Home recorders, I need your opinions

[dave9199]

I've got a Tascam 424 4 track. It works great & am very happy with it, but I'd like to have 8 tracks of space. I looked at the Tascam 488 8 track, but the only thing that bugs me about it is it only has 4 XLR inputs meaning I could only record 4 tracks at a time. My 4 track also has 4. What I want to do is be able to have 5 or 6 tracks recording at the same time so here's my question:

What would be best:

Get a Tascam 488 8 track?

or

Get another Tascam 424 and hook then up together so I can have up to 8 tracks recording at once? (And is this even possible?)

I'm not too knowledgable on recording lingo so please dumb it down a bit. Thanks.

[Jim Alfredson]

Putting 8 tracks on a single cassette never seemed like a good idea to me. I used to have a Fostex four track, so I'm aware of the limitations.

I don't think it's possible to link two 424's together. Also, after a bit of reading, it seems you can only record 4 tracks at once on the 488, so that won't solve your problems.

If you really need to do six tracks at once, you're probably going to spend a bit more money than you want. Unfortunately, the price between 4 and 8 tracks is kinda steep. In fact, you're best bet, if you want to stay analog and not go digital is something like this. Of course, that probably doesn't have any mic inputs, so you'd need to get some sort of 8 channel preamp.

Like I said, it starts getting expensive.

If you want to go digital and have the computer that can handle it, I highly recommend the Presonus Firepod. I'm using one with my laptop and I love it. You'll need a separate harddrive to record audio to (best bet, a firewire external harddrive) but it comes with Cubase LE so you have your recording program right there. It has 8 mic preamps built in which are very clean. And yes, you can record all 8, plus the 2 digital inputs at once.

But like I said, you need a relatively good computer with firewire to run it. I'm using a laptop with a dual-boot configuration (one boot partition is for normal, everyday computer stuff like websurfing, and the other is a stripped-down install of Windows used only for audio recording).

[AllenLowe]

there are quite a few stand alone digital 8 tracks now available on the market. One of these plus a good condenser microphone will take you way past cassette - check with Sweetwater Sound - good prices, easy to deal with, and good on returns -

[Jim Alfredson]

The problem with the less expensive 8 track digital/mixer combos (the ones that replace cassette-based porta-studios and such) is that most of them can only record 2 tracks at once. If you want something that records 8 at once, it usually is just a standalone recorder with no mixer, no mic inputs, etc until you start getting into the $1k range.

I had an Akai DPS16 for awhile that was nice and could record up to 10 tracks at once, but it only had 2 mic inputs, so I had to use an external mic preamp with it.

Before I got the Presonus Firepod, I was using a stand-alone Fostex D160, which can do 16 tracks at once, but again no mixer, no mic inputs. I paired that with two 8 channel mic preamps, but to mix I dumped everything into my desktop running Cubase SX (now replaced by my laptop).

The folks at Sweetwater are nice. It might be worth calling them and telling them what you want to do and what your budget is.

[GregN]

Roland 1680s have a bit of a learning curve, but they are essentially stand alone, and one can score one on ebay for around 400-500 bucks. If you get particular and wish to by pass the weak preamps and converters you can later upgrade to a outboard preamp with digital outs. But for writing, recording, editing, I think it is cool. I have one and use it often.

Allen and Jim have both made some really good suggestions as well. Good Luck.

[AllenLowe]

oe thing that I have noticed with these digital multi-trackers is that, even though they have built in mixer/pre-amps, they sound MUCH better with even the simplest of external pre-amps -

[dave9199]

Thanks for the input everyone. What I'm recording is a garage band really with myself on drums so it's just guitar, bass, drums playing at once. I have a mic on each which give me enough seperation where I can fiddle with the EQ on each. The spillage is not a concern really. I would've liked to put at least 2 mics on the drums. Anyway, one track is left for vocals & guitar leads. We just experimentaed with it last night and it's being used for a demo for shows really, but I'm thinking we will eventually record an album this way. Were happy with the sound, I'm just trying to think of a way to free up another track without bouncing since the volume drop is too much for our liking. I'm now thinking maybe the band should record onto 2 tracks instead.

[GregN]

oe thing that I have noticed with these digital multi-trackers is that, even though they have built in mixer/pre-amps, they sound MUCH better with even the simplest of external pre-amps -

I agree

[Jim Alfredson]

Thanks for the input everyone. What I'm recording is a garage band really with myself on drums so it's just guitar, bass, drums playing at once. I have a mic on each which give me enough seperation where I can fiddle with the EQ on each. The spillage is not a concern really. I would've liked to put at least 2 mics on the drums. Anyway, one track is left for vocals & guitar leads. We just experimentaed with it last night and it's being used for a demo for shows really, but I'm thinking we will eventually record an album this way. Were happy with the sound, I'm just trying to think of a way to free up another track without bouncing since the volume drop is too much for our liking. I'm now thinking maybe the band should record onto 2 tracks instead.

Well, one thing to do is buy an inexpensive outboard mixer (yamaha makes some nice ones) with at least two mic preamps and do a submix of the drums on it. In other words, mic up the drums with two or more mics, mix them together on the outboard mixer to a mono output, and then record that with the 4-track on one track.

[dave9199]

Ooh, thanks Jim. I'll troll around the internet & see what's there.

[Alexander Hawkins]

Does anybody have any opinions on the Tascam 2488 Portastudio? Is it a good thing for a beginner? I'm on a budget, but really (don't we all ?) want to do the best I can for my money (need some mics as well; so any recommendations for a stereo pair gratefully received as well!)...

[Alexander Hawkins]

OK...can I now ask a really stupid question ?

Are there any ramifications to the fact that lots of these hard disc recorders only seem to have two XLR inputs? Why is that?

p.s. am now looking - alargely because of price - more in the direction of the Fostex VF160EX rather than the Tascam 2488...does anyone have any opinions on this?

Thanks as always!

[Chalupa]

oe thing that I have noticed with these digital multi-trackers is that, even though they have built in mixer/pre-amps, they sound MUCH better with even the simplest of external pre-amps -

I agree

Ditto that