I'm looking to finally turn off my computer (for good) for music production. I need a multitrack/multi-purpose recorder for bouncing tracks and multi tracking/overdubbing, while keeping things portable and easy for seamless workflow.
The boss micro br/br-80 look pretty rad. The 80 has a bunch of tweakable effects and things that might go able to be abused in unexpected ways to create some neato shit.
Anyone have any experience with these?
Thanks.

Look at those zoom little multitrack recorders and the tiny little tascam. You might wanna just look at all the features besides the effects since the sp's are pretty good in that department. Look at editing and how many ins and outs. effects are always good but i hardly ever use em with a sp. Unless you want more control of your delay and reverb.

Springwater's speaking the truth again. 2nd for all of that. Gotta add a bit though.

I use a BR-600 & pretty much don't use effects on it other than a little EQ. I love it, but its aged a bit after copping all kinds of abuse. When it dies I'm gonna replace it with the BR-800. It just has more options than the BR-80 (about 10x as many?), stuff like 4 mono ins recording at once is really cool (bounce them to 2x stereo recording at once- nice). If your set up is really small (ie- 1 sampler, 1 synth) you could use it in place of a mixing desk.

Even if you take computers out of your writing, producing, mixing, mastering workflow you're still gonna deal with them for file transfer & storing projects in the long run. Remember that.

Note the effects in Boss multitracks can't be tweaked live, they're for substituting and replicating different recording environments (ie- concert halls for singers, rooms for drummers & pianists, amp modelling for guitar & bass). The workflow for effects on the BR-600 is menu based on set'n'forget tweaking. I bet cash on the BR-80 being the same. The modelling on Boss & Roland gear is tops, anything with the COSM logo is great for entry & mid level users. Treat the effects as mixdown & mastering tools as opposed to special FX & they're good. Don't expect anything wild sounding.

Its probably going to be the same with most other brands simply because recorders aren't designed to be effects units. That's what guitar pedals & samplers are for.

An advantage of using larger multitracks over the little handheld ones is simply ease of use- less menu diving & more rotaries/sliders/buttons/tracks plus the essential audio ins & outs. Having extra tracks means less overdubbing, meaning easier & less risky takes. Fucking up an overdub means two recordings are done for, not one. Larger multis do cost more but are worth considering. If you want to pay even more there's some big BR multis with built in CD burners for trying a 100% computer free set up...

I had the little Micro-BR. Its very cool, you can produce wave or Mp3 files. You can timestretch Mp3 files too, maybe wave but I don't remember. Sounded 100x better than an SP timestretch. There's plenty of effects but it takes too much time to tweak so I don't really use them. Wish it had knobs for the effects. The internal mic is pretty good but kinda cold. It had only 4 tracks but bouncing can be done and virtual tracks are useful when picking out the right take to go with a song. Its alot in the little Micro-BR, but its executed so painfully that you'll get lost, I had the manual with me the whole time trying to figure how to record on a track, and the manual is kinda a small novel. The newer Micros have 8 tracks now but I never used it.

I do have a Tascam DP008 and I use that frequently. Very easy to use, never look at the manual except for advanced stuff like formating SD cards and transfering files to PC. You can EQ incoming and outgoing signals, so its nice to use as a sampling source too when you're far from the studio and records. Mics are superbly warm and sound like my Shure SH55. Only downfall is that to transfer to PC, you have to create a FAT folder, throw your files in there, then the computer reads from that folder and it can take a few minutes. Other than that, its 2 track recording and 8 track playing so its cool for stereo recording unlike the Micro which is 1 track recording.

I recently just upgraded my Roland VS-840 to the EX upgrade and installed a compact flash drive in it so now I won't have to fuss with zip disks anymore. Completely silent operation. And with the BR to Wav program, I can start distributing my music a bit more.

I've used the VS-840 since '05 or '06 and it hasn't let me down yet. The FX are solid in this thing. I can even get that Lo-Fi sound that Ill Green managed to use on his longer samples from Swamp Water Plague.

All you need is an SP and a Boss recorder and you can cut a whole album.

Thanks dudes.
I went with a used micro br-80. It's pretty dope, and should be great with what I'm doing. I'm mainly going to be recording tracks of resampled loops arranged as songs, then overdubbing live instruments, additional samples, and iPad synths onto the track, then sampling it back into the SP.
As for computers, the only thing I'll be doing is final mastering (haven't tried the micro Br-80's mastering functions) and then burning CDs and uploading to bandcamp and soundcloud.
My Mac/ableton rig is really powerful, but I'm looking for a more 'organic' workflow, and the sp404sx and br-80 combo is RAD!
Thanks again.
Todd

just gotta be carefull bouncin back and forth so much cause double compression and stuff is pretty rugged.