I totally agree.....Now I'm computer based, it rocks...it is easy, and it is more flexible (I believe I also said that up there ^^) BUT...
If you read up there ^
I am by NO means a techie. I am just a composer/performer who would like the highest quality recordings available for my music .................................
.............................. Is it possible to get a truly great recording from a portable unit?
So this guy isnt asking what the 'best' route for recording is.....and I agree that PC based 'is' ultimately better than Workstation... (but then 'Mac' is better than PC so where do you stop?)....
BUT as this guy wants to simply record his stuff, and is a self proclaimed 'Non-Techie' my suggestion would be to buy a workstation, as these are much much simpler to simply 'plugin' and record..... If he was to go PC, it would take him 3 months to work all the shit out before he could record......
IN answer to his second question - 'Yes' it is possible to get truly great recording from a protable unit......strictly speaking, there should be NO difference in quality....however effects wise, you are more limited with a workstation...with a VS1680, you can only use 4 onboard effects at once.....(although you can plug in up to 4 external effects aswell)....this simply means that mixing is a little more challenging and you need to be sure that the quality of recording you start with is good, cus you cant modify it a great deal afterwards (but then isnt this simply 'good recording'???)
This track was entirely done on workstation prior to mastering:
I still say, for the purpose 'jwetzel' wants it for, a workstation makes more sense.......In a coupla years after he has been playing around with it, he may want to upgrade to PC, by which point he will have a much better understanding of 'recording' in general...