Multi-track recorders - which way to go?

[charlie]

Hello everybody,

I've been scratching my head trying to decide on which digital multi-track recorder is best for me. Basically, I want to make demo MP3's I can upload to our website and hand out to prospective customers. Since I dont have a lot of recording experience, I'm like a kid in a candy store...it all looks good to me. But, I'm sure there are units out there better suited for my needs than others. I've been looking at the Fostex stuff, and the Roland (Boss) stuff, and the Yamaha AW1600. I really like Yamaha gear. It sounds great. It's well built and not prone to failure. Been using a Yamaha QY700 for about 10 years, and it's never let me down...until just recently when the floppy drive died. But after 10 years, that's pretty good I think. Anyway, I was curious as to what my fellow musicians were using to make demos, recordings, etc. Who knows, I might tap into my creative writing side (if I have one..lol) and write some original stuff that I could be proud of. Any help in this area would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[rogerch]

charlie said:

Hello everybody,

I've been scratching my head trying to decide on which digital multi-track recorder is best for me. Basically, I want to make demo MP3's I can upload to our website and hand out to prospective customers. Since I dont have a lot of recording experience, I'm like a kid in a candy store...it all looks good to me. But, I'm sure there are units out there better suited for my needs than others. I've been looking at the Fostex stuff, and the Roland (Boss) stuff, and the Yamaha AW1600. I really like Yamaha gear. It sounds great. It's well built and not prone to failure. Been using a Yamaha QY700 for about 10 years, and it's never let me down...until just recently when the floppy drive died. But after 10 years, that's pretty good I think. Anyway, I was curious as to what my fellow musicians were using to make demos, recordings, etc. Who knows, I might tap into my creative writing side (if I have one..lol) and write some original stuff that I could be proud of. Any help in this area would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Charlie,

I have a Korg D888 that I like alot. It can save each track to a wave and then you can USB it to your computer. I usually set the mix, save the master RT & LT wave files and then open the 2 wave files up in sound forge and burn to disk.

Here is the specs on it if your interested.

www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?A_PROD_NO=D888

Roger

[charlie]

Wow! The D888 looks like an analog mixer from the 70's. Cool that you can run a live show and record at the same time, without interfering with one another. That is precisely what I want to do. By the way, what is sound forge? Is it like Powertracks Pro-Audio? One thing some of the other recorders offered was a CD burner. I had planned on using this capability to make a CD "on the spot" for the guest singers, and asking for a small donation of $5, basically to help out with gas expenses. What do you think of the Yamaha AW1600? Overpriced? Not intuitive? Or just plain..I dont like it? Thanks for the info. I'm gonna take a closer look at the D888 this evening when I return home from work.

Thanks!

Charlie

[rogerch]

charlie said:

Wow! The D888 looks like an analog mixer from the 70's. Cool that you can run a live show and record at the same time, without interfering with one another. That is precisely what I want to do. By the way, what is sound forge? Is it like Powertracks Pro-Audio? One thing some of the other recorders offered was a CD burner. I had planned on using this capability to make a CD "on the spot" for the guest singers, and asking for a small donation of $5, basically to help out with gas expenses. What do you think of the Yamaha AW1600? Overpriced? Not intuitive? Or just plain..I dont like it? Thanks for the info. I'm gonna take a closer look at the D888 this evening when I return home from work.

Thanks!

Charlie

Charlie,

Sound forge is a digital audio editor, What I really do is load each track into soundforge, right & left after the final mix down and then tweak it so to say. Soundforge accepts all the major VST plugin's so you could add compression, etc to your final cut if you like.

I don't use the Korg D888 for live uses, but it is capable. I bought it for my studio to actually use as a mixer. I used to have a Sony MD8 mini disk but my problems with it was if I recorded for a demo it was stuck on the disk, I would have to record it back into the PC to burn to disk and I would always have some noise entering in the mix (cheep sound card I guess). The Korg solved that for me.

I use a laptop on my Gig's so in theory I could burn from it if I wanted to do what your planning. But there are plenty of HD recorders that have CD burn capabilities, just stay away from the RCA rubbish. One of the things I like about the Korg is it has 8 XLR input's and XLR out. I have had noise entering too many times into what I do and frankly the XLR's with the separate ground is the cleanest way go.

Roger

[bri]

Hiya Charlie
I bet people on this forum are sick of me saying this, but before you spend any money AT ALL, why don't you have a look at the FREE Kristal Audio Engine (especially as you say you are fairly new to recording)? It's a 16 track stereo digital recording studio. You'll possibly need a preamp for your mic - if you have't got one - and that's about all you'll have to pay for.
Download that, have fun with it - there's a forum on there for when you get a bit lost. Download Audacity, also FREE - to convert your Wav files to MP3.
Download many FREE fx plugins to use with Kristal - although it has a few (not too bad ones) of its own. Just copy the dll of the fx into Kristal plugins.
There you go. If you already have a preamp, you're up and running for nowt at all. Can't say better than that.
I use Kristal for ALL my recording work and it works a treat for me.
All the best
Bri

[charlie]

Hey Bri,
Thanks for the info. Gonna take a look at the Free Kristal Audio Engine you mentioned. I really wasnt in the market for any recording software until I wanted to upload some demo MP3's to our website, and handout to prospects for booking. But now, I realize that there is so much more I can do in the recording environment. It's just that I have spent practically all my musical life performing and not recording, so it's a little scary.....Hey, but as long as it's free, what have I got to lose. I can educate myself about recording and not jump into something I know little about...and again..it's free.

Thanks!

Charlie

[rockabilly]

Hi Charlie

I know your dilemma and I tried a couple of options before settling for the Tascam 2488 Hardware solution. I am totally satisfied with it as it allows both Hardware editing, effects, MIDI player etc and saves to CDRW or via the USB to Master the mix of tracks on the computer. Plenty of hard as well as virtual tracks allow multiple takes etc etc. Here's a link www.tascam.com/Products/2488.html
rockabilly