reading about other (e.g. bitrate) constraints. I suppose, one doesn't have a chance to thoroughly use the device with more than 44.1kHz/16bits settings.

By the way, I just can't get it? Why do they have to limit the project names to 8 chars in length. That's so useless and beyond any reason...

On the Boss BR-800 side, we all know what COSM means. And even if it has the same resolution with the R24, it has a more useful main screen (with detailed monitoring of signal levels, etc).

On the other hand, Boss was always more flexible when it comes to writing your own patches for the insert effects (I'm not sure, if BR-800 lets us change the effect chain order).

Many more cons on both devices and as I get into detail I get to run away from both (considering the nature of the devices)...

[vierge99]

Look over at the Zoom forums. People aren't feeling so great about the R24 either. A few people wrote lengthy reviews of the unit before returning them.

You just have to look at the BR-800 as a no-frills multitrack recorder. Use the V-tracks, retry, or punch in/out feature to get your take right and GET your take right.

Despite all the limitations of the BR-800, the one thing that puzzles me is that they ADDED a scrub feature with audio preview similar to Melodyne's (press stop and play at the same time to access it) but despite that, there is no track editing. The biggest feature I wanted on my BR-600 was scrubbing with audible preview. It would have made the device capable of very strong song-sequencing.

[jsangiuliano]

Hey Guys,

I've been considering a stand alone recorder and the BR-800 has most of the features I've been looking for. One thing I'd like to understand better is how you export a mastered song to the PC. Is it true that a conversion software is needed? One of the main reasons for me to have a stand alone recorder is that it can survive time... I'm afraid that, a couple of years from now, this conversion application will stop being updated for the modern computers/OS of the future, and I'll be stuck with a recorder that can't produce a final CD. Am I missing something?

BTW, this is my first post on this great forum!

JSan

[64Guitars]

Boss uses a proprietary format for the audio tracks of all its multitrack recorders. So, yes, you need a program called the BR Wave Converter to convert the proprietary data into standard WAV format which you can then burn to a CD. This program comes on the DVD-ROM included with the BR-800.

The BR-800 also has a Song Sketch mode that records directly to WAV files, so no conversion is necessary. However, Song Sketch mode only records stereo files. It's not capable of multitrack recording.

It's possible that the BR Wave Converter will not be updated for future operating systems. However, I don't think that will be a problem for a long, long time. Each new version of Windows usually runs most programs from previous versions without much trouble. The BR Wave Converter is a pretty straight forward program so I expect that it will work just fine in future versions of Windows. I'm currently running BR Wave Converter in Linux under Wine without any problems.

[64Guitars]

BR-800 software and drivers are now available for download from the Roland website:

http://www.roland.com/products/en/_support/dld.cfm?PRODUCT=BR-800

The Rhythm Editor is version 1.00 and appears to be the same as the one for the BR-600/864/900. However, the included samples sound different (perhaps they're from the DR-880?).

The BR Wave Converter also looks identical to the BR-532/600/864/900/MBR version but it is version 3.00. I assume it was updated for compatibility with the BR-800. Not sure yet if it will work with other BRs.

[64Guitars]

The manual for BR Wave Converter 3.0 says "This software converts sound data between computer sound file (WAV and AIFF files) and BR-800/900CD/864/532 wave data formats." So it looks like it's backward-compatible with the older BRs. It's odd that they didn't mention the BR-600 since its files are nearly identical to the BR-900's and BR-864's. If version 3.0 works with the BR-900 and BR-864, then I'll be very surprised if it doesn't also work with the BR-600. I assume the omission of the BR-600 from the Wave Converter manual is an oversight. I also see no reason why it wouldn't work with the Micro BR's files.