Been awhile! Looking for standalone 8 mic pre recorder

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Seafroggys

Well-known member
Hey HR, for some reason I don't visit you guys anymore. I've just shifted my focus back to the musician aspect of my many hats, which I guess is the important thing here, right?

Anyway, I'm looking for a means of mobile recording. My Firestudio 26x26 still works great after 10 years, but its hooked up to a pretty permanent rig, so I want some flexibility as to where I can record. Really all I care about it a box that has 8 mic pres, a way of recording on it (either with an internal hard drive or onto SD cards). I don't care about onboard editing tools or mixing tools, I want to be able to just dump them into my DAW and do my mixing on my main studio PC.

Something like the Tascam DR 680 mkII would be perfect, but it doesn't have enough Mic Pres (and I see less expensive options). Something like the Zoom R16 looks promising, it has of course faders and I'm sure more stuff on it than I want, but it does have 8 pres and looks to be the best best bargain on the market.

How is the R16, and are there comparable products that match what I'm looking for?
 
The R16 might serve your purpose. I have one. It does have 8 mic inputs and pre's but only two of the inputs can use the on-board phantom power. The pre's on that unit aren't bad at all and there's a ton of flexibility and effects built in. It's extremely mobile too.
 
Thanks man! I'll probably end up getting that.

And man did this forum die or what? This subforum used to be one of the busiest, at least a new thread each day (if not multiple) and yet its been a week and only one other thread. There also seems to be a lot more subforums than there were several years ago. Did the forum just expand too much or is the userbase much smaller?
 
I have my opinion about what happened to this forum of late. I'll keep it to myself. I think it's in a sort of state of "rebirth" in some ways. We'll see. This is still my go-to spot on the web for home recording advice and i hope it's around for a long time.
 
I use a Korg D888 and it works great for what I need (recording drums). It has 8 individual XLR inputs, all with phantom power, and you can record all 8 channels simultaneously. However, it is now obsolete. Maybe you can find it on Ebay?
 
DKRecords said:
I use a Korg D888 and it works great for what I need (recording drums). It has 8 individual XLR inputs, all with phantom power, and you can record all 8 channels simultaneously. However, it is now obsolete. Maybe you can find it on Ebay?
Click to expand...

Ebay has them under $200 which looks good. But it seems it only does 16 bit, which is a bit meh for me.
 
Seafroggys, yes that's true. It does only record at 16 bit. 24 bit would be nicer to have for sure. Also, it doesn't have a lot of editing capabilities. Not sure how much editing you're planning to do on it. I just import the audio to Cubase for editing and mixing, so it wasn't an issue for me.
 
my older roland vs-1880 is a great machine...

24 bit digital...
18-track simultaneous playback, 8-track simultaneous recording with 288 Virtual Tracks....
2 optional VS8F-2 Effect Expansion Boards for up to 4 stereo/8 mono effects....

i made some excellent recordings with this machine.
 
GONZO-X said:
my older roland vs-1880 is a great machine...

24 bit digital...
18-track simultaneous playback, 8-track simultaneous recording with 288 Virtual Tracks....
2 optional VS8F-2 Effect Expansion Boards for up to 4 stereo/8 mono effects....

i made some excellent recordings with this machine.
Click to expand...

ebay has them for under $200. Not bad, good to know about this one too.
 
This Tascam will do what you want.

Tascam DP-24SD 24-Track Digital Portastudio | Musician's Friend

I've used one before, and they're really great ... very intuitive. And they record to smart media cards, which is very convenient and easy to transfer to your computer. They sell for $300 on ebay often.


I haven't used the ZOOM R16, so I can't comment on that.

However, I have used the Roland VS 1880. It's a nice machine, but the problem with that would be dumping your tracks to a computer. If I remember correctly, I don't think the 1880 comes with a built-in CD burner (the 1824 and the 2480 do), which means you'd need an external one, which is kind of a pain to procure. Also ... God love 'em ... they're powerful machines, but holy crap ... they're some of the most counter-intuitive things I've worked with. I'm not someone who minds reading manuals, so that was ok for me, but if you like something that's quick and easy to figure out, then IMHO, the Roland VS units are not it! :)

I haven't used the Korg either, but I'm guessing you may have a similar issue with dumping tracks. Those hard disc recorders were kind of designed to be fully standalone --- i.e., mixing included. The Korg may have a CD burner, but I'm not sure.
 
famous beagle said:
This Tascam will do what you want.

Tascam DP-24SD 24-Track Digital Portastudio | Musician's Friend

I've used one before, and they're really great ... very intuitive. And they record to smart media cards, which is very convenient and easy to transfer to your computer. They sell for $300 on ebay often.


I haven't used the ZOOM R16, so I can't comment on that.

However, I have used the Roland VS 1880. It's a nice machine, but the problem with that would be dumping your tracks to a computer. If I remember correctly, I don't think the 1880 comes with a built-in CD burner (the 1824 and the 2480 do), which means you'd need an external one, which is kind of a pain to procure. Also ... God love 'em ... they're powerful machines, but holy crap ... they're some of the most counter-intuitive things I've worked with. I'm not someone who minds reading manuals, so that was ok for me, but if you like something that's quick and easy to figure out, then IMHO, the Roland VS units are not it! :)

I haven't used the Korg either, but I'm guessing you may have a similar issue with dumping tracks. Those hard disc recorders were kind of designed to be fully standalone --- i.e., mixing included. The Korg may have a CD burner, but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

Awesome, good to know. Yeah, I want to use this *strictly* as a recording mechanism, all my mixing would actually be done on my main recording PC.
 
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