I LOVE MY MR-8!!! Great possibility with a laptop! Seriously mobile studio!

Why bother with the MR8 when you can have a usb soundcard with same number of inputs and better audio performance (24bit/96khz) for the same price or even cheaper that enables you to record directly to Cubase?

For example the Tascam US-122 costs around $200 and has 2 XLR inputs with phantom power, 2 line level inputs switchable for guitar level,and MIDI in and outs.
 
PeteHalo said:
Why bother with the MR8 when you can have a usb soundcard with same number of inputs and better audio performance (24bit/96khz) for the same price or even cheaper that enables you to record directly to Cubase?

For example the Tascam US-122 costs around $200 and has 2 XLR inputs with phantom power, 2 line level inputs switchable for guitar level,and MIDI in and outs.
Click to expand...


Ah...because apparently the TASCAM is for mac. I'm running XP. And at the time, I didn't have a machine that was fast enough. So I bought the MR-8 for $200 Brand new as well. Now that I have a Pentium-M 1.5GHz with 1mb Cache, the Tascam sounds great....but I already have the MR-8. Plus, sometimes my band will record without me and they don't have my laptop. SO the MR-8 is still a great unit, as long as it fits your application.


And drums and bass will be brought up tonight!
 
That note about fitting in the application is a good one. But I think that in nine out of ten applications something else is better than the MR8. Reading about the all the workarounds and how much money people are willing to spend on external gear (mixers, preamps, memory cards) to try to overcome the limitations of MR8 is amazing. IMHO, word 'band' and 'MR8' should not exist in the same sentence unless there's also 'never' or 'no way' in it. There's much better alternatives for band recording. YMMV.

BTW the Tascam is not only for Mac.
 
PeteHalo said:
That note about fitting in the application is a good one. But I think that in nine out of ten applications something else is better than the MR8. Reading about the all the workarounds and how much money people are willing to spend on external gear (mixers, preamps, memory cards) to try to overcome the limitations of MR8 is amazing. IMHO, word 'band' and 'MR8' should not exist in the same sentence unless there's also 'never' or 'no way' in it. There's much better alternatives for band recording. YMMV.

BTW the Tascam is not only for Mac.
Click to expand...


The Tascam isn't just for MAC eh? I may have to look into one of those. Looks pretty tempting.


I really like the MR-8 for its ease of use. I mean, although if you want to do a full band recording, its a bit of a pain, you will have limitations. But its great if you just have your mr-8, no pc, and you want to record a quick idea or quick jam.

Have you used the Digidesign M-box at all? Looks like the tascam, but a little more expensive. What are your thoughts? How much should one be paying for the tascam?

Cheers!
 
PeteHalo said:
That note about fitting in the application is a good one. But I think that in nine out of ten applications something else is better than the MR8. Reading about the all the workarounds and how much money people are willing to spend on external gear (mixers, preamps, memory cards) to try to overcome the limitations of MR8 is amazing. IMHO, word 'band' and 'MR8' should not exist in the same sentence unless there's also 'never' or 'no way' in it. There's much better alternatives for band recording. YMMV.
Click to expand...

I appreciate your "YMMV" disclaimer, but is the MR8 REALLY that bad? Especially when compared to a cassette tape multitracker!

The "workarounds" aren't that bad- a lot of people have mixers and pre's just "laying around", and additional memory cards are just the way it is with digital electronics. For example, my camera came with an 8 meg CF card- ?? What were they thinking?!

Also, given that once you record something you can "dump to disk" that will keep your card pretty clean and leave you lots of space for recording- infact if you record with the click track (which is awesome) you only need to keep 1 or 2 tracks on the card at any time- thus increasing your recording time limit, thus alleviating your need for an additional card.
So I MAY get a 256 card, or maybe a 512, but only one more card.


I think its pretty cool in terms of what it offers for entry level recording. Yes, I'm a "one man band", but if I had a 5 piece I don't think I'd have many complaints.
 
PeteHalo said:
That note about fitting in the application is a good one. But I think that in nine out of ten applications something else is better than the MR8. Reading about the all the workarounds and how much money people are willing to spend on external gear (mixers, preamps, memory cards) to try to overcome the limitations of MR8 is amazing. IMHO, word 'band' and 'MR8' should not exist in the same sentence unless there's also 'never' or 'no way' in it. There's much better alternatives for band recording. YMMV.

