Need Advice on a decent Digital Recorder

[6stringslinger]

Looking to spend around $400-$550 on a decent digital recorder. Just for demo type quality.

I play guitar and bass, mostly metal music. I am looking to get an 8 or possibly 16 track digital recorder. I am leaning towards a Zoom MRS-8, which cost around $350 .

I know there are many types such as Tascam,Yamaha,Boss,Roland,Fostex and Zoom.

If you have experience with any of these recorders , share your thoughts.

[KKKKKocaine]

Looking to spend around $400-$550 on a decent digital recorder. Just for demo type quality.

I play guitar and bass, mostly metal music. I am looking to get an 8 or possibly 16 track digital recorder. I am leaning towards a Zoom MRS-8, which cost around $350 .

I know there are many types such as Tascam,Yamaha,Boss,Roland,Fostex and Zoom.

If you have experience with any of these recorders , share your thoughts.


Would you be wanting to record drums as well and create something sellable?
Or would it be more of a musical notepad for jotting down bass and guitar ideas?

If it's the first, then ignore digital in this price range, for creating a full recording, digital 8 tracks like the MRS8 and the mr8 e.t.c. lack alot of the functional features you would find on cassette, for example, last week I compared some of the features of a Tascam 424 MKIII cassette 4 track with a Fostex MR8 digital, The Fostex MR8 didn't have enough inputs for a drumkit, it had no e.q. at all, few jack inputs, the features it had over the tascam 424 where things like the effects, a built in condenser mic and the flash card.

So if you are wanting to record a whole band well, then it's the Tascam 424 MKIII or something similar you want.

However for musical notepad work, or if you just want a drum machine and don't mind too much about e.q., then a digital 8 track will do you fine.

[the_uber_penguin]

I'm really stuck on a similar issue. I've looked around and narrowed what I want down to three things to record my band with:

Boss BR864 - Pros: Simultaneous recording on two tracks. Comes with flash card.
Cons: - Harder to use
Zoom MRS8 - Pros: Easiest to use. Excellent quality.
Cons: Doesn't come with flash card.
Tascam DP01 - Pros: 40GB hard drive on it. High quality recording.
Cons: Expensive.

Can anyone make any suggestions? Which is really easier to use? Is the Tascam worth the £45 extra? What's the main differences between the Zoom and Boss?

(The main use of the recorder is firstly to record my band, but also as a musical notepad. I want something digital so I can back it up onto my computer and create CD's.)

-Long Live

[NotForSale.co.za]

I was also in the exact same situation, so i got a BOSS BR-864. I record mainly metal and punk as well, and i think its perfect for this. The quality is excellent, tons of effects, includes a mastering tool kit, so you can mix all your tracks on the actual recorder, or you can export the tracks to ur pc, and mix them with another program.

One thing is though - it doesnt have Phantom power, so if you want to record vocals with a condensor mic, you'll have to get hold of a mixer which does have it. The mixer would also come in use for recording drums, if you can get hold of 4 mics, then you can get a good drum sound. and seeing that you play metal, you'll want a very heavy sounding guitar, so you may want to use 2 or 3 mics on the guitar amp, at different distances from the grill, so you'll need a mixer to connect all the mics into and record all the mics together onto one track on the BOSS recorder. I have a Yamaha MG10/2 mixer, which has 4 mic inputs and a couple stereo inputs, and thats enough, and it's fairly cheap.

The BOSS recorder has 8 tracks, and 64 virtual tracks, and with the flash card it comes with, you can record about 60mins of song, but you can buy larger flas cards to reocrd for longer.

[KKKKKocaine]

I'm really stuck on a similar issue. I've looked around and narrowed what I want down to three things to record my band with:

Boss BR864 - Pros: Simultaneous recording on two tracks. Comes with flash card.
Cons: - Harder to use
Zoom MRS8 - Pros: Easiest to use. Excellent quality.
Cons: Doesn't come with flash card.
Tascam DP01 - Pros: 40GB hard drive on it. High quality recording.
Cons: Expensive.

Can anyone make any suggestions? Which is really easier to use? Is the Tascam worth the £45 extra? What's the main differences between the Zoom and Boss?

(The main use of the recorder is firstly to record my band, but also as a musical notepad. I want something digital so I can back it up onto my computer and create CD's.)

-Long Live

Ok, people may be tired of me saying this.

But if you are recording a band, those above units are useless without an external mixer which will further increase your costs.
What are you really paying for? Well, basicly a fancy flash card, a built in condenser and pretty effects.
Between those three units there is 2 XLR inputs, and about 5 1/4 jack iputs.
Thats, over $1000 of equipment that collectively, has fewer inputs than a $300 cassette multitrack.
The MR8 has no e.q., the Boss has 'dedicated' e.q., and the Tascam has 2 band e.q., which basicly trangresses to; treble, and bass.
Fairly useless unless you want to giggle at how bassy you can make a vocalists voice.
If you want to record a band with 1 track per instrument, You'll need a Behringer UB1202 at least, which adds more money to your set up, and takes potential funds away from microphones, cables and preamps.
Sure, the $100 or so for the UB1202 isn't that much , but it's $100 you should not have had to pay out, If you are spending a few hundred dollars on something to record a band, it NEEDS a good array of XLR and jack inputs, at least 4 XLR for the drum mics. The effects are really not that useful if you can't get the tone you want in the first place because you lack a decent e.q. section.

Now just compare this with the models above.

4 balanced XLR inputs
6 1/4 jack inputs
2 1/4 stereo inputs
3 Band with para mid e.q.

What is the price tag on this mystery machine?
$299
http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-TAS-424MKIII--brand-265.html

Oh but it's cassette? That means it's noisy right?

Nope, that's only said by two types of people,
1. Those who have never used cassette multitracks
2. Those who have heard a badly set up recording of a bad band on a low end model.

The Tascam 424 MKIII, is more than capable of producing cd level recordings, and I can link you to one, You see, your recording quality on any medium will be dictated more by your technique and microphones than what you are recording onto, If you get a $1000 mic on a cassette 4 track, you can bet it's going to sound fantastic, if you get a $10 mic on a digital 8 track, no amount of flash cards and effects will change the fact that it was badly recorded in the first place.

I would urge you to purchase the Tascam 424 MKIII over the other models, without an external mixer the models you are looking at basicly equate to musical notepads, and expensive ones at that, wheras the Tascam 424 MKIII is a fully functional device designed for recording bands and being used for more than noting down bass and guitar riffs.
If you really need a box full of effects, get an effects unit for $100 or so dollars and hook it up to the tascam 424 MKIII, The digital models really are not worth it as a unit for recording an entire band.

If you require phantom power on the 424 MKIII, instead of spending $100 on a external mixer just to get the power and a basic functionality out of your unit, you can instead spend about $50 on a phantom power unit, or a preamp/DI with built in phantom power.

What about mp3's?
Well simply get a 2 RCA - 3.5MM jack cable, and hook the 3.5mm jack into the line in on your pc, with the 2 RCA connected to the line out of your tascam 424 MKIII and you can upload and record onto a program and finalise any recordings on that.

I hope this helped, So in short, The Tascam 424 MKIII is more functional by itself and is a bit cheaper on your pocket, whilst still capable of producing cd quality recordings. Remember, you'll need mics for your drum kit, and they don't come cheap, every bit of money you can avoid wasting is money well kept.