trying to get tight with my BR8

[zigzag]

Hello. I am pretty much new at recording. I have fooled around a very small amount on a friends very old Tascam a while back and that is about all the experience that I have. I just bought a BR8 and am trying to figure some ideas for recording. So here are my questions.

1. Lets say that I found a setting for an insert effect that I like and record a portion of a song with it. If I want to use those settings again to record a different portion on a different track can I get into a screen where I can see what the settings were and/or access them without having to write them down and adjust them from the effects bank each time that I would like to use them?

2. This is probably a silly question. On the machine there is a dedicated guitar input. If I want to record me and my friend playing guitar at the same time will I damage the machine if I plug the other guitar into the Mic jack? What about a key board?

3. I can pretty much get a song onto the machine but what I really don't know much about is how to do a mix down. Any suggestions?

4. Is there some way that I can make my bass sound really vibrate once I have it on the machine? I don't even know how low bass is accomplished on some of the songs that I have heard but I have always assumed that it had something to do with the recording process. If I need to buy some sort of synth or drum machine what is an easy to use model and at a reasonable price. I don't need the pro model.

If there is any help that you can dish out please do because I am just floating right now. Thanks

 

[dstewart]

For the effects question: IF you find an effect patch you like, or you create one, you can apply it to other instruments/channels/tracks/times if you simply save it as a User or Song patch. Go into the Effects edit window (hit Effects button), and use the cursor to move down to the SAVE choice. Then save it with a convenient and recognizable name in the S or U bank. S, for song, patches are saved with the song files; once you start another song, you won't find those S patches until you reload that song for which you saved the patch. U, for user, patches are saved to the machine globally, so you can have them and use them in any song. (It's not a bad idea to save a patch first as a User patch, if you really like it and think it could be useful in a lot of songs, and then save it also as a Song patch in specific songs. Keep things nice and organized!)

About the mic: The mic input is a low-z, or low-impedance, input. The guitar is a high-impedance input. You don't want to put your guitar in the Mic input. You might be able to if you ran the guitar into a direct box first---I think that would work, but I'm not positive, and hopefully some expert voice here can be more definitive about that.

Mixdown . . . look elsewhere on the BB here for some great threads on mixing; also you have to read up and DO it too.