Boss Eband JS-8

[Dennis Manuel]

Has anyone tried one of these devices and if so what are your thoughts?

[Charlie Thompson]

Dennis I have one. It's my everyday practice partner. One of the best purchases I have ever made.

[Bob Martin]

I recently acquired a Boss Micro BR-80 and it has the e-band tool built into it along with a bunch of other features. Ever since the Roland e-band came out I have thought about how cool they are.

So when I had the opportunity to get the BR-80 I went for it. I've enjoyed it from day one. Most of the tracks that Roland have made for it are hard rock but they have some jazz tracks and of course you can import your own tracks in that you might have made in BIAB as long as they are converted to .wav's or mp3's you can also buy tracks from Hal Leonard that are designed to work with e-band.

I would say that the e-band system is a very useful tool to use for practicing. Of course the e-band has a center cancel function which at times works great and then on some songs not so good it all depends on how close to the center of the mix the track you want to remove is.

It also has the speed up and slow down function without changing the pitch/key which works good as long as you don't move to far from the original tempo but if you go much over 10 to 15 bpm's away from the original tempo you start hearing some weird artifacts. The same goes for changing the key of the song without changing the tempo the further you move away from the original key the more artifacts you get.

All in all I think it is one of the best practice tools out there. One last note it has a lot of the effects that the Boss GT-10 has and they all are very high quality. So I'd say if you only bought it for the effects and to record thru it to your DAW or even live you will get your money's worth.

Big Bob