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Topic: Early Fathers Day present |
Bob Martin
From:
Madison Tn
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Posted 4 Jun 2010 9:02 pm |
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My son just brought me a package this evening and told me not to open it up until Fathers Day and then promptly proceeded to open it up for me with a big grin.
He knew I had been looking for a small cheap multi-track recorder for using to put ideas down to use in the studio on those rainy miserable nights when I couldn't motor my chair out to my studio so it needed to be something light and hopefully shirt pocket sized. I had been wanting a Micro BR but couldn't find any for a good price on ebay so evidently he found one for 100.00 bucks new in the box with manual card and all. He didn't tell me what he paid for it but he does use my ebay account for his as well LOL plus he borrowed some of the cash from his Ma until payday (he told her he was saving money for baby food hehe) and she told me after he left ain't I worthless hehe don't worry I would never embarrass him about me knowing about the price because I love him and my new Grandson way to much!
I am excited to dig into it and see all of the goodies. I plugged my Nashville Tele into it and ran through some of the presets and for a change you can see that at least a few of the guitar presets were at least meant for country players and just a little tweaking really made them pop out.
I'll do some recording tomorrow and kind of take her around the block. I did listen to some of the drums and then samples are very nice so that will be a plus for playing in time. More to come if anyone is interested  God Bless you all!!
Big Bob
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***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow*** |
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Rick Campbell
From:
Sneedville, TN, USA
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Posted 5 Jun 2010 4:42 pm
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Bob,
It's nice when the children are buying toys for the parents.  That sure beats a new shirt and a pair of socks. I've got my hints scattered around for a Micro BR too. Keep us imformed on how it works out.
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Bob Vantine
From:
Freeville, New York, USA
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Posted 8 Jun 2010 11:44 am
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Bob...
I too would be interested. Good luck!
****Bob V****
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EQUIPMENT:
"TEAK" ZUM STAGE-ONE Steel / C6th Lapsteel
Peavey NV112 , CLASSIC and EFX112 amps
Peavey Guitars |
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John Macy
From:
Rockport TX/Denver CO
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Posted 8 Jun 2010 9:00 pm
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I asked my daughter for another U47 for Father's day, but I'm not holding my breath...
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John Macy
Rockport, TX
Engineer/Producer/Steel Guitar |
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Bob Martin
From:
Madison Tn
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Posted 10 Jun 2010 7:49 pm
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Hey guys, you all have made my day with your requests from your kids hehe. Rick good luck with your request for a Micro BR you might hint that I've seen them sell regularly on ebay for 175.00 all the way down to 135.00 daily, I guess my son got lucky.
John good luck with your U47 I seen one on eBay for 100.00 bucks "NOT" just having fun with ya. I'm guessing that your daughter is a Doctor or Lawyer or maybe a "session player" if you're asking for a U47
Now for a report on the Micro BR so far. I can't say enough on it's behalf as a quick plug and play recorder with 32 available tracks to use for ideas as well as the starting point for a complete song. The COSM effects are very good they aren't perfect in my mind but they are better than most any modeling software that is used on other small 4 and 8 track recorders. I'm not sure if they come from the GT-6, GT-8 or a mix from both but they sound very good.
The effects are way above average for those of you that don't use modeling software and still use a Mic and an Amp then go into the Micro BR. There are a few limitations on what effect can be used with another but not many and they seem to have all of the algorithms setup in a normal order. I like the fact that you can monitor wet and record dry that's a pretty big plus for such a small unit. The compression is not bad but it could use a few more parameters but it does a good job. The EQ seems a bit sterile at times to me or it could be my head phones but normally they sound great I use Sennheiser HD280's and most agree they are pretty flat with a good bass response.
The slow down "learn a lick" feature is like most maybe a little better with fewer artifacts and the same could be said for the center cancel feature. What little bit I have played with the mastering feature seems to be quite a bit above average for a small unit like this. The reverb is pretty darn good and sounds to be some of Roland's better algorithms but still I wouldn't call the reverb "master quality".
