Will there ever...

[Greeny]

... be any new effect patches that can be loaded into the BR?

Or is this just a crazy dream?! I don't know how it works commercially - i.e. whether Boss just decide that giving us patch upgrades etc will put us off buying the next / new BR-micro version.

I'm happy at the moment, but after 5 years on my old Tascam I'd have killed to have some new sounds in the box to play with...

[AlchemyMN]

Line 6 has done "Flash Upgrades" as downloadable, then transfer via USB, so i think the technology is there...

[64Guitars]

... be any new effect patches that can be loaded into the BR?

That capability already exists. You can adjust all of the parameters of the effects in any patch and save it as a new User or Song patch. You can save up to 80 User patches, which can be used in any song. You can also save up to 80 Song patches for each song. However, the Song patches from one song are not accessible in any other songs. So, save your custom patch in the User effects patch bank if you want to use it in multiple songs.

My Micro BR Patch Documenter program (free download) allows you to copy the parameters of any patch to the Windows clipboard as plain text so that you can then paste the text into an e-mail, forum message, or any document to share your custom patch settings with other users. Likewise, you can use the patch settings posted by other users in this manner to duplicate their patches on your own Micro BR and save the patch to the User or Song effects patch bank. You'll find a few such user-contributed patches in the Share your Patches child board. Hopefully, more users will contribute their custom patches to this child board.

I suspect that you really meant to ask if it's possible to add new effects to the Micro BR, rather than "effect patches". It's possible that Roland could offer a firmware update that would add new effects, but I doubt that they ever will. The only time they've done this in the past was with the BR-900CD version 2 update, but that was a unique case. The BR-900CD is several years old now and was not very competitive in the marketplace in terms of its features/price. They didn't have a new model ready to replace the 900, so they added some new amp/speaker models instead and increased the size of the included memory card from 128MB to 1GB. The new amp/speaker models are available as a firmware update which BR-900CD version 1 owners can download free from the Roland/Boss websites. But the Micro BR is still a popular machine, so Roland has no incentive to add new effects or other features in a firmware update. And that popularity will likely continue until a replacement product comes along, so there will probably never be any reason for Roland to offer new effects/features in a firmware update for the Micro BR. Except for the BR-900CD version 2, firmware updates have always been released solely to fix bugs or improve memory card compatibility, and I expect that policy to continue.

Returning to the topic of effects patches, I get the impression that most BR users are apprehensive about adjusting effect parameters. But there's nothing to worry about. Changing the default effect settings of a patch is easy and you can't hurt your BR in any way or permanently change the preset patches (they're read-only). It's not much different than if you had a bunch of actual stomp boxes on the floor with a few controls and switches on each pedal. You wouldn't hesitate to adjust those controls and switches to invent new sounds, would you? The only difference with the Micro BR's effects is that the "controls and switches" (parameters) are hidden from view and you have to use the Micro BR's cursor buttons to find them. But you'll find that it's quite easy to do. So dive in and experiment with the patch settings. The possibilities are endless and you've nothing to lose by experimenting. If you come up with a new sound that you like, be sure to save the patch in the User or Song patch bank so that you can instantly recall it at a later date.

Because of this tweakaphobia, I decided not to allow direct binary sharing of patches in my Micro BR Patch Documenter program. I tried that in the past with a program I wrote for the BR-864, but the idea was unsuccessful because everyone wants to download new effect patches, but nobody wants to create new patches to upload. Obviously, if nobody uploads, there will be nothing available to download. And that's exactly what happened. So, I thought that if Micro BR Patch Documenter only allowed you to share your patches as text, then users would have to actually enter the patch settings into their Micro BR in order to try out the patch. In doing so, I hoped that they'd soon realize that patch editing is quite easy, and this would encourage them to create their own patches which they'd in turn share with others. That way, I had hoped that a large library of custom patches would become available.

I encourage all tweakaphobics to confront their fears and start creating new effects patches. Then share those patches with other users by posting the settings in the Share your Patches child board, using Micro BR Patch Documenter to paste the settings into a message. With any luck, other users will learn from entering your patch settings and start creating and sharing patches of their own in a sort of snowball effect. So, by merely contributing one patch, you could potentially be rewarded for your efforts by the availability of many new user-contributed patches, eventually.

One last thing about patches. You may be disappointed to find that user-contributed patches don't always live up to their descriptions. The problem is that you're probably not using the same guitar that the patch creator used. For example, a Strat user might post a custom patch that he swears sounds exactly like Robin Trower's "Bridge of Sighs". But when you try the same patch settings with your Les Paul, you might think it sounds nothing like "Bridge of Sighs". It's not too surprising when you think about it. So, you'll often have to further tweak the settings of a patch to approximate the desired effect with your guitar. In fact, even the preset patches included with the Micro BR were most likely created using a different guitar than yours, which is another reason why you should not be afraid to tweak the patch settings.

[Greeny]

I guess I just need to dive in and have a tinker! Glad to hear I can't screw up the pre-sets - very reassuring 

And you're so right about how different effects can sound depending on the guitar you have in your hand. Sometimes you just get lucky with a tone, as I did recently with a little Les Paul part I was adding to a song. All part of the journey of discovery I guess.

[AlchemyMN]

'tweakaphobia' - That's defintiely not me... I have tweaked the effects everytime I have recorded.  And yes, the guitar choice makes a huge difference so i usually make a reference to the guitar used when i name the patch for later use.

[64Guitars]

Glad to hear I can't screw up the pre-sets - very reassuring

That's right. All of the patches in the Preset bank are stored in read-only memory, so there's no way to change them permanently, even if you wanted to. I say 'permanently' because you can make temporary changes to the preset patches. When you switch the Micro BR on, all of the preset patches are copied from read-only memory into the faster random access memory (RAM) which can be changed. But, when you switch the Micro BR off, all of those changes are lost and the next time you switch the Micro BR on, the preset patches will be loaded from read-only memory again. If you make changes to the patches in the Preset bank and you want to keep them, you need to save the patch to the User or Song bank. Altered patches that have not yet been saved will show "**" in the display where the patch bank (GT, MC, LN, or EX) is normally shown.

If you want to avoid making even temporary changes to the preset patches, switch to the User or Song bank before you start editing patches. By default, these banks contain copies of the patches from the Preset bank. So you can change the settings and save the patch right back where it came from without affecting the patches from the Preset bank at all.