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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?
I'll take one.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
That always seems to be the response to Ask Slashdot anyways, so I'll pre-suppose the question and provide a Google link: here
You have to figure out the story yourselves. It's not 4'33" by any chance?
Ladies, form queue here -->
Okay, as a /. editor you cop lotsa crap when you do a repost
You even cop crap for posting about every release of Mozilla/Phoenix/other OS darling
But did you really have to revert to denying the existence of the posted article by posting the textual equivalent of John Cage's patented 4:33?
(Is the title - pertaining to music creation - a reference to the aforementioned composition?)
Are you posing the ultimate philosophical yet slashdotical question:
"If a post has no text, does it get read?"
Cliff, I give you 11 out of 10 and salute your originality.
But don't let CowboyNeal repost it!
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
Hey, does this mean nothing can be considered off-topic? ;)
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
I can't wait for the double post. I simply have too much work and don't need to waste any more time reading actual stories.
There are 3 basic problems in using a Digital 4 Track Recorders to pull a dog sled in the Iditarod.
1) Current regulation prohibit non-canine devices from pulling the sled. However, a more liberal tone has been taken in recent years may allow this. Cats are supposed to considered for next year's race
2) Current power consumption is pretty high, the solar power banks required to power it would be prohibitive.
3) It may come as a surprise to you, but Digital 4 track recorders don't provide any locomotive capabilities. However, apparently some Japanese company is preparing to release in Q4 of 2003 a dual tread model, so keep the look out for that
Linux, of course!
/ Zo om/PR/MRS-4.html -- 450 bucks.
d ig ital_recorder.shtml -- 300 bucks
(sorry, had to be said)
http://namm.harmony-central.com/WNAMM02/Content
http://www.crmav.com/recording/81/pxr4_4_track_
That story must have been sent by Pioneer 10. Give it 12 hours or so, it's a long way out.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
In Case Of Slashdotting:
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Yes.
sig sig sputnik
Please, people, if you don't know what s/he's asking, keep your trap shut, m'kay? We're talking audio here, so signal-to-noise ratio counts, you see...
But, do you want to go the hardware or software recording route?
If you have a decent enough computer (G3 macs or PII upwards x86s will do the trick for about 16 tracks), you might consider getting a good soundcard.
I personally use a M-Audio Delta44, 4 inputs, 4 outputs, nothing more. Perfect for recording. They have nice break-out boxes, so you don't have to crouch behind your computer when plugging in your guitars, basses or mics, they work under Macs, PC's and have linux support via ALSA (yes, linux can do multitracking as well). When you need more tracks, you can just add more cards and get 8/8 or up to 16/16 in/out-system.
As for recording software, well... my delta came with a cut-down version of Logic Audio, which should be good enough for start. Most 'pro-sumer' soundcards come up with basic software, so you shouldn't need to cough up any more money for it in the beginning.
Other software: Cubase is nice, and there's nice 'lite'-versions for beginners (some soundcards come with this instead of logic). Cakewalk is quite popular as well.
If you just want audio recording (the aforementioned do MIDI as well), then there's Cool Edit Pro. For free, there's Audacity (audacity does Windows, Linux and Mac) which is proficient enough multitrack audio editor. SLab is a good linux multitrack recorder.
And mp3, well, you don't want to use mp3 for multitrack recording, but most modern software can import mp3-sounds, and output the result to mp3 (some of them [cool edit/audacity] can do ogg as well)
If you want a proper hardware recorder (which are nice, since you can take them to your rehersal space, summer cottage, ..., what have you), then there's plenty to choose from. Most of these are a couple of years old, so you can find them for reasonable prices used (or even new!)
Roland VS-8xx series, they're nice, compact, can do 4-track recording, and 8-track playback. Loads of features, and useful later on even if you grow out of this one. Earlier models had inbuilt harddrives, the later ones have ZIP-drives (if I remember correctly). If you can get one for cheap (and i think you should), then go for this one.
Korg D-8. A bit easier to operate, but quite useful nevertheless.
And i think Fostex had some as well, just keep your eyes open in the pawnshops.