I have been using
a BOSS BR 1180CD for the last year or so, after having lots of latency problems with cubsae sl3 and steinbergs M14 interface.
There is no doubt whatsover that these digital recording multitrackers are amazing pieces of technology but they have lots of limitations over a pc based setup. Namely, the amount of tracks you have available.
I have my own soundclick webpage with 5 of my songs on there all recorded completly with the 1180cd, , once finished and mastered you just burn a cd, burn it to your pcs hardrive then convert it to mp3 then upload onto soundclick, , hey presto, , , you have a song on the internet !
However, once i got into it and started learning from my mistakes and improving each song as i went along i realised that the songs would have been so much better if i had more tracks to play with.
I would have liked to have doubled some of the vocals, , recorded individual drum sounds instead of poor repetative drum external machines recorded onto one track, , copying and panning guitar or synth tracks... .the list of tweeks and tricks to get a warmer, bigger sound are endless and unfortunatly not available on a non pc based setup.
I am in the process of building my own DAW now, as i have come to the end of my love affair with the Boss unit. It was fantastic whilst it lasted but the lack of tracks and poor preset mastering tools have now made me realise that i should go back to cubase and get back into the difficult learning curve that i gave up on last year.
For recording a basic four piece band using one track for each instrument, , tes, , they are fine, but if you are going to use any more than 8 or 10, even 12 tracks, then take the plunge and go for the pc based setup.
I know the BR1600 has a lot more tracks, but when i was looking to upgrade to one myself, i realised that you dont actually get 16 tracks. Some of the tracks are already dedicated to things like stereo drums,,down to 14 tracks already, mastering etc gets the available to record trackd down as well.
For some of my songs that used all 8 tracks on my 1180cd i would like to record them properly, , but i know for sure that to get them sounding just as i really like, i am looking at between 20 and 30 individual tracks. This amount of tracks is tiny compared to what a studio would use for a simple 4 piece band setup.
As fantastic as they are, no latency, , plug in and record,, very easy to use, easy to transfer to cd ( if you have the built in cd drive ), , , they are wonderful to work with and take up little space, , but unfortunatly as i have now discovered, , , very lacking if you have a true cision of what your songs should turn out like.
I would suggest going the DAW way, , , unless of course you want to learn the basics on a mutitracker first, then move over to a daw, just like i did, , ,however much i enjoyed my time with the multitracker, , with hindsight, i should have just gone the pc way straight from the off, , which is why i am starting off afresh and building my own daw.
My 1180cd is going on ebay next week, just so that i dont go back to it at the first sign of trouble with cubase, , this time i am going to see it through.
Hope this was of some help to you,
Best regards, kev