Boss BR600 Reviews

[brandondrury]

Boss BR600 @ Musiciansfriend



Boss BR600 @ Zzounds


Boss BR600 Description
The BR-600 provides 8 simultaneous playback tracks, and each of the 8 tracks also contains 8 virtual tracks so you can record multiple takes and choose your favorite at mixdown.

[Wun Moshen]

I just sold mines !

[GDEN1]

I just got one. I can't make heads or tails of it. Even the distructions seem vague. Exporting into wav is what I want to do,but I just can't figure out how. I can't find in the manual how this can be done. I give up!

[Neil]

Quality: 9
I`ve had the Boss BR600 for about 18 months now, totally confused from the start, but realised that you "need to read the manual" and then read it again.( persistance is the key here) After a while all becomes clear. The sound is in my humble opinion is brilliant for such a small simple device and cheap for what it can do.
It has plenty of choice for guitar, vocal effects (not keen on the guitar effects) I use a boss GT10 and record using SM57 mic with Marshall TSL, and have to admit it takes a while to get the mic position right and the levels but when you`ve cracked it, it sounds great ( to my ears anyway). its all very simple, uncomplicated and have recorder several ideas with bass, drums multiple guitars and even plugged the keyboard into it direct and that sounds good also.Its very easy to transfer to PC and burn onto CD and never had any problems.

Reliability: 10
Ive dropped it, spilt coffee on it, polished it with "Mr Sheen" cat has been asleep on it as it does get ****, never a problem, always works. built with the same quality as the boss pedals (although its not metal)

Overall Rating: 9
Highly reccomend for those of you whom prefer to play and write music in real time and record live,as opposed to sittting behind a computer screen and spending less time being creative, although each im sure has its own advantages and disadvantages.

[Cpt Scarlett]

Quality: 8
Very light weight, which is a good thing. Solid construction - nothing chintzy about any of the controls. No complaints about the sound. Good separation and the on board EQ/Pan/Reverb & Chorus are responsive and clean. The BR600 has many features and BOSS tout it as a robust enough product to take your recording all the way through to final mastering. However, there is no getting away from the fact that navigating the multi layer menus within the small LCD requires that you be willing to become a careful student of the 220 page owner's manual. It's all in there, sometimes in broken English, so if you have the patience, your efforts will pay off.

The COSM (digital guitar/amp modeling) technology provides an array of canned sounds with a heavy bias toward metal sounds. Every sound is editable, but again, you need to be willing to master the programming methodology.

What sold me on the BR-600 was the on-board drum machine (I have a soft spot for BOSS drum machines). You can use the 12 pressure sensitive pads to tap out a rhythm or use the step programming to set up your own. The PC software down loadable from the BOSS web site for the BR-900 also works with the 600 (this makes step programming somewhat more intuitive). You can also upload custom sample files to the on board drum machine and back work up to a hard drive via the USB connection.

Reliability: 8
I've had the BR-600 for six months or so and have had only one occasion to talk to BOSS CS. One worrisome issue is the fact that the BR-600 only works with older, slower and hard-to-find Flash memory. Maximum supported is 1 GB. The card BOSS CS recommended to me is the SanDisk SDCFB-1024-A10. They recommended I get it from Amazon. Don't! they are charging $99. I found the same card for $20 from a no-name discount store by googling.

Overall Rating: 8
I bought the BR-600 as a sketchbook, a four track recorder to work out basic arrangements to turn 'an idea' into 'a song'. For this purpose it works beautifully once you master the menu system. For me, it won't replace my PC and Abelton Live for mixing and mastering the final product; however, the BR-600 does allow you to export tracks as .wav files so if you do get that perfect take, you can always import it.

What I'd like to see in future versions is the ability to export (and import) midi and a little more real estate for the LCD - even if it means sacrificing some of the pressure sensitive pads (which I never use). Also, expanding the capability to manipulate data via software through the USB port might sway more people to adopt the BOSS BR-600.

I would buy it again. There is room for improvement but for the price you get what you pay for.