Boss BR8 or Zoom MRS?

Mike

I'd say definitely go with the Boss. It's a classic, tried and tested lump of machinery, and Doog's made some fab recordings with it. I'd trust it a lot more than the Zoom, I just think of what they did with Digital EFX (shudder) and wouldn't trust them one inch with fidelity and flexibility when it came to recording, which can be a frustrating enough thing to do.

Doog

Yeah, I love my BR8 lots. Very decent amp and cab sims and loads of FX for when you can't be bothered micing up an amp. And also, presets for the line-in (Lo-Fi Box rocks!) and for mics. The built in drum "machine" (only does one beat per setting) is pretty basic, but has loads of different beats, and a lot of time signatures to choose from. You can ever just set it to 'metronome' which is handy.

One downside is the Zip drive. Maybe I was using damaged discs or put it in like a choad, but I've managed to screw the internal drive and had to replace it twice. Luckily it's the sort of thing my old man has kicking about.

I've done every thing 'Doog' related on it, and got down to using the 2-input maximum to a fine art, especially when recording drums. It's not ideal for band applications, but perfect for demos and noodling.

Here's the last thing I did with it, some cheesey pop idea I had. The guitars are all the onboard sims and using onboard compression on the vocals, but the drums are programmed in midi rather than being the internal drum machine.

Doog

BR8 definately, like I said, the built in "drum machine" is pretty basic. Just a preset rhythm for different styles. I think the Zoom one (Harrys got it, I think) has the actual "buttons you press to make go BANG BODDAH TSCH".

Bottom right of this HUUUUUGE picture:

Harry

This is the MRS8, which i have. I'd recommend it, but Im sure the Boss one is really good too.

Doog

Nick said:
So should this be a no brainer?

Not sure really, I don't know what other features the Zoom one has. The Boss doesn't have a built-in mic or drum machine buttons, but it has Virtual tracks which basically allows you to record 8 different takes on the same track so you can choose your best, or keep the original raw tracks when you bounce down. Kinda hard to explain, but dead handy.

It's also got post-record EQ, reverb and chorus/delay (one of the other, cant have both) and "Scene" saving so you can have totally different EQ, reverb and chorus/delay settings for the same song to compare to see which is best, or whatever.

And you can cut/paste/delete/edit the individual tracks which is dead handy if you fancy doing drumloops or something similar.

*quickly looks at menu on BR8*

And an expression pedal in for the built-in whammy/volume fx, a center cancel (sucks out the track down the middle which is normal vocals, for a karoke effect), a digital out, a MIDI out, a tempo map for different bmps/speed up/slow downs for the drum machine through the song, song markers with "punch in" footswitch jack and some other stuff.

But like I said, it's quite possible the Zoom does all this stuff too.

Harry

Doog said:
Not sure really, I don't know what other features the Zoom one has. The Boss doesn't have a built-in mic or drum machine buttons, but it has Virtual tracks which basically allows you to record 8 different takes on the same track so you can choose your best, or keep the original raw tracks when you bounce down. Kinda hard to explain, but dead handy.
But like I said, it's quite possible the Zoom does all this stuff too.

The zoom does the virtual tracks thing (I havent figure dout how to do it yet), and quite a few of the other things you mentioned too. I just haven't bothered reading the manual properly yet...