hard disk multitrack recorder

midiglitch · August 2013

My band want to do some live recordings and having looked at various options I've concluded that the cheapest and leasr time-pressured way will be for us to buy a multitrack recorder of some description.

We need 8 tracks simultaneously and there is plenty of good kit out there that will do it, but it got me thinking...

I'm not planning to mix the recording on the multitrack recorder as it is so much easier to do on the computer, so we will record in a location and then i will take the unit home and export the raw tracks to reaper.

This got me wondering - does anyone make a multitrack recorder which is designed exactly for this purpose? All it would need would be the input channel strips, a transport panel and some track faders so you could do a quick check/listen back before you pack up. There'd be no need for complicated routing options and effects, the unit could be kept small, simple, reasonably cheap and very portable.

octatonic · August 2013

I'd buy something like this used.

You could get a used Alesis HD24 for £300-400 which tracks up to 24 channels simultaneously and can be transferred to computer for mixing with a bit of effort. You would need some sort of mixing console or multi-channel preamp device of course- they can be had for as little as £150 (Behringer) or something quite comprehensive for £300-500.

There are a lot of high-end options new such as these: https://www.kmraudio.com/multitrack-recorders.php but you have quite a few options secondhand that ARE last gen tech but are still very good.

If buying new then something like this would be pretty good: https://www.kmraudio.com/tascam-dp-32.php

midiglitch · August 2013

i used to have a yamaha aw16g but sold it some time ago. i will pick up something similar from ebay - budgeting around £160 split between the four of us. i just won't be using the unit to mix on at all so was wondering if there was something out there that was designed with this in mind, or whether there might be a market for it now that ordinary pcs are more than powerful enough to mix on and so much easier to use than standalone recorders.

octatonic · August 2013

There definitely are standalone, barebones recorders but not for £150.

Something like this: https://www.kmraudio.com/joeco-blackbox-recorder-bbr1b-7804.php runs to £2700.

It is a pro product though- something you'd use at a stadium gig to recording everything for a live album.

In the prosumer market- not so much.

The application is so niche that most people just get by with laptops.

I have an 8 channel mobile recording rig that I run that is an Apogee Rosetta 800, some mic preamps and a Macbook Air.

There are cheap, prosumer digital workstations like this: http://www.dv247.com/studio-equipment/zoom-r16-digital-recorder-usb-audio-interface-and-daw-controller--64482 for not a lot of money.

It isn't just a standalone recorder though.

John_P · August 2013

I use the Alesis HD24 for exactly this. It uses IDE drives that slot into a caddy on the front, so I just swap them into an external usb/ide caddy and copy the files across ready for editing/mixing.
If you've got a suitable desk with direct channel outs (I've used the mixwizard and soundcraft fx16 as cheap but decent desks).

midiglitch · August 2013

the hd24 and the kmr thing are basically it, yep, but like you say they are pro products.

i was thinking more along the lines of the 'prosumer digital workstations' but designed to record only, as they usually contain preamps and phantom power on a couple of ins.

the zoom r16 will do nicely, and i'll be looking for one on ebay in the coming weeks.

cheers!

midiglitch · August 2013

actually, reading the sos review of the zoom r16, this is pretty much exactly what i want!

cheers again!

octatonic · August 2013

midiglitch said:

the hd24 and the kmr thing are basically it, yep, but like you say they are pro products.

i was thinking more along the lines of the 'prosumer digital workstations' but designed to record only, as they usually contain preamps and phantom power on a couple of ins.

the zoom r16 will do nicely, and i'll be looking for one on ebay in the coming weeks.

cheers!

I guess the issue is there isn't much of a market for them- I reckon KMR sell one or two a year of the high end models, compared to Protools DAW rigs on a daily basis.

Also in the prosumer products there isn't much to be saved by making a basic recorder.

Once you've built an entire recorder with faders and (basic) editing capabilities for £279, taking away the faders and such will save, at best, £30.

There is probably about £50-100 of hardware in them- most of the money is in the product R&D and then dealer margin and VAT.

Glad the Zoom does what you want- I've not used one myself but Zoom stuff is usually decently functional.

johnnyurq · September 2013

You can get a Korg D1600 for peanuts these days and it has a touchscreen for easy and smooth UI.

I could only get £180 for mine over a year ago and I see them regularly for around £100, in fact one is for sale on the Sound on Sound classifieds.

http://www.soundonsound.com/readersads/AdBrowse.php?Cat=9

It has FX and mastering tools if you need them but if using it as you mentioned you can export the raw WAV's you record to the CD Writer and use them on your PC, it has a hard disk and can be upgraded (with the newest firmware) to either a 180 GB or 250 GB drive. It comes with either a 20 GB or 40 GB from new.

Failing that the Tascam 2488 recorders seem to be going from between £150 to £250 dependent on age and model i.e. MKI or MKII.

trolley · September 2013

I've got an AW16G that I no longer use. My son recorded his band on it once & then exported the tracks as individual WAV files

midiglitch · September 2013

@trolley - I used to have an aw16g. Great unit! I'm sold on the zoom r16 for what we want to do because I think it is designed with that in mind and so things like transferring the track files to a pc should be very easy.

Having said that, money is always tight so if the price was right I'd happily use the yamaha. Did you have a figure in mind?