Best All in one digital recorder for the money?

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Huaxtec

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Out of all the digital (8-track or 16 Track) multitrack recorders out there .. which would you all say is the best for the money? I want to record basic instruments ..drums, guitar, bass and vocals and need some help on which recorder to get. I have a budget of 1000-1500 dollars. Thanks! :)
 
roland 8-track vs-890HD is pretty good..my friends got one and he loves it. I think its about 1500. or if you want a few extra tracks get the akai DPS12i 12-track(1,200??) dont get korg though...i've heard bad things about them and you can't record more than 4 tracks at once... which makes recording drums harder. you could use two overheads and mic the kick and snare but I'd rather have 8 tracks of drums personally. All you have to do is bounce. And the Korg effects are kind of cheesy too. But you watch, I'm sure someone here is going to tell me off about how great their Korg is! anyway, i would say most 16-tracks are out of your range. Fostex makes one but I dont know if its any good. I was in your situation awhile back and I decided to go the PC route...right now I'm getting Unlimited tracking and 8-track simultaneous. Just had to throw that in there. Hope this was helpful.
 
Leon

Don't worry Bluelonestar, I'm not gonna go on about how much better Korg's effects are than Rolands. Everyone already knows that :rolleyes: :D :rolleyes:
Actually, my music partner, has the Roland (840??) and he's very happy with it. I'm, on the other hand, using twin Korg D8's, and I like the way they handle. I guess it's just a preference, over one make or another.The only problem I personally found with the Roland. I had the 880 for 3 days, was trying to make sense out of the manual. I gave up, that's when I opted for the Korg, but like I said, I've heard product from the Roland V series units, and it's great quality. Roland owner's will swear by their equipment, Korg owner's will swear by their's and so on, and so on, and so on....
:rolleyes: Huaxtec...Good Luck with whatever you choose...just make sure it's right for YOU....that's what matters in the end.
http://sh-boom.freehomepage.com/index.html
 
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Thanks for the info guys .. I really appreciate it. I will have to look into both the ones you have mentioned. How does Akai (sp?) stack up to korgs and rolands?
 
I too am struggling with the same question, I am stuck between a Korg D1600 (which can record 8 tracks simultaneously, although 16 bit), and the Roland VS 1680. I am sort of leaning toward the Korg at this point but would appreciate any input. The roland can record "up to" 8 tracks simultaneously which Im taking to mean 16 bit also.
 
its not an all-in-one unit.
I try to stay clear of the little bastards. They look nice but are too limited.
 
I think your all missing the boat by not giving Akai DPS16 a look. I had a roland vs-880ex. Got rid of it and got the dps16. I won't ever look back. For less than 2 grand you can find deals on the dps16. Some you get the deck and a studio mic, one I saw, you get the deck and a burner. You can record 8 analog tracks and 2 digitals at once. The effects are great, there just isn't enough presets to pick from. Although the ones that are there can be edited and stored as user presets. Anyway, this machine is by far the best bang for the buck out there.
 
Boardman,

Thanks for the insight on the Akai ... I had heard some good things about these systems but dont know enough about them to make a good decision. I will definitely look into the model though. THanks again!
 
If it were me, I'd get a Roland VS-1880. You can get one off of eBay for about 1,500.

You will hear a lot of people down the Roland machines because of data compression. But it's really a non-issue.

To be honest it was a worry of mine when I was contemplating the same decision. I bought the 2480 and have noncompressed mode available, but I use the compressed mode. People that are using this machine professionally actually prefer the compressed mode.

Roland, IMO, are the ones that do the all-in-one DAW best. That is strictly based on research and talking to people who are knowledgeable about the different units, and those that are using the units in pro studios.

I can tell you they sound great. Apparantly the Grammy awards committee concurs withs this opinion too. The great bassist Victor Wooten's CD "Ying Yang" was recorded partially on the VS 1680. All of his bass tracks were recorded direct into the VS. The CD was mixed entirely on the VS machine. A grammy nominated CD done on a VS machine.

Others opinions will of course vary, but my vote gets the VS-1880. You could get one within your budget, and have 18 tracks to play with.

