hey all,

i know some of you cats use hardware multitrackers....anyone using one that can record 4 or 8 tracks simultaneously?

i'm looking for more than just two-track recording at once, and a hardware box is interesting to me.

i've been looking at the zoom R16 and R24...anyone use these or something similar?

thots? crits? suggestions?

fanx dudes.

i owned a tascam dp 01fx. 8 tracks simultaneously. in the '90 i used an analog 4 tracks yamaha mt120 (wich i still have). the tascam is ok, it has also internal fx, usb out and midi out. you can plug external fx box on this model (not on the dp 01). that's why i bought it (i made that everytime with the yamaha analog one, so i continued this way with the tascam).

the only real negative critic i say is that you cannot bounce tracks without not recording all them (but this is a problem of almost all digital recorders); in other words, if you're bouncing tracks and listen to all of them simultaneously, you record everything. on analog recorders and on software you can do that easly: so i (re)moved to soundcard+pc...
other critic: it has only 2 ins: so no more than 2 machines/inst can be recorded simultaneously (but if you have a mixer the trouble is "solved" _but mixer means "more noise"...)

i just got a roland vs840 ex and it has 4 ins, mono trs and input 3 has an extra regular in(headphone hole) so i guess you can record into them both to track 3 which is 5 ins. its a pretty cool machine but im still figuring it out because i just wanna overdub track for teack and i always forget to change the recording bus so i end up recording all the tracks playing but thats just me fuckin up, its pretty simple. i havent moved up to bouncing and all that yet. but it does it all and has virtual tracks.
if you care about the zip drive whining like on the 808 then stay away. i read alot about people pissed about it but it aint that bad at all. i just imagine it as a powerful machine being turned on and breathing. like a laptop.
i had a tascam and it was just to regular and didnt do much else than record and bounce. but it was quick and easier than the roland machine. but alot of new machines dont come with bells and whistles, just recording boxes. so research alot and maybe even check out the older machines on ebay. i got my roland for like 100 bucks and its a gem, them newer machines going for like 2-3 hundred and do much less.
peece

totally cool. thanks for the feedback dudes.

i grew up on 4-tracks and shifted to pcs to get more multitracking. these days i'm missing just working on the lil box rather than the pc....it's pro'lly a mental block...just not feeling drawn to the computer and it is only stereo ins anyway, so yeah, gotta research the options.

thx. peace.

I use a Korg D1200mkII which can record 4 mono/2 stereo tracks simultaneously. I used to do a lot of overdubbing and bouncing down but now I have more gear and a decent mixer I usually record all the music on one stereo pair and all the effects on the other in one take. Then I record vox/guitars/sfx etc separately and mix everything down together. It's a bit fiddly to use and to be honest it took me a few years of use to get the most from it but I really love the sound I get from it now. It also has a CD writer which I find extremely useful. The machine feels a bit limited nowadays, but I find that I'm more creative when working with limitations. I've considered buying another and midi syncing them together because they're pretty cheap if you can find them, but I can live with only having one!

that's ^^ cool dumbroot - i hear you on both knowing yr limited machine inside and out AND on feeling like the limitations are actually aiding yr creativity. often too many options can just lead to no action at all, weirdly.

cool stuff.

Whatever floats your boat, but I hate those hardware multitracks. I'd rater use an ADAT(not dat, adat is multitrack). I personally use a cassette recorder when I want to get away from the computer. Again whatever floats your boat, just thought I'd chime in.

yeah, for sure Bridge. for years the pc floated my boat just fine. now i find that boat won't even leave the dock (ie: i don't even turn it on). i think i need to switch up the process a bit, and i'm in the middle of seeing exactly how to float my boat again.

boats. they float.

Boats can sink too..... I also heard there's plenty of fish in the sea too! Oh wait.. that's another story for another day

I will chime in with Bridge, using ADAT is pretty nice. I used one with a big Mackie 16 channel. The sound quality was great and being able to skip thru tracks was a bonus. When I first used it (back in 2001) I thought it was just like an advanced mini disc recorder in terms of sound and flexibility.

Right now I'm still happy running all my stuff through an 8 channel mixer and then going straight into the computer. A friend just got the vs880ex and loves it. He usually hates roland stuff, but he seems to enjoy it, considering he paid only $90 for it.

my experience with adat was in the paleolithic period, and it seemed like a pain in the ass. but maybe the technology has changed a lot since then...

actually, i may have been messing with dat, not adat.

Tried using a yamaha aw16g. Nice machine, but the screen is a bit too small and the editing can take a long time, setting cue points all the time.

The R24 (with monitor ofcourse) looks a lot better, but it seems to me you can't record more than 1 (mono) synth at the same time. Yeah, you can record 8 tracks at ones, but they are mic. inputs.

Hm....is that true about the mic inputs, or is it just that those channels take xlr inputs? Either way, the R24 does seem like a pretty good option (glad you mentioned the Yamaha too, though, cuz I've been curious about that one).