questions about buying a product

[assflip@aol.com]

I want to buy a product thats good and thats in my price range $850. I was looking at the Boss 1180, Tascam 788, and Fostex VF160. The thing that pisses me off is that the Boss and tascam both have small amount of inputs where the Fostex does it has 8. If I want to record drum tracks how is it possible to record with 2 inputs if you need 4-5 drum mics? Is there an extention for extra inputs? I remember seeing a small box with lots of mic inputs when i recorded at a studio once. The Fostex VF160 has 8 inputs 16 track recording and no virtual tracks? It records at 16 bits where that is a lower quality compaired to other recorders that record at 24 bits. From what i heard is that music gets transfered to 16 bit cd quality anyway so why would it matter what you record at? These are all questions id like for someone to translate to English hehe. Im open to other brands not specifically the Boss, Tascam and Fostex. Im looking for a good quality recorder where i can actually record drum tracks along with 2xguitar, bass, and vocal tracks. This is all Chinese to me if someone could actually type out specifications and what they mean itd be great but im sure things are pretty self explanitory as far as the higher the number the better the quality. What the hell is phantom power?

Thanx,
Greg

[bdbdbuck]

You've come to the right place to get Fostex advice. That little box you are referring to is a Mixer. You can buy one with just about as many inputs as you want. The Behringer line is priced on the lower end, and they go up up up! You could probably get away with a 12 channel without going into debt too far. Behringer 1204FX-Pro runs about $170. This one has on-board effects.

16 bit / 44.1 kHz is where you want to be.

Phantom power is a power supply for microphones (condenser) that need power, that don't have an on-board battery.

Think I got em all.

Good luck,
bd

ps buy the fostex.

[Axe4Yahweh]

To add to what bdbdbuck said, the VF-160 has 8 Virtual Tracks. The 788 was also on my shopping list when I bought the VF-160 as well as the Yamaha AW16G. I'm glad that I stayed away fromt the Yamaha cause it seems that there are alot of issues with it:
http://forum.aw16g.com/viewforum.php...3f2fbe9f5dee0c and the 788 just didn't have enough going for it for what I want to do. The Boss seems to be a waste of time and money for it's features.

CR ><>

[billisa]

I have the VF80... The 160 is also built like a tank. If it's as quiet as the VF80 (mechanically), then it's VERY quiet. This is a consideration if you can't get too far away from your machine when doing vocals. I found the TASCAM 788 very noisy on comparison. The 160 actually uses 20/24bit ADDA converters with at least 64X oversampling, so while this may not technically be a 24 bit recorder, it is using 24 bit technology in the process.

FOSTEX manuals are not well written, but their machines seem to be very well put together. A salesman (who didn't have one to sell) said that FOSTEX are known for using VERY high quality components all through the system, from faders on up. I know the factory installed Plextor brand drive (CDRW) is commonly used in the recording industry.

Have fun with whatever you get, it's all good stuff.