Digital 4 Track Recorders?

leftist writes "I'm looking for an entry level digital 4 or 8 track digital recorder to experiment with in the $500 range. Any product recommendations or warnings out there in the geek crowd? Something that uses mp2/mp3 natively a plus!" Krow: What, you wanted content with your story?

Comments

Re:Digital 4 Track Recorders

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, but as I mentioned above, don't forget Pro Tools Free.. turns your computer into a sweet little multitrack recorder. You can also get basic plugins for it like reverb ($50), etc.

Definitely avoid the special-purpose units though. Get a powerbook (or whatever) with a CD burner, an audio i/o module if you need it, and a small high-quality mixer (I have one of the tiny behringers).

Infinite possibilities.

Re:Acid?

[Hank Reardon]

As somebody who uses Acid a lot for creating music, I'd have to say that it's more of a production tool than a recording tool. Not to harp on Acid, but composition, rather than recording, is where it really shines.

Typically, when laying down tracks, you're recording a live artist, where something like Acid works really well with loop-based arrangement; the two functions are really hard to mix together and still have a usable interface.

Personally, I use Acid for most of my mix-down and rearrangements, as well as final post mix. I also use a simple USB-controlled 8-track mixer and Cubase to to my track layouts. In a pinch, since I'm the only person ever playing in my stuff, I'll use something like SoundForge and then go back and sync the tracks up manually with Acid.

I'd recommend something like Cubase ($150 to $500, depending on your local music stores) or the Digi-01 pack from the makers of Protools ($450 to $700, again depending on the music store.)

If you're looking for an all-in-one type solution, then the Digi-01 pack is probably the way to go. For the price, you get a very good quality professional (read: 96kbit, 24-bit sampling) four track (I think, it might be 8 tracks) with a variety of inputs. In addition, it comes with a Protools "lite" package of software that should be good for most of the home recording junkies out there.

Another package to consider, although it's not out yet, is FruityLoops4.0. Their new package has the sequencing, MIDI and, added in the 4.0 version, track recording capability from an ASIO source like the Digi-01 or Gina cards.

I use FruityLoops 3.56 currently and, while it's a great music creation tool, it's really lacking in the track recording arena. Hopefully, this month's release will remedy that. Perhaps I'll review it in my /. journal when it comes out at the end of this month.

Hope that helps!