Prepare Your Music on the BR-600

You just recorded a song on the BR-600, and now you want to make a CD. The steps for getting your song into your computer, ready to burn on a CD are as easy as “Mix — Bounce — Export.”

Mix

First, mix your tracks. Use the white track faders to adjust the volume of each individual track and to set the overall balance between the tracks. Keep the MASTER fader at or—for an extra loud CD—above the white line near the top. If you’re using the built-in drum machine, don’t forget to set the RHYTHM fader to the desired level.

Bounce

Now it’s time to bounce. Press the REC MODE button located to the right of the display so the red LED next to the word “BOUNCE” is lit. Notice that when you do this, the button under Fader 7/8 starts blinking red. This lets you know the BR is bouncing your song in stereo to tracks 7&8. Press the ZERO 9 button to rewind to the beginning of your song, press the main REC button (the one with the red dot on it), and then press PLAY to start the bounce. When the song is finished, pull down the MASTER fader for a nice fade-out at the end of the song, and then press STOP.

Export

The last thing you need to do before burning a CD is to export your song — freshly bounced within the BR-600 — into your computer. Here’s how:

1. Connect a USB cable between the BR-600 and your computer.
2. Press the pad on the BR-600 labeled “UTILITY.” Use the CURSOR 3, 4, 5, and 6 buttons to navigate to the USB menu—you’ll see “UTL USB” at the top of the screen.
3. Press ENTER.
4. You’ll see “USB STORAGE” at the top of the display.
5. Turn the TIME/VALUE dial clockwise to set Type: EXPORT.
6. Press ENTER.
7. Next, choose the File Export type—either WAV or AIFF. In general, if you’re using a Windows computer, choose WAV. If you’re using a Mac, choose AIFF.
8. To choose the file type, press the 3 or 4 CURSOR button so either WAV or AIFF has a blinking cursor underneath.
9. Press ENTER.
10. Next, the BR asks which track you’d like to export. Turn the TIME/VALUE dial to select Tr78V1, for stereo Track 7/8, V-Track 1.
11. Press ENTER.
12. The BR says “Now Exporting,” and then in a moment, “Now connecting.”

Everything else is done from your computer. From here, we’ll break the instructions down separately for Windows users and Mac users. Windows instructions appear below. Mac users can jump to Bringing Your Music Into Mac OS X.

Bringing Your Music Into Windows XP

After you’ve pressed the ENTER button on the BR-600 above, wait a few moments while your computer recognizes the BR-600. During this time, you may see a few messages pop up at the bottom of your screen such as “Found USB Device” and “Found New Hardware” — these are perfectly normal. Just wait until you see the message “Your new hardware is ready to use.”

1. Double-click on My Computer — you’ll see a new hard drive labeled “BOSS_BR-600” on your computer.
2. Double-click the BOSS_BR-600 hard drive to open it up, and then double-click the ROLAND folder inside.
3. Double-click the USB folder.
4. Look for a file inside that folder. That’s your song! The BR-600 names this song file according to the tracks to which it was originally bounced. In this case, we bounced to stereo Track 7/8, so the file’s name is “TR0708_1.”
5. Using your mouse, drag the song to somewhere on your computer where you’ll be able to find it later on, such as to the folder called “My Music.”
6. Once the file finishes copying over to your computer, press EXIT on the BR-600.
7. The BR asks, “Disconnect USB Are you sure?”
8. Press ENTER.
9. The BR shows “Keep Power On” in the display, and then reverts back to the USB Export menu. At this point, it’s OK to disconnect the USB cable.
10. Press EXIT three times on the BR-600 to get back to its main screen.

If you decide you want to add more parts to the song in the BR-600, don’t forget to switch its REC MODE back to INPUT.

