mr-8 and other ?s

[dulcimerbob]

Hi,
I am an acoustic blues/folk musician. Looking to record guitar, harp, vocal, slide . Don't need alot of tracks. I am considering an mr-8 as I have had no success with my low end computer based recording. I have some good mikes and time to mess around. Don't want a steep learning curve. I have an FD-4, can I use this as a mixer for the Mr-8 ? I have read a lot of posts on the 128 card that comes with the unit. How much recording time is there with this? Sorry for so many ?s . Don't have much money and want a stand alone unit with the ability to dump to a pc for CD burning . All advice appreciated.

[billisa]

I am not an MR8 owner, but there are lots of happy ones here who will soon show up.

The MR8 gives you full 16bit/44khz quality. It is the only one in its class that does. I believe that with 128mb you'll get about 3minutes using all 8 tracks...

[kesterdevine]

I'm a new owner of an MR-8.

I think the sound quality is excellent, and it is very easy to learn the basics. However, I personally find the storage issue in general to be a MAJOR PROBLEM. Unless you want to spend a lot of time transferring tracks to PC for mixing and back-up, I suggest you try another unit.

In the $300 price range it might be the best thing going. But, upgrading memory is pretty expensive and still very limited.

I know others are happy and have great systems set up using the MR-8 in conjunction with their PC's, I'm just feeling EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED with the added steps necessary just to move on to a different song.

Good luck with your decision.

[dave in toledo]

if you are not going to move the tracks to the computer for mixing, then you will need a bigger card, another $75.00 or so i think. Bit if you have pc recording soft ware, move tracks there and mix, really easy this way.

Personally i love this little machine

[realityflaw]

I agree with dave in toledo. I LOVE MY MR-8!!!!!!! It drove me nuts as far as the whole Compact Flash space issue. But Hey, we are the folks whose experiences will help all future MR-8 users. If you even spring for a 256MB card it at least doubles how much you can do recording wise. I surely don't miss all the hassles and noise of our old analog cassette tape recorder!

[pjh6467]

Another advantage to the MR8 is that it is extremely portable. With a burned copy of wav manager you can record anywhere that has a pc that's compatible, save tracks to disk, then bring home to mix down. The internal mic allows you to lay down that riff or melody that's in your head quickly and easily. Takes Batteries!!! So if you want to record the ocean waves, take it to the beach!!! I suggest dulcimerbob go to the thread in here on cf card upgrades and he will find a 256MB around or under $100.00. The quality you're getting and the versatility for a digital 8 track(up to 14 with internal bouncing) for $400.00 is well worth it. Tascam's digital 4 track only has a 32MB card and sells for $400.00. I think anybody whose been bouncing tracks on 4 track cassette for the past how many years without a large budget, like me, consider this thing a God send. The only thing Fostex dicks you on at initial purchase is the 128MB cf card. They should have just included the 256MB and jacked the price up a little. They're just sending business elsewhere for bigger cards. And any learning curve dulcimerbob has can be fixed by reading and asking questions in this forum. So, yes I admit it, I love the ''little red machine!!'' Good luck dulcimerbob! Happy New Year Everyone!! I propose a toast--''May we all sell at least one song this year!!'' ''Hear, Hear!!'' Should old aquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind...

[T1ny]

Got my MR8 about a month ago and so far have been pleased with the sound and quality of small songs. What I can't figure out is after using wavmanager to transfer the parts to the PC for mixing how do I make everything sync up? Each part is out of time with the rest?

[Monsterpop]

you and me both Tiny.
the only reason the one song ive done via MR8/PC-N Tracks DID sync up,,was that all the tracks were played all the way through and fitted cos of that.I am of course rather stupid,,,
which must have some bearing on it all.

[bsr2002]

Yes, I am another proud owner of the MR-8. Have upgraded to 512mb. I use a flash card reader to dump my tracks into my PC and then import the .wav files into Cakewalk.

[T1ny]

MP: I got the tracks lined up somehow in the demo version of N-track by just importing them, but in my older expensive Cubase no luck. I'm going to install n-tracks on my daw machine and see if it's a processor issue Intel laptop is what it worked with).

[Monsterpop]

Hi Tiny
well thats good news then mate huh?
i havent gotten around to the whole process of tracking on the wee red box and importing them.
that WILL be a challenge for my big head/wee brain!
i just bought a guitar synth so i will be tryin to get my bh/sb combination around that too!
ARRRRGGGGHHHH!

[dave in toledo]

you do have to record the track the length of the song for it to line up in n track or just hold down the ctrl key, and you can move the track into the proper place, if you zoom in and with a little practice its really pretty easy