Designing the next Micro BR

[beleg]

I love the idea of thouse rotary controls.

When I was deciding if I was going to buy the micro BR they two things that held me back were 1, the 1 gig mem card limit and 2. no drum machine. Although the drum arranger is fine for most of my needs, it would be nice if I could ad a few fills of my own.

Another thing that would be cool is if they started making accessories that expanded the functionality micro BR, for example if they do add a drum machine, they could sell a separate drum pad/midi controller that plugs into the usb port.   They could also make a fader attachment. Most of the time I am not mixing a song until I get home, so I could have benefit of recording with a small sized device on the road, and then using the accessories when I got home. They could also have software versions for when you plug into the computer.  I think this could be a big money maker for them,

They should also package the micro with the power adapter.
   

[Prive]

I want a drums refresh, i want to use drum samples from my SD card instead of the included and of course the midi-read feature, i dream about create a midi file with just channel 10 data for drums.
You could write your entire arrengment in your computer ad then copy it to the SD card with the samples you want so the MBR can play it or make some little edit.
Maybe a bass track too, just 2 or 3 bass sounds, i can´t stop.
I agree with the bass-sim ask.

Saludos, Marcelo.

[guitarron]

i was thinking a ribbon controller- even a single one would be helpful-if it could allow for track grouping

[tackium]

1. Ability to edit rythm by beat instead of measure
2. Other time signatures more than 4/4 only
3. Ability to turn on more than 1 FX at a time
4. A footswitch to change between presets
5. Change the +,- to a wheel, nowadays wheels can be pressed too.
6. Separate part of the display to show pertinent levels while listening.
7. In mastering kit somehow display clipping and RMS levels while listening (again separate part of the display for these levels) by band if possible.
8 More FXs!-Bass simulator, acoustic simulator, autowha,harmonizer/octaver/pitchshifter,etc,etc,etc...

[64Guitars]

i was thinking a ribbon controller- even a single one would be helpful-if it could allow for track grouping

The trouble with ribbon controllers for adjusting levels (I assume that's what you'd want to use it for) is that they don't offer any indication of the current setting. So, adjustments are absolute rather than relative. As soon as you touch the ribbon, the level will jump from the current setting to wherever you're touching it. This makes it impractical for on-the-fly adjustments while recording or bouncing. A regular fader or rotary control is more suitable because the knob's position indicates the current setting and it's very easy to make small, on-the-fly adjustments from that position.

Also, if you're going to have a continuously-adjustable control (as opposed to switches) for the track levels, you need a separate control for each track. Boss tried sharing faders between tracks with the BR-864 and it didn't work. The BR-864 has four faders and a bank switch. The bank switch has two positions. In the first position, the four faders control tracks 1 to 4. In the second position, the same four faders control tracks 5 to 8. Now, suppose that you've set track 3 (using fader 3) to about 70%. You then press the bank switch and use fader 3 to set track 7 to 30%. Now you decide that track 3 is just a bit too high and you want to reduce it ever so slightly. You press the bank switch to select bank 1 (tracks 1 to 4). This is where the problem arises. The physical position of fader 3 is at 30% (where you left it when you set track 7 on bank 2). But the actual level of track 3 is at 70%. The physical position of the fader and the actual value of the track level don't match. So, as soon as you touch the fader, the track 3 level jumps from 70% to 30%. Not very subtle! The only way to make this scheme work is by using motorized faders. Then, when you press the bank switch, the motors would move all four faders to the current settings for the selected bank before enabling them. The physical position of the control would then match the actual value of the track level and you could easily make small adjustments from there. However, the cost of motorized faders would exceed the cost of having a separate fader for each track, so shared faders are totally impractical.

[Oldrottenhead]

it would be nice if you could update effects and drum patterns etc, surely this wouldnt be too difficult to do, like updating firmware on other products.

[64Guitars]

1. Ability to edit rythm by beat instead of measure

I assume you mean pattern editing. I'm not sure how practical that would be on the Micro BR due to its small display. It might be possible, but I think it would be sufficient just to make the Micro BR capable of using patterns created with the BR Rhythm Editor rather than allowing the Micro BR to edit patterns itself. Then you could create all your custom patterns on the computer and download them to the Micro BR to use in an arrangement. Of course, you could create your arrangements in the BR Rhythm Editor too and play them in the Micro BR.

2. Other time signatures more than 4/4 only

Definitely!

3. Ability to turn on more than 1 FX at a time

That would be great, but all of the other BRs have some restrictions in this regard too, though they're not as restricted as the Micro BR. In the BR-600, BR-900, etc., the compressor, limiter, wah, acoustic guitar simulator, bass simulator, defretter, enhancer, octave, de-esser, voice transformer, lo-fi box, and ring modulator are all separate, although they're not all available in every effects algorithm. But the modulation effects (flanger, chorus, phaser, pitch shifter, doubling, tremolo/pan, and slow attack) are all grouped together as a single effect, so you can only use one at a time. I wish they would do away with the idea of algorithms, and just make all of the effects available all the time. But I suspect that it might not be technically feasible. One possible compromise would be to have two modulation effects. Then, for example, you could select Phaser from MOD1 and Doubling from MOD2. They did something like that with the GT-PRO and its FX-1/FX-2 effects groups.