Bringing Your Music Into Mac OS X

1. After you’ve pressed ENTER in the Export screen of the BR-600, look for a new icon on your desktop labeled “BOSS_BR-600.”
2. Double-click this icon, and then double-click the ROLAND folder inside.
3. Double-click the USB folder to open it up.
4. Your song has a name like TR0708_1.WAV (or .AIF). The BR-600 names a song file according to the tracks to which it was originally bounced. In this case, we bounced to stereo Track 7/8, so the file’s name is “TR0708_1.”
5. Using your mouse, drag the song to somewhere on your computer where you’ll be able to find it later on. Before dragging the file, you might create a new folder—called something like “My BR-600 Recordings”—into which you can put the file.
6. Once the file’s copied to your computer, press EXIT on the BR-600.
7. The BR asks “Disconnect USB Are you sure?”
8. Press ENTER.
9. The BR shows “Keep Power On” in the display, then reverts back to the USB Export menu. At this point, it’s OK to disconnect the USB cable.
10. Press EXIT three times on the BR-600 to get back to its main screen.

If you decide you want to add more parts to the song in the BR-600, don’t forget to switch its REC MODE back to INPUT.

Burn Your BR-600 Songs to a CD Using iTunes™

You can use any program you want to burn your BR-600 songs to a CD, including Roxio EZ CD Creator™, Toast™, or Nero™, just to name a few. This article explains how to burn CDs using Apple’s iTunes, Version 7 or higher. We’ve chosen iTunes since you can use it on either Windows or Macintosh computers, you can download it for free, and most important, it’s very easy to use.

Create an iTunes Playlist

1. Double-click the iTunes icon to launch iTunes.
2. From the File menu in the top menu bar, choose New Playlist—an untitled playlist appears in the iTunes window. Type in a name for the playlist, as we did with the BR-600 Demo playlist shown here.
3. Click once on your new playlist to open it.

Add Your Song to Your Playlist

1. Open up the folder or location where you saved your BR-600 file, and then simply click and drag the file into your empty playlist. iTunes copies the song into your iTunes library.
2. Now that your song is in your playlist, click it once to highlight it.
3. From the File menu, select Get Info. From the dialog box that opens up, click on the Info tab, and then type in information about your song, including the album name.
4. Click OK when you’re done—filling in the song’s info is important for keeping your music organized.

Burn a CD

1. You can add more songs into your playlist, but keep in mind you’ll only be able to fit up to about 70 minutes of songs on an audio CD. Look at the very bottom of the iTunes screen—you’ll find information about how many songs are in your playlist, and more important, how many total minutes of music make up the playlist. Make sure this number doesn’t go over 1.2 hours.
2. Make sure all the songs you want to burn have a check mark next to them. Below is an example of two songs in a playlist ready to be burned:
3. Click Burn Disk in the lower right corner of the iTunes window and follow the onscreen instructions to burn your playlist.
4. Eject your CD when it’s done.

Turn Your BR-600 Song Into an MP3

1. In iTunes, click on your song to highlight it.
2. From the Advanced menu in the top menu bar, select Convert Selection to MP3. If you don’t see Convert Selection to MP3 in the Advanced menu, select Preferences from the Edit menu, and click on the Advanced tab. Click the Importing tab and change the Import Using: popup to MP3 Encoder. Click OK, and Convert Selection to MP3 becomes available in the Advanced menu.
3. iTunes converts your song to an MP3 file and stores it in your iTunes music folder.

Email Your MP3 or Post It on the Internet

iTunes saves songs in its own folder, called “iTunes Music.”

To navigate to the iTunes Music folder in Windows:

1. Click the onscreen START button.
2. From the Start menu, select Documents.
3. From the Documents submenu, select My Documents.
4. In the My Documents folder, double-click My Music.
5. In the My Music folder, double-click iTunes.
6. In the iTunes folder, double-click iTunes Music.

To navigate to the iTunes Music folder in Mac OS X:

1. Click on the desktop, and then select Home from the Go menu.
2. Double-click the Music folder.
3. Double-click the iTunes folder.
4. Double-click the iTunes Music folder.

Once you’ve opened the iTunes Music folder, you’ll find folders of all your music, grouped by Artist.

If you named your BR song and typed in an Artist Name when you first added it to your playlist, it should be pretty easy to find. If you forgot to name it, you can find it in the Unknown Artist folder.

Once you’ve located your MP3, you can copy it, and put the copy wherever you’d like. Or simply make note of the file’s location for when you want to include it as an attachment in an email or upload it to a webpage.

The End

We hope you’ve found this BR-600 workshop helpful. Keep an eye out for other Workshop booklets available for downloading at www.BossUS.com and www.RolandUS.com.