best recorder for about a grand?

[klip]

umm this is my very first thread and i kinda looked around but i couldnt really find anything here on recorders and im about to buy one.i dont want one thats too crappy but i can only afford something in the price range of say 800-1200 bucks.any suggestions.

 

[deepwater]

Yamaha AW16G. I do own and love. I would say its the best around 1k and easy to use. You can even use as a DAW controler. If you want to go complete PC/DAW I'd look at the Tascam FW1884 and FW1084

 

[jeffree]

Klip, I'm also a very satisfied Yamaha 16g owner, but I question your search methods. I've seen so many threads on this issue in the past year or two.
Try searching more carefully, and you'll find a lot of opinions here.

Best,

J.

 

[xstatic]

Are you looking for a recorder? Or an all in one unit? As far as recorders go, I would reccomend the Alesis HD24. It is slightly out of your range, but can be had for $1350 new. The only actualt recorder I can think of that fits your budget is a Fostex D2424LV. It runs about $1150 new and with the exception of a few things that I wish it did that it doesn't, has been a solid recorder for me now for almost 2 years.

 

[kragbax]

For a recorder (and just a recorder), I'll second the HD24. Got mine new several months ago for $1300. (Actually bought it from AMS after pricematching from a different store - I wanted the 5 payment plan AMS makes available.) To use it of course you'd already need to have (or have budgeted for) mic pre(s) mixer, etc.

I don't know much about them ( I had a Tascam 788 and 2488 ) but I'm sure you can pick up a decent stand alone 'all-in-one' for that amount as well. I've read good things on the Yamaha ones mentioned above - but no personal experience with them. Best of luck!

-Krag

 

[Be Loveless]

I was curious about the hard disc option myself but it is foriegn to me. Could someone describe a basic set-up. For the money you seem to get a lot more capability and you get to use a real mixing board which is my big problem with a lot of boxes.

 

[deepwater]

I own both the HD24 and Yamaha AW16G which is the best of both worlds. Its all in what you need. Both are great units. Just remember that you'll need to buy a mixing board, effects for the HD24.

 

[billisa]

The Fostex VF160EX. Can't say enough good about these. Look them up to see about all the capabilities. Then consider they go for about $799. I've had mine two years. VERY reliable. Haven't lost data ever.

 

[firby]

You should figure out how many tracks you want to do simultaneously before you go DAW shopping. Anymore everyone makes a pretty good recorder. What will make your setup sound good is generally high quality outboard preamps, Balanced signal paths all the way to source, and all of the other crap like good mics and a good nearfield monitoring setup.

A lot of people think they can do it all in the box. For me I spent nearly two k on an akai dps16 back in the day. It's a great box. But for the money I could have gotten some old fostex hard disk recorder and a good enough mixer or a computer setup and a good external mixer or smaller midi control audio controller. Since software is often free
you can often go that route. The only drawback is the buzzing on your guitar when you are standing there, half loaded, in front of your monitor.

You will almost always get a better deal for your money by using software plugins like waves ren or whatever that you can whore for nothing rather than depend on efx from the daws.