4. A footswitch to change between presets

A simple footswitch could only step forward through the patches. This would only be practical if you arranged all the patches for each song in the required order. You can do this now by copying patches in the Song or User patch banks, so I guess it should be feasible to implement a simple footswitch. Dual footswitches connected to a single TRS mini jack would allow you to step forward or backward through the patches.

To be able to access any patch instantly, regardless of its position in the patch list, you'd need a midi foot controller. But I think this is way beyond the scope of the Micro BR. For starters, the standard MIDI jack is too big to fit on a Micro BR. And the cost of a midi foot controller is more than the cost of the Micro BR!

5. Change the +,- to a wheel, nowadays wheels can be pressed too.

A wheel would certainly be more convenient, but finding room for it could be a problem. If the wheel is too small, it might be harder to operate than the [-][+] switches. But that's an engineering problem for Roland to sort out. If they can find a way to replace the switches with a wheel, that would be great!

6. Separate part of the display to show pertinent levels while listening.

Yes, it would be nice to have levels visible at all times without having to press buttons.

8 More FXs!-Bass simulator, acoustic simulator, autowha,harmonizer/octaver/pitchshifter,etc,etc,etc...

I think, for marketing reasons, they'll never offer as many effects in the Micro BR as they offer in the more expensive BRs. But a bass simulator and acoustic simulator would be really useful to the many Micro BR users who only have an electric guitar.

[64Guitars]

it would be nice if you could update effects and drum patterns etc, surely this wouldnt be too difficult to do, like updating firmware on other products.

I think this is already possible. The operating system is in flash memory which can be updated. So, a firmware update could add or change effects. They did this with the BR-900 -- the version 2 update added a new COSM AMP PRO algorithm with some new amp and speaker simulations from the Boss GT-PRO, as well as 29 new preset patches based on the new algorithm. Owners of the original BR-900 can download the update for free from the Roland website.

They usually only offer updates to fix bugs. I haven't seen any updates yet for the Micro BR or the BR-600, but there have been several updates for the BR-900, BR-864, and BR-532. I think the version 2 update for the BR-900 was a special case. The 900 is pretty old now and they didn't have a replacement product ready for market. So, they lowered the price of the existing BR-900 and added the update to make it more attractive to prospective buyers. The Micro BR, on the other hand, is still fairly new and very competitive in the marketplace. So, I don't think Roland will be adding any new effects or other capabilities through a firmware update anytime soon. Unless, of course, enough users complained of certain shortcomings of the Micro BR. For example, if enough users said it's unfair that BR-600 and BR-900 users can use the BR Rhythm Editor while Micro BR users can't, maybe Roland would offer a firmware update to make the Micro BR capable of loading patterns and arrangements created with the BR Rhythm Editor.

[stevet]

1. Better sounding reverb
2. More headroom for input levels.  The guitar input distorts to easily even with sensitivity reduced.
3. Better sounding drums. The snare is bad sounding. I'd rather have less drum sounds for better sounding samples.
4. Improved guitar amp modeling.
5. At least 4GB addressable memory.
6. We need the ability to monitor which stage is clipping.
Pre input level, verses post input level. Even assignable post on the Effect guitar amp models would be helpful.

[64Guitars]

5. At least 4GB addressable memory.

Yes. I would have thought that the 1GB storage limit would have been everyone's #1 concern. It's very important to be able to use whatever memory cards are readily available throughout the lifetime of the product. It's already getting hard to find 1GB cards as 2GB seems to be the smallest that many stores stock. Some manufacturers don't even offer 1GB cards in their newer lines. For example, SanDisk's Ultra II SD and SDHC cards start at 2GB. In a couple of years, it might be impossible to find 1GB memory cards. And, as card capacities increase, it will become increasingly difficult to find even 2GB and 4GB cards. So, I think any new BRs must have a 32-bit file system. This would allow them to address several terabytes of storage (1TB = 1,000GB). That should be enough for any SD cards that are likely to be available in the next 10 years or so. The current SDHC standard has a theoretical maximum capacity of 2TB.

Also, I think the next Micro BR should have USB 2.0. As far as I know, the current Micro BR and all the other BRs use USB 1. That's why it takes so long to transfer files between the BR and your computer. USB 2.0 would speed up file transfers significantly. And the USB port should either be USB OTG, or there should be a separate USB Host port. This would allow the Micro BR to connect directly to external hard drives or USB flash drives, for example, for fast backups and offline storage without the need of a computer. You could carry around all of your BR songs plus a huge collection of MP3 and WAV files on a portable 2.5" hard drive or a USB flash drive.

USB 3.0 is expected to be available in a couple of years. If the next Micro BR had USB 3.0 in a USB OTG port or with a separate Host port, that would be great!