BR8 vs FD8

[The Vitt]

hi I know I want an inexpensive digital 8 track. The only thing is that I'm not quite sure which one I want. I was leaning more towrds the BR8 because it had a built in drum machine but then I read the other posts about how much it wasn't good because the recording time was limited to lomething like 5 min. What exactly does that mean? and what about the FD8 is that any good?

 

[lazyboy]

The Vitt,

The five minute recording time of the BR-8 is a limitation of using zip 100mb for data storage. High quality audio data takes up a lot of disk space.
I won't try to do the math but think about the CD. You get 74 min of 16bit/44.1 audio on a 650 meg disk. So theres an overall number of minutes of this quality audio you can store on a 100mb disk. divide that number (Whatever it is) by the number of tracks you want to record and there's your overall time per disk. (Somebody throw me a rope, I'm drowning in numbers!! While you're at it, what kind of back-up storage will keep things in 8 tr. mode with fx settings and such for HD units, instead of mixing down and wiping the slate clean?)

That of course is only per disk. Zips are fairly expensive compared with other storage media, but they shouldn't altogether break you either. The Fostex has some storage options (HD, zip,Syquest)but lacks the internal fx of the BR8, and its ugly.

My biggest gripe with all the low cost machines is the 2 track simultaneous record limitation. If that doesn't pertain to you, you'll probably be happy with either or any of the dig. boxes over an only slightly cheaper 4 tr. tape box. Still, I don't see any clear-cut advantages of one from another in this price range.-lzb

 

[adam]

I think the FD8 is great. I don't record more than 2 tracks at a time. But if I did, I could buy the fostex vm04 digital mixer and get 4 tracks simul. for less than $200. That's what I like about the fd8, it's pretty flexible and upgradable. I use an external harddrive to record to so space isn't an issue. The fd8 is pretty bare bones in some respects, no effects or drums etc. But I use or plan to use other units for this stuff anyway. One thing, for mixing down I plan to download to my computer to edit, arrange, mix and foola around with. It is hard for me to do serious cut/paste and other things like cross fades with the fd8. I'm sure you can but I am pretty new to recording and think the visual nature of a computer will help this. Fostex also makes other units like the recorder only, a mixer only etc. that seem to be good and again, flexible.

 

[virtual.ray]

IMO any machine that offers the ability to record non lossy,linear digital audio(FD-8,FD-4)is a better choice than ALL the alternatives.Think of all the steps along the way your signal will have to go through before being heard by other lifeforms;in other words,the playback of your trax from your multitrack may sound good,even slightly impressive,but you're not done yet.Now you've got to mix and master and burn etc.Then there's the real scary scenario where you get a stunning,one of a kind take of some sort and now the world can only hear 20%(yup,that's right!) of the sound that actually exited from the original source at the time.If you're looking for a scratch/sketch pad machine,buy a used Tascam 424 and spend $2 for audio cassettes instead of $12/15 a pop for Zap discs.Cheers!