The drums lend themselves towards rock styles much more than country and although they are very high quality samples the rule with the drums are what you hear is what you get with out a lot of editing.
I am a long way from digging completely to the bottom of the Micro BR but so far I would say if you are on the fence about purchasing a good small 16 bit recorder with multiple tracks and great features go ahead and jump off of the fence and buy this slick little recorder. One last word, if you intend on recording live bands and want a fat stereo mix spend some cash on a goo stereo Mic such as the one they recommend from Boss or the Blue Mikey or even some of the other good small portable stereo Mics available on the web. I have a long way to go before I learn all of the functions so hang in there for a complete report!
I did forget to say one last thing about the Micro BR as with all things that a person owns he wants the item to be of the best quality and to be able to brag about the wonderful capabilities of his purchase so please let me say this and I promise you I'll stop here Along with all of the great things I have said about the Micro BR I have probably found almost 25% more negative points about the Micro BR. I hope to post my negative findings a little later on when I feel that I've found most of the good and bad. God Bless
Big Bob
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***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow*** |
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Bob Martin
From:
Madison Tn
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Posted 23 Jun 2010 4:47 am
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Ok guys, last post on my new present I really love the Micro BR and for an overall score I would give it a 95 out of 100. The small percentage of negative points go towards 2 different sections of the Micro BR.
While the effects are overall very good they are somewhat limited in the way they can be manipulated and that's one of the short comings. They all sound fine but there is no way to do any arranging of the order of the effects other than picking a different algorithm with different effects and the reverb is always an added effect and not part of the chain.
Also the effects have limited parameters to adjust but please keep in mind the effects sound very good without tweaking any of the parameters. So the last negative point of the effects lies in the eq section. Each set of effects have an eq or maybe better said there is a master eq that can be used with algorithm. I would have liked to see a 4 or 5 band parametric eq on each effect chain.
The only other negative point that I can find is the limited tracks to record on there is no way that I or anyone else should complain about only having 4 tracks because it is advertised as a 4 track recorder but it just seems that 2 more tracks would come in very handy Don't forget about the 7 extra ghost tracks per each track ie you can record a total of 32 tracks and then pick any one of the 8 tracks per track to use or even merge parts of each 8 tracks together to make one track so if you want to work like a dog and do a bunch of tedious edits you can mix and match all you want to but I find it easier to just play one track all the way through the song but of course I'm a wonderful player and hardly ever make any mistakes (ROTFLMAO) well maybe once in a while I make a mistake LOL but you get the point.
So that's really all I could come up with to complain about and let me say this as much as I wanted to find a bunch of bad things to say about this little unit that's all I could find and trust me that's not much to complain about
One last positive thing about this little gem you can set punch in and out points to your hearts content and I've never seen such great power on a 4 track recorder such as this.
I hope this will help anyone that might be thinking about getting one of these fine little units.
Bob Martin
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***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow*** |
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Mike Wheeler
From:
Delaware, Ohio, USA
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Posted 25 Jun 2011 7:24 am
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I ran across this thread while doing a search for the Micro BR, to learn more about it.
I have acquired one from a dear friend and should receive it next week. Your review is quite encouraging, Bob. It should be ideal for my simple purposes...recording my soundtracks and steel together.
Thanks for the info, my friend.
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Best regards,
Mike |
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Bob Martin
From:
Madison Tn
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Posted 28 Jun 2011 2:59 am
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Well Mike I'm glad you got some good in fo from this thread Since the time I wrote my short review of the Micro BR, I've spent several hours playing with the Micro BR.
The unit is probably much better than I talked about it in the beginning. I found one of the best uses was for live recording of bands and many different live events. One feature I didn't bring up in my first go round was how nice it was to record directly to MP3 format and not have to do any conversions.
Well anyway Mike good luck with your Micro BR I'll bet you will gt a lot of use out of it
Bob Martin
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***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow*** |
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