This document explains what is the purpose of Boss / Roland's BR to WAV utility, how to obtain it, how to set it up on a Windows based machine, and how to use it to convert (export) the proprietary BR data files used by Boss / Roland's BR series of recorders to standard WAV files.
The BR to WAV utility is a software utility provided by BOSS / Roland for the conversion of files from their proprietary BR format to a standard .wav (Windows) or .aif (Apple) file. Once the BR files have been converted to WAV files, they can be further processed (e.g. normalization), converted (e.g. to mp3 format) or burned to CD using various other third-party tools.
It can also be used to import wav files from standard WAV files to their proprietary BR format. However, this document will only outline the export process.
The BR to WAV utility can be downloaded from the following location on the Roland U.S. website. At the time of this writing, the utility is at version 2.0:
Roland U.S. - BR Wave Converter 2.0: Wave Converter Software
After agreeing to the EULA, you will be able to download a .zip file (BRWC200.zip) which can be opened using any file decompression utility such as WinZip, WinRAR, 7-Zip, IZArc, etc. The .zip file contains a single executable BRWC.exe. Save this in a folder on your local hard drive (e.g. C:\Program Files\Roland\BRToWAV\2.0\). To make access to the executable easier, you may want to create a shortcut to the utility on your desktop, the start menu or both.
From Windows Explorer either (1) double-click on the executable, (2) double click on the desktop shortcut (if you created one) or (3) click on the shortcut in the start menu (if you created one) to launch the BR to WAV utility. You will be presented with the following starting screen:
In the box in the upper left titled "Song Select" click on the pull down box labeled "Drive" to select the drive letter associated with the BR series recorder (if you do not have the BR series recorder connected but instead have files already on your hard drive that you want to convert you can work around this with the instructions I will provide below). Once you have selected the drive, the pull down box below it labeled Song will be activated to allow you to select the song you wish to work with. In the screenshot below, I have selected G: as the Drive and SONG0000 as the Song to work with:
Once a drive and song have been selected, the grid in the right-hand portion of the utility will start showing green squares indicating that song information is present. Columns in the grid represent tracks, rows in the grid represent V-Tracks (virtual tracks). In the screenshot above, song information is present in T1V1 (Track 1, V-Track 1), T2V1, T78V7 and T78V8.
Once the song has been loaded into the BR to WAV utility, use your mouse and click on the track or tracks that you wish to export to a WAV file. The track or tracks will turn orange in the grid once they have been selected. If you wish to export a stereo pair, make sure the "L/R" button at the bottom of the stereo pair is green to indicate that they are linked. There is also a "ALL" button in the lower left (inside the group box labeled "Function Select") that can be used to select all tracks that have song information on them. In the screenshot below, I have selected T78V8 (stereo linked) as the tracks to export to a WAV file:
Once you have selected the track or tracks that you wish to export, hit the "Go" button in the lower left portion of the utility to start the export process. You will be shown a "Save As" dialog where you can specify where you want the exported WAV file(s) will be created, the base name of the WAV file(s) that will be created and the format you wish to use (In the pull down menu below the box where the file name is entered, you can choose to either export as "Windows RIFF Wave(*.wav)" or "Apple AIFF Wave(*.aif)"; choose the format you want). In the example below, I entered SONG0000 as the base name and had it save the created files inside the My Music folder as a Windows RIFF Wave file:
Once you have everything set correctly, hit the "Save" button to start the export process. A progress dialog will appear indicating that the file or files are being created. Once it is done, you should have a WAV file (or several WAV files) with the filename <base name>_<track number>_<v-track number>.wav e.g. for the example I am using, since I set SONG0000 as the base name and exported tracks 7 and 8, v-track 8, the output file produced inside the My Music folder was named SONG0000_0708_08.wav.
Once you are done creating the WAV files, hit the "Exit" button in the lower right to close the utility.
One shortcoming I encountered with the BR to WAV utility was that it expects to work directly with the memory card with the BR series recorder running in USB mode. Since I prefer to always keep backups of all my data and would rather have it work on a copy of the data on my local hard drive rather than directly with the memory card in the recorder, I wanted to find a way to make it work off of a folder on my local hard drive.
First, copy the entire contents of the memory card to a folder on the local hard drive. The memory card has a \ROLAND folder which should be copied in its entirety. For example, I have a backup folder which I named D:\Backups\BR-600. After copying contents of the memory card I had a D:\Backups\BR-600\ROLAND folder on my local hard drive which had a copy of all the information contained on the memory card.
Next, using a command prompt (under the Start menu go to Programs | Accessories | Command Prompt or under the Start menu choose "Run...", enter cmd.exe and hit the "OK" button), enter the command subst <drive letter> <path to local backup> to assign a drive letter to the specified backup folder. For example, the path to my local backup is D:\Backups\BR-600 and I wanted to use the G: drive so I entered subst G: D:\Backups\BR-600:
Once a drive letter has been assigned to the folder, use the BR to WAV converter utility as normal, using the drive letter assigned earlier (e.g. G:) as the source drive for the export.
Once you are done with the utility and have exited, to remove the drive letter assignment use the command subst /D <drive letter>. For example, since I was using G: as the assigned drive letter I used subst /D G: to remove it when I was done:
The BR to WAV utility is created, published and owned by BOSS / Roland. I am not associated with either BOSS or Roland, except as a consumer of their products. This documentation is provided for informational purposes only, so that other users of BR series recorders can hopefully better take advantage of this useful but little known utility created by BOSS / Roland. This document was created using song information created by me on a BOSS BR-600 Digital Studio. While reasonable effort has been made by me to ensure accuracy, mistakes can still occur. I will not assume any liability for data loss or damage that may occur from following the instructions presented here. It is generally recommended that users always back up all of their data before making changes.
Author: Leonides T. Saguisag, Jr.
Last updated: 2007-04-19
This document copyright © 2007 Leonides T. Saguisag, Jr.