Author Topic: Digital Home Recording for Dummies (Read 123 times)

jack · « **on:** January 04, 2007, 02:56:57 PM »

Last night I got into a fight with my Tascam 8-track cassette recorder, and she's leaving me for good. And good riddance. I'm ready to go digital (I know, light years in time ahead of my time, right?).

I have no home computer; and don't want one. I want a small, portable digital recorder. One where I can pretty much plug in and play, and then write to CD right there. The CD burner can be integral, or purchases separately- I basically just want to be able to scratch down basic ideas, couple tracks, bring 'em to work on CD and email 'em to people. So I don't need a lot of memory, and I don't need a lot of built in effects or other bells and whistles.

Having said all that, I'd like something that isn't so limited that I couldn't build on it later.

I would love to hear some suggestions. Maybe if someone could just point me to a couple good sites for research that would be a big help. I've looked around a bit, and seen some Korgs (D1600), Rolands and Bosses that are nice, but pricey. One unit that looks simple is the Tascam DP-01FX/CD. But 500 bucks and I can still only record 2 channels at one time? Is that right?

My friend says when buying anything, there's Good, Cheap and Quick. You can only get two of the three.

Anyway, I'd love to hear some suggestions, info.

Many thanks,
Jack

alembic_doctor · « **Reply #1 on:** January 04, 2007, 03:07:01 PM »

In my MI days, only a three years ago, BOSS / Roland Had the best bang for the buck. Soundeds Better, Better convertors, Way better effects, easy to learn and use quickly.

My $0.02

inthelows · « **Reply #2 on:** January 04, 2007, 05:41:11 PM »

Is this something like what you have in mind?
NLP
tascam digital CD
Zoom
There are many out there depends on what you want to spend. This will link you to ebays and you can search for yourself.
Happy hunting..
Boss
You may also want to look at how much memory is available, just in case that next rock/classical/blues/jazz/fusion masterpiece you have in your mind is a little longer than you anticipated!

(Message edited by inthelows on January 04, 2007)

bsee · « **Reply #3 on:** January 04, 2007, 06:14:50 PM »

I have the current Yamaha 1600 ($1K) unit. It is excellent and reasonably priced, but not quick. There was a Korg unit, the D-888 ($700), that I might have purchased if it were out at the time. Each of these gets you 8 track simultaneous recording and several virtual tracks per track. The Yamaha does allow 16 total tracks, though.

If I wanted portable and only four simultaneous tracks, I would have gone with the Fostex MR-8HD ($400). This unit has been reported to allow some HD noise to get into the recording if you aren't very careful.

The Boss was the best in easy-to-use. I wish they had offered their BR-900 with a hard disk, I would have gone for that. I still would if I were tracking songs instead of trying to record entire rehearsals and live shows. The BR-1600 with the HD has done too good a job of holding the price, especially for three year old technology, at $1300.

foth · « **Reply #4 on:** January 05, 2007, 02:03:28 AM »

I love my Boss BR-1600CD. It's really easy to use. I record rehearsals with two Rode K2's set to almost omni, then pull the songs onto the cd, make copies with itunes, and hand them out the next day. It's a great learning tool.

paulman · « **Reply #5 on:** January 08, 2007, 08:52:30 AM »

I'll also say I love my Boss BR-532.

I am planning on upgrading soon to the large console, 16 simultaneous input Roland 2480 CD. The killer factor on this one is you can set the faders and save to a scene, meaning the settings for all the fader channels can be recalled instantly. This makes having to move around or do other projects a snap.

The other selling point for me is this unit has a built in VGA out for a large monitor (no looking at the dinky screen on the console) and a built in mouse input.

I'll never get rid of my 532 though, it runs on batteries and is perfect to record a rehearsal provided you have a few Smartmedia cards.

Go to www.rolandus.com and browse.

After reading the Grateful Dead gear book, I really appreciate how far all this technology has come for recording. They had build all this stuff themselves!!

jack · « **Reply #6 on:** January 22, 2007, 06:01:10 PM »

Hey all, just a quick note to thank everyone for their advice and opinions. I think I'm some savings away from getting what I really, but y'all gave me some good places to start looking. I might have to bump this thread in a few weeks with some questions, but in the meanwhile, thanks.

-Jack