JoeCo BBR1B Quick Start Manual

BLACKBOX RECORDER
BBR1B - Quick Start Guide
IMPORTANT: BY USING THE BLACKBOX RECORDER YOU ARE AGREEING TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE AND
THE SOFTWARE LICENCE. PLEASE SEE www.joeco.co.uk/licence or the User Manual for more details
The BBR1 is designed to make live multi-track audio recordings to a USB2 disk drive. In a typical live installation, the
BBR1 will be plugged across the insert points or into the direct outs on an analogue console. The BBR1B unit has
balanced inputs and outputs on 25-way D-sub connectors wired to the TASCAM standard pin out. Each input on the
BBR1B is linked directly to its respective output using an analogue relay so that there is no induced delay through the
analogue to digital conversion process when wired to the front of house mixing console.

Basic Set-up

The three lower 25way D-sub connectors are the balanced inputs and conform to the TASCAM standard wiring (details
available in the visitor area of the JoeCo website); the three upper D-sub connectors are the balanced outputs and
conform to the same standard.
Plug a USB2 drive into the USB2 socket on the rear of the BBR. Note that the disk drive MUST be formatted to the FAT32
standard – this allows both Mac and PC workstations to use the recordings. The BBR1 can reformat the drive if required.
Plug the power adapter into the BBR1 and turn the power on.
As soon as the boot up sequence has finished and the BBR1 has found and logged the disk drive, you are ready to
record.

Controls and interfaces

Front Panel
The front panel of the BlackBox Recorder contains all the user controls for the unit. The buttons are all touch sensitive
which prevents them wearing out through constant use – just place the flat of your finger on the button to operate.
Control buttons
Transport Controls
Metering Area Data Wheel
Display
The left hand side of the unit contains the metering section. Each channel or track [1 through 24] has 3 rows of metering
LEDs [Green ( = signal present), Yellow ( = good signal level) and Red ( = getting a bit hot / over)] above the Track Arming
LEDs. The metering LEDs get brighter as the signal level gets louder and the Red LED can be set to stay on when an
overload occurs. The meters are positioned above a two colour LED that indicates whether the track is armed ready for
recording or not (Green for playback / record safe; Red for record ready). There are also indicators for Disk activity and
Playback Lockout which can prevent you from accidentally entering playback during the performance.
To the right of the JoeCo logo is the control or data wheel which has a number of functions that are explained in the
manual.
Then we have the main Transport controls [PLAY, STOP, RECORD] with the four other control buttons above [L-R: BACK,
MARK, LOOP, MENU]. Finally, at the right hand side of the front panel is the colour LCD display.
BLACKBOX RECORDER BBR1B - Quick Start Guide Page | 1