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Very user-friendly!! The tutorial manual is easy to understand, and within a few attempts, I was recording! The sound is awesome..full and rich! It actually makes me sound better than I really do, so I can't fault that! It's lightweight compared to some brands. Also, there are many options/features on it, such as the drum and rhythm section, that I haven't even tried yet. I've only done the guitar, mandolin/vocal thing, but I love having all these channels for harmonies, drums, and whatever else I'd want to record.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I purchased this recorder back in Aug of 23 to replace my old boss recorder same model that was running out of room on the hard drive..i record sporadically .so still having room on my old one until now i started using the new one . it turns on and never gets off the opening screen a brief window popped up saying the hard drive was damaged so i bought a boss br1600 and its as useless as a paper weight... can you help
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I had a friend suggest that I get one of these 4 or 5 years ago, but for budget reasons kept putting it off. Then, about a year ago, I joined a band that the lead guitarist had one. He was using it to record ENTIRE SHOWS on one "song"! Then he would take the 4 hour show and break it down using external devices into individual songs. He ended up buying two more over the next several months and loaned me one of them to play with. I fell in love with it immediately! I've seen the reviews that say this recorder is great but a little complicated, and I have to agree that there are some functions that are difficult to master. However, after working with other recorders and understanding the underlying workings of recording I feel that Boss has made these functions as easy as they're ever going to get. I have now purchased one and am enjoying every time I hook it up to record/mix/whatever... I can record something as simple as a rough cut of a song I'm writing or a cover that I want the band to learn, burn it to CD, distribute it to the band and have them start working on their parts. Or, I can get really technical and make all kinds of adjustments and add so many effects to different tracks to create an awesome recording. Then take that recording, bounce it down to virtual tracks, master it, and burn it to CD for distribution. This unit has so many features it would be impossible to name them all from memory. I can backup recordings and restore them at will, add a variety of effects to tracks, burn single song CD's, complete albums to CD, or continuous song CD's (where there's no gap between tracks). Let me stop raving and simply say: This is the best recorder I've ever worked with (granted I've never recorded in a studio)! Rich Murff www.gypsysticks.comRead full review
I like the unit overall. with few things changed it could be total love. I have to compare this unit to my favorite stand alone recorder. That being it's baby brother the Boss BR-8. First dislike is, Boss did not include a "Tracking Sheet"! This is a major tool in any studio and so inexpensive to include a simple copy to reprint. Having been a former Tascam / Teac etc. in days of tape and trying to transfer mentally to the digital age, found that they could not compete with Boss. I own the BR-8 (on my 3rd one now) have the BR-1200CD and went to the BR1600CD simply for the 8 simultaneous tracks. As I get deeper into the confusing manual, I am finding more to like about it. but the other side being, the manual leaves a lot to be desired in simplicity. I would rewrite the quick start manual and throw in a 15 minute dvd showing the very basic way for a beginner to record their first song in a few basic steps. I would come down to the beginner level, not try to bring the inexperienced up to the experienced level, as Boss reps presently do! How to plug in a guitar, (or other instrument) show a very basic short version of how to use the drums and bass tracks to make a simple demo for the songwriter who knows nothing about mixing, producing, recording equipment, bouncing, adding effects etc., etc.. I feel that there are so many of these used units for sale simply because the manuals and instructions are written by experienced writers and tech heads. It leaves the want to be (the majority of the music business market) confused and it seems too complicated so they "give up", rather than "trade up". Customers lost! On this line, the BR-8 is so much simpler, you don't have to get into a week of reading a big thick manual before you can cut a simple song. If the first few steps get's you to cutting a song, then it's exciting enough to want to dive deeper into all the effects and polish later. The majority of the people who want to buy these great units have no intention of becoming a superstar, so drop the superstar promotions and come down to the beginner level of explaining things and this unit will sell ten times as quick and make customers want to upgrade and stay with your systems. I speak from experience as a guitar instructor who makes my instructions interesting because I have them actually playing in one to three days (not confused with all the technical jargon) and then add to it and they stick with it. The biggest mistake anyone selling a product to do with music is, they preach it to be SIMPLE, yet hire a legendary experienced producer or artist to explain it in terms and methods no beginner can understand. If you love reading for a week before you actually get to use it, you will love it. Overall, the unit is great with minor drawbacks and if someone else comes up with an equal quality unit with a simpler start up manual, I'll change brands, but really, this is a great unit. if you don't mind going to collage for a week with the manual, you will love it.Read full review
I bought this recorder because I now have a second home in the east. I have a Br-1600CD at my home in the west. I really like it or I wouldn't have bought another one. Initally, the only downside was minimal editing features. However, with the USB port I can download tracks to my computer recording software and do the fine detail editing there. I do have a much faster computer now as compared to when I bought the first unit. I would recommend this unit for doing demo work that you might want to be better quality with more instruments. The sound quality is excellent! And the built in drum and bass are very good.