Taylor
 
Taylor

As I said before, I started out with a vs880ex. A nice machine. But when it got time to jump to 16 tracks I looked hard and long. There is not a deck out there new or old (in the past year) that's been able to beat the bang for the buck that the akai dps16 offers. For well over a grand less (for a new one, not ebay) you can't get the quality, ease of use, and overall value of the dps16. Akai is not new buy any means at the recording gig, roland on the other hand is better know for their keys. The biggest deal with Akai and the other companies is that Akai doesn't spend as much money advertiising. Sorry, it's Akai for me, at least for now.

Peace
 
Boardman,

As I said, other opinions will vary. The Akai machine would have been my second choice. I almost decided to wait for the DPS24, but decided on the 2480. I'm very happy with it.

I'm not quite following you on the price point though. From what I've seen the DPS16 is a little higher than the 1880. I just looked on zZounds and the Akai is $1,600 while the Roland is $1,500.

I also like the product support of the folks at Roland. It seems they are really serious about continued support and software upgrades. They just released the 2nd software upgrade for the 2480.

I do respect your opinion, I tried to talk to as many people as I could that had experience with different machines before I decided on my purchase.

Taylor
 
Taylor

You may be right on the basic price of the roland vs. akai., but the roland doesn't come with effects. You have to buy the board separte (300 bucks) and you have to use a roland burner at 500 bucks. The akai comes with effects and you can use a 200 buck burner that is just as good and faster than the roland. Sorry still Akai for me. Hey, roland isn't bad stuff, just too pricie for me. Enjoy you new deck.

Peace
 
Actually,

I think Roland is running specials where you get a free effects card with a purchase. Or buy one efx card and get another one free. I paid 300 dollars for my burner. I'm using a Plextor external with my unit. The Roland uses Plextor for the Proprietary unit, which is supposed to be the best burners you can get. It's what the people who are doing replication are generally using.

They were blowing out the Roland rack mount burners for less than 300 for a while. I don't know if they still are or not.

How many effects do you get standard with the Akai? Can you upgrade it for more effects? Or do you even need to?

Taylor
 
Taylor,

Okay, so roland has some deals. They all do right now. All looking for market share. Still Akai for me.
As far as effects. I can't remember how many presets came with it. Maybe 30 to 40. I just don't remember. I did complain to Akai about not having enough presets to pick from. I will give Roland that, they have plenty. Akai has been adding slowly on each update. The last major one (3.0) had the best so far. Mastering presets just like roland. Great tools and easy to use or not.

Mike

Peace
 
Mike,

I was more curious about how many channels you can insert an effect on at one time? With the Roland card you can have effects on 2 channels at once. You can install up to 4 cards for effects on 8 channels simultaniously with the 2480. I was curious as to what the Akai came stock with?
 
What about the Korg D1600?

What about the Korg D1600? Goes for about $1595 and looks like the best deal to me. Internal bay for CD burner (nice), effects, and even some built-in drum/percussion samples. Touch screen menu system looks easy to deal with. Like the Roland 1680, you can do a full 16 track internal mixdown to 2 virtual tracks where the Akai DPS 16 restricts internal mixdowns to no more than 14 tracks at a time.

Roland's CDX-1 looks interesting too but has a very clumsy arrangement using an internal CDRW drive as a hard disk of sorts. Could evolve to a very powerful recording tool some day.
 
digiboy,

I've never used the Korg machine. I've read reviews from people who tried it though. They say the touch screen is not as intuitive as you might think. One guy I talked to said he didn't like it at all. Others may like it, I'm just going by what I heard.

My suggestion, is if your interested in an all in one DAW, go with a company that allows you an evaluation period. The guy I was talking to didn't like the touch screen so he returned it and got a Roland.

A lot of companies allow an evaluation period. I got mine at Sweetwater, and they gave me 30 days to decide if I wanted to keep it. You can have a pretty good idea of what you want by doing research, then make sure with an evaluation period.

Anyone interested in a machine, should get all the input they can, and then decide independantly what is best for them. What works for me is not what's best for boardman. What works for boardman isn't necesarrily what's right for me. All these machines will record music.

I really like the looks of the Akai DPS24, but I decided that I wanted to go with the Roland, after talking to people familiar with both formats. I could have probably been happy with the Akai, but I went with the Roland and have no regrets.

Taylor
 
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