Multitrack recorders

Penn

My four-track Tascam cassette sadly passed away last year.

Gone but not forgotten. Tascam, 2001-2025, may you rest in pieces. 

Anyway, anyone used one of these newfangled digital ones? Are they any good? What’s the deal with them? I saw this and it seemed cheap considering it’s only 130 quid more than the last one cost.  

https://www.andertons.co.uk/tascam-dp03sd-8-track-portastudio/

andy_k

I think a lot has changed from the tech we used with 4 track tapes, mainly the storage medium, and PC interface side of things.
I think I have the slightly older CD version of the one you linked, and I probably only really used it a couple of times.
If I recall, it also had a hard drive, and the CD was used to bounce out final recordings, the newer versions use an SD card for memory and storage, and they still came with fairly large paper manuals.
My most recent one, is the Tascam model 12, which also came with a huge manual, and is a couple of steps above the one you linked, cost around £500, but is a very versatile machine.
The more modern stuff usually also work as IO for a PC, giving multiple inputs for a DAW, and aslo can work as a control surface, because once you make the leap into DAW land, stand alone recorders become less attractive.
Zoom also make a few similar devices, and the R16, for around £200 was an amazing piece of kit-even worked off AA batteries for truly mobile recording.
The workflow will be a bit different, depending on what you want to do, either record and mix on the machine (limited, and probably closer to old 4 track ways ) or simply record and export into a DAW ( or record through straight into a DAW )
Really depends what direction / how seriously you want to get with it.
A lot of stuff around the same price points now, but you can't really go wrong with either Tascam or Zoom.

Penn

andy_k said:

I think a lot has changed from the tech we used with 4 track tapes, mainly the storage medium, and PC interface side of things.
I think I have the slightly older CD version of the one you linked, and I probably only really used it a couple of times.
If I recall, it also had a hard drive, and the CD was used to bounce out final recordings, the newer versions use an SD card for memory and storage, and they still came with fairly large paper manuals.
My most recent one, is the Tascam model 12, which also came with a huge manual, and is a couple of steps above the one you linked, cost around £500, but is a very versatile machine.
The more modern stuff usually also work as IO for a PC, giving multiple inputs for a DAW, and aslo can work as a control surface, because once you make the leap into DAW land, stand alone recorders become less attractive.
Zoom also make a few similar devices, and the R16, for around £200 was an amazing piece of kit-even worked off AA batteries for truly mobile recording.
The workflow will be a bit different, depending on what you want to do, either record and mix on the machine (limited, and probably closer to old 4 track ways ) or simply record and export into a DAW ( or record through straight into a DAW )
Really depends what direction / how seriously you want to get with it.
A lot of stuff around the same price points now, but you can't really go wrong with either Tascam or Zoom.

Thanks for the response. I really don’t understand all the DAW and stuff like that. 

I just want something that I can use to record stuff and mess around with. I only really play with my brother and that’s a couple of times a year.  Just having something easy to use with minimal setup is what I want. I also looked at this one:

https://www.andertons.co.uk/zoom-r12-recorder-interface-controller-sampler/

It’s blowing my mind how cheap these are. I feel like there must be a catch. 

andy_k

With most of these things, the catch is that you have to keep a copy of the manual close to hand, as the menu system can be very complicated.
Fine, if you spend a lot of time with it, but for anything more than basic recording there is a lot of menu diving to do.
Really, any recording you do has to be the best possible quality you can achieve, and be somewhat future proof.
Imagine you put your phone on record, and play a perfect take into the mic.
Now imagine you want to overdub that recording-how would you do that?
In my world, I would have to export the file into a DAW, which then I could build on.
With these type of recorders, they take it a step further-you record onto one track, and then you can use track 2 to overdub, and so on--just like an old 4 track tape.
Obviously, when you have recorded onto every track, things can be mixed for level, panned and eq'd to a basic level, then you usually can 'bounce' it all down to a stereo 'master mix', and then you are probably left with an MP3 file to listen to.
These modern mixers usually have a basic drum machine built in as well, so you will soon have to learn how to build up a backing track from loops to create a 'song'.
These things take time to understand, which often ruins any creative 'flow' you have going, so things can be slow progress.
All this effort needs to be future proof, so that in the future, when you have some good ideas and 'songs' built up, they can be taken from the common SD card storage, preferably in WAV format, and imported into a DAW where much mor complex editing and refinement can take place.
My DAW of choice is Reaper, it costs nothing to try, and there are tutorials available from a very basic stage which answer any questions you might have, really is amazing software.
See if you can find one of these, shouldn't be hard,

https://www.boss.info/uk/products/micro_br_br-80/

For simple recording, it is an excellent bit of kit, and the process of using it will be similar to everything I describe above. 
A good way to dip your toe in, before you decide how deep you want to get.

andy_k

A good read,
https://adamharkus.com/should-i-buy-a-boss-micro-br-80-digital-recorder/

vasselmeyer

The Zoom LiveTrak units are pretty decent for the money. We've used our L-12 for live gigs and recordings. TBH, if you're doing recordings you're probably better off looking at something on a PC because the user experience is just SO much better than a dedicated piece of hardware. The Zoom units pop up as an audio interface in WIndos/Macs/Linus etc so you could try it out like that with a free piece of multitrack editing software like Audacity. If you like what you see, look at a DAW like Reaper which is free for 60 days and pretty cheap after that (in fact you can use it forever without paying if you feel like you don't want to).

Stratavarious

If you looking at hardware only music notepad experience, I’d go for as simple a one as posible,  arm, play record, set levels, export mix.  Like the older tape models. I loved my Fostex X15 back in the day.

Any editing is usually best left to something with a big screen and mouse.  I had a Tascam 32 and it sounded amazing and if used in a simple way was easy to capture ideas, but it tempted more editing with all the features and then it got too complicated.

The Tascam Model 12 etc. tempts for the old school vibe and simple multitracking/live gig recording.. I’ve gone all A&H though now and just mix on a DAW later.

Jfingers

I've had some digital Fostex thing for years that has barely been out of it's box. If you can find a Yamaha MT4x and some suitable cassettes I highly recommend it. Still got mine and you can't have it so ner. RIP to your Tascam.

gretschthumper

The Tascam DP03sd is a good thing - I use one connected to a pedalboard for monitoring via headphones, with the advantage of recording ideas as well (built in mics for vocal too, or you can plug a better mic in, even phantom powered) ... it only records 2 tracks at a time (like most old cassette multitrackers) but you have 8 tracks and it does have a reverb knob on each channel, which is surprisingly handy. Tascam always seem to have really nice convertors in them too - really like the sound, unlike Zoom and others ...

There's lots of menu diving stuff for mixdown/editing/mastering, but I don't use all that ... just record ideas, then transfer to Logic if there's something really good (occasionally there is )

They're old tech now (especially the screen), but if you can get one for a good price I'd recommend it.

trolley

I've still got the Yamaha AW16-G - boxed & complete. Make me an offer?

https://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/126114/stuff-for-sale-updated/p1