This unit is very powerful. It has plenty of storage, is intuitive and simple to use for basic functions, and it looks like it's capable of doing some pretty cool things if you care to study it for a while. All the multitrack recording stuff is obvious and very easy to use. These days I just play guitar, bass and program drums for a hobby (I used to play live gigs but no time anymore). When I first got the BR I was dissapointed because it seemed very complicated to setup a nice drum track. The manual wasn't really helping me either. I investigated a lot of ways to easily program drums that allowed a lot of variations / fills to be added easily. The best I could find were a few of the drum pattern building sequencers that could hook up with MIDI, but I don't want to get into that yet. After that frustration, I just played with the BR for a short while and began figuring it out. It really is pretty easy to program drums, so I don't need to buy other stuff for that! The guitar effects (GT6) are really nice sounding (not quite the GT10, though). You can emulate speakers cabs and all kinds of things I don't really care about, I just want to record my ideas and have some fun making good sounding recordings! One great thing is that it's really easy to add the built in effects when tracking or mixdown / mastering, and these things make a HUGE difference in sound quality. It seems like most of the effects are setup already, so you just use the defaults. All the sliders, knobs and buttons are easy to grab and feel good quality, not the best, but plenty good for me. Sound quality is excellent. (I had a BR600 before this and thought it had OK sound. It seemed like the dynamics were squashed a little.) I just ordered a pair of KRK monitors that it sit beside this thing and I'm set for awhile. Now I just need to learn to play...Read full review
I have had 3 of this unit in the span of 16 years. And i still am not giving up on it. I love the overall functionality, sound quality, and all the great reviews you read about it. BUT, the hard drive could crash. Suddenly it would say " damaged hard drive". My first one lasted 4 years until i left it in and got stolen. 2nd was dropped accidentally during transit. And i bought a 3rd used one. Its a great, honest unit.
Verified purchase: No
I moved from analogue recording studios to computer-based recording fifteen years ago. Initially the digital domain was productive, but it seemed the more I upgraded my digital audio workstation, the less time I actually spent producing music. Latency issues, soundcard incompatibilities, the complexities of the software: a lot of things conspired to keep me focused on the technology rather than the music. I bought a BR-1600 in the hope it would make me more productive. After only a couple of weeks of use, that is certainly true. There's a bit of a learning curve, but not as difficult as shifting between, say, ProTools and Reaper. The 380 page Owner's Manual is comprehensive, and there's a handy quick start guide. Plus there are a lot of resources on the internet, including the Songcrafters forum which has many Boss BR users who are happy to share their deep knowledge. The BR-1600 has its shortcomings, but no show-stoppers so far. Pluses? [1] It's quiet. Despite a Ghost case, my DAW would contribute its own background noise to the recording process. If you listen closely, the BR-1600's 80GB hard drive has a low level rumble, but it doesn't get tracked. [2] It's efficient. Recording with the BR-1600 feels to me more like the analogue recording of yore. The model has dedicated buttons for marker and punch in/out functionality and, being digital, rewinding and advancing to markers is instant: it's the best of both worlds. I just hit record and focus on the music. Accidentally overwrite a good take? No problem: it has a great Undo function. [3] The audio is high quality. Sure, it's "only" 16bit, but so are CDs. The internal DACs sound clean and flat. The finished product sparkles. [4] It's packed with features. The guitar, bass and vocal effects are still best of breed, even though this model has been out of production now for several years. For mixdown there's reverb, chorus/delay, compression and EQ. My music mixes time signatures (often unusual time signatures at that) and the BR-1600 has made this easy once I learnt how. The drums sound