PRODUCT REVIEW
eband JS- 8
boSS
By MICHAEL RoSS
The Boss eBand looks like a miniature home
entertainment center, and it is—if your idea
of entertainment is practicing and jamming
along to a host of grooves in an array of
musical styles. Standing 7-15/16" high, its
control surface and generous LCD screen
are flanked by a pair of speakers, through
which you can hear 300 full backing-track
loops stored on the 1GB SD card that comes
installed. You can also plug in your own guitar
and hear it processed through an array of
amp and effect models. Many of the loops
offer the option of just bass and drums, or
you can play with one of the dozens of drum-only “rhythm” tracks. If simple time is your
bag, there is always the eBand’s metronome.
You can load a song of your own choosing,
either from a memory stick or directly from
your computer using the USB port. The eBand
accepts a variety of WAV files or MP3 files.
Playing along is as easy as plugging your guitar
into the input and adjusting the Guitar and
Master levels. Silent monitoring is also possible
with the mini-plug headphone jack next to
the input. The eBand’s Speed button instantly
drops the speed of any track to 75 percent
of the original. If that’s not enough to help
you figure out that shred lick, you can further
reduce the tempo by turning the large func-
tion knob, shifting to as little as half the initial
bpm. If you’re feeling frisky, you can also go 50
percent faster than the original. Boss provides
onboard COSM-modeled amps and a range of
effects from fuzz to flanger. You can add two
more effects—any one of 34 COSM guitar and
bass amps, and any one of the 44 effects ( 12
types) in the FX Group—to the always-available
delay, chorus, reverb, EQ, noise gate, and EZ
Character, which is essentially a mid cut and
boost, for a total of six at once. The effect
order is set, but the eBand does allow a fair
amount of parameter tweaking.
PREMIER GUITAR MARCH 2010 171
Plugging in
Rather than take you through every feature and
option, let me relate my eBand experience,
to give you an idea of its strengths and weaknesses. (spoiler alert: there aren’t many of the
