basic recording question(s): fostex dmt-8vl

[pengpengzackzac]

we can borrow a friend's fostex dmt-8vl to record a few songs. i know next to nothing about recording, and am really unfamiliar with the terms of all of this..

first off, has anyone used this thing? is it good? our choices are either this, or our roommate's tascam analog 4-track. we think that recording the drums with 3 or so mics, plus bass and guitar will cause us to have to mix down those tracks, which we have had bad experiences with in previous bands, regarding sound quality. so better go with the 8-track?

i googled the fostex and found this post. it says that it can only record two tracks at a time, and something about them being assigned to groups. so can it record two TRACKS at a time, or two GROUPS? someone on that msg board mentions recording guitar and drums at a time.. but that seems to not be possible, if you want to record the drums with more than one mic?

also, condensator mics for the drums? in my previous bands, we always used them and i thought they were absolutely necessary. now, our drummer recorded drums in an old band with regular mics, and it sounds fine.

anyone want to give me a basic run through recording with either of these things? the quality doesn't have to real good, just for a demo tape.

 

[Russtopher]

My old band used one of those to record a demo CD. It's not a bad unit by any means, but it's severely limited when you look at what's out there now, for the same or less cash.

That being said.... no you can only record 2 tracks at a time. You can assign the other tracks to record to tracks 1 or 2, but that's it. I actually used an 8 channel mixer to mic my drums, then assigned the outs to tracks 1&2 on the Fostex to record. Then we added the other instrument tracks 1 at a time.

If you want to use condensor mics, you'll need another mixing board or pre-amps as the Fostex doesn't offer phantom power, or even XLR inputs. The first two tracks have switchable input levels to compensate for mic and input quality, but that's it.

You can definitely get a good sounding demo with that unit, but the drums might be a PITA to get recorded, and you'll have less eq and mixing options than you might like. So play around with the mics and levels and EQ before you record. I remember playing around with things before finding a quality of sound I was OK with.

Good luck!

 

[Micter]

I had the first version DMT8 it was a good unit 10 years ago. By today's standards it is very limited. The DMT8 had 4 tracks of recording and I think the DMT8VL only has 2. I did link mine to a PC running Cakewalk pro audio and got a lot of use out if it but when it was all said and done going with a computer based system is way more user friendly and gives a lot more options.

As far as the functionality of two track recording live drums you will need to mic everything with a mixer and record a stereo feed from there. That is the only way I can see gettin decent drums with 2 tracks.