great, too, and you can load additional kits from a CD. [5] It's discrete. OK, this is perhaps not a feature that everyone values, but for years my workday computer has also been my DAW. My working day has the occasional quiet half hour when I could create a little music, but I've mostly passed on these opportunities because it's a hassle to shut down my work software, fire up the DAW, then restore the work environment when I've finished. The BR-1600 has everything I need ... in one separate box. Minuses? [1] No separate monitor mix. So far this hasn't been a big issue, but it would nice to be able to set up a separate mix. [2] Exporting audio. The BR-1600 only has USB1.1, it only works with Windows or OSX, and song files then need to be transcoded. It's slow. The alternative route, writing to a CD, is probably better, but I've yet to find CDs that are compatible. Nonetheless, when you do get your tracks out and transcoded, it's easy to import them into the DAW of your choice if you wish to. [3] Track solo. You can mute channels, but you can't solo. It's a shame this was left out, as I find it one of the most useful functions when you're recording. Still, it's not hard to mute all the other tracks. Three issues are often mentioned in reviews that really aren't problematic for me. The first is the green screen. I don't find it a problem to use; it's a little cryptic at times, but all the information I need is there. and it's easy enough on the eyes. The second is the depth of the menu hierarchy, and the apparent difficulty of accessing the functions you need. My experience is that as I've climbed the inevitable learning curve I no longer even think about this: I know where to go and the key presses required take no time at all. The third issue is the eight mono / four stereo configuration of the sixteen tracks. I don't see this as shortchanging users at all. In practice it's pretty much exactly the layout you need. I mostly record on the mono tracks, and do a sub-mix (all the guitars, for example) to a stereo pair, go back and repeat. Virtual tracks (16 per channel) mean you can retain all the original takes in case your submix needs tweaking later. For me, it's very logical and works well. I highly recommend this machine. It's got me creating music again after several years of struggling to achieve any sort of output.Read full review
Verified purchase: No
The Boss BR-1600 has some fantastic capabilities; although can be unnecessarily complicated to use if you don't spend the bookwork and studying time to learn it. It is self-contained and great as a portable recorder. However (there is always a "however"), it can be touchy and fickle. You must remember to back up your recordings regularly (even when in the midst of recording ideas) unless you don't mind losing them and starting from scratch (as some people may not if they are just putting down ideas that they will remember). The BR-1600 has an occasional habit of having some sort of momentary spiritual crisis, or what I like to call a "HAL-2000" moment (think "2001- A Space Odyssey"), where it will freeze up and you will have to turn it off, wait briefly, then turn it on again to find you lost what you didn't save. This has not been often, in my experience. However, it is random and can turn a good day bad. In my experience it seems to be triggered by change in weather conditions (humidity? who knows?) even though it has always been used indoors only, doing something it didn't like or trying to back out of something you didn't want to do, or if it sits too long being turned on, but inactive. If Roland can make the unit less complicated to use and as reliable as a Tascam unit, this would be fantastic. As things are, it is a very capable unit, but you just have to be mindful of certain things.Read full review
good sound quality, steps above the 900, great for guitarists. Though Ive used the br900cd it only took a short time to be able to figure out how to record and burn a descent sounding song from my guitar. Love the bass feature that allows you to play with tons of bass patterns that you can choose what chords it outlines. With the drums and bass its good for recording and great for practicing improv.. I haven't tried any other brand studios yet but was looking to step from the 900 and this was definitely it. I think the finished product sounds great.