BTW the Tascam is not only for Mac.
Click to expand...
Hey Pete, I see you're back, discouraging the MR 8 users again. Ah well, I realize you must have no real life to begin with, so have at it.
My gosh, he already owns the MR8, and he's happy with it. What do you have against happy MR 8 owners? Is it so much of a stretch to believe that anyone can be happy, even thrilled with the MR 8?
 
mekkab said:
I appreciate your "YMMV" disclaimer, but is the MR8 REALLY that bad? Especially when compared to a cassette tape multitracker!

The "workarounds" aren't that bad- a lot of people have mixers and pre's just "laying around", and additional memory cards are just the way it is with digital electronics. For example, my camera came with an 8 meg CF card- ?? What were they thinking?!

Also, given that once you record something you can "dump to disk" that will keep your card pretty clean and leave you lots of space for recording- infact if you record with the click track (which is awesome) you only need to keep 1 or 2 tracks on the card at any time- thus increasing your recording time limit, thus alleviating your need for an additional card.
So I MAY get a 256 card, or maybe a 512, but only one more card.


I think its pretty cool in terms of what it offers for entry level recording. Yes, I'm a "one man band", but if I had a 5 piece I don't think I'd have many complaints.
Click to expand...


I agree mate.


I have a 4 piece band, and have very little complaints. All I have spent money on was a mic, and some cables, and inherited a 256 mb card which is more than enough for us since we use my laptop to dump. it works great.
 
Pete! Let me join dyuob in extending a hearty 'welcome back'.

After all the nightmares people still report with direct-to-computer recording, leave it to Pete to suggest the USB route...

I just copied tracks from my MR-8 onto my laptop and brought it to work - couldn't be easier.
 
dyuob said:
Hey Pete, I see you're back, discouraging the MR 8 users again. Ah well, I realize you must have no real life to begin with, so have at it.
Click to expand...

Oh man! Did I fall for the oldest bait in the book and "feed the troll"?

It sucks being a n00b.
 
mekkab said:
Oh man! Did I fall for the oldest bait in the book and "feed the troll"?

It sucks being a n00b.
Click to expand...

LOL. Pete often gives very solid advice - it's just his quixotic campaign against solid state recording that gets quite humorous.

...and he does have a point that the MR-8 will really suck the next time you need to record a 12 hour drum solo.
 
Let's not forget he's doing the same thing with the VF160.
Pete, I considered the going the route you suggest but opted for the ability to track away from the computer. Also, as someone said, we all have gear lying around already such as preamps and mixers from previous setups.
Man, you seem like a smart guy, and we could really use your input here in a much more positive way. Let the MR8 thing go and use your intellect to help us get better recordings with what we have. I am getting really tired of all the vitriol on this forum. This is about exchanging information to improve our recording chops. Happy and contented people state their truth and move on. Unhappy people attack and pour scorn on others. As they say, misery likes company. What camp are you in Pete?
By the way, welcome back to the forum. :)
 
morindae said:
Let's not forget he's doing the same thing with the VF160.
Pete, I considered the going the route you suggest but opted for the ability to track away from the computer. Also, as someone said, we all have gear lying around already such as preamps and mixers from previous setups.
Man, you seem like a smart guy, and we could really use your input here in a much more positive way. Let the MR8 thing go and use your intellect to help us get better recordings with what we have. I am getting really tired of all the vitriol on this forum. This is about exchanging information to improve our recording chops. Happy and contented people state their truth and move on. Unhappy people attack and pour scorn on others. As they say, misery likes company. What camp are you in Pete?
By the way, welcome back to the forum. :)
Click to expand...

OH MY GOSH! WHAT HAVE I STARTED!?!?

:-D


Just wanted to share my music and experience! hehehehe
 
Sorry to vent in your thread like that trandg. It just seems like everytime I open a thread on any of the forums on this bbs there is someone slagging off some poor sod for having the gall to share his opinion. I should really ignore it. However, we all have our 'days'.
 
PeteHalo said:
Why bother with the MR8..........
Click to expand...

da..da......da.da.......da.da..da..da.da.da.da.da <jaws theme>

he's baaaack :)


Welcome o the MR-8 club trandg! Don't let Pete discourage you from enjoying this great little box!


clif
 
First of all I want to apologize to everybody if I've hurt their feelings. But I beg you to give me a little slack here because English is not my mother tongue and that's why I may sometimes use too strong words or act seemingly hostile while expressing my opinions. I guess watching television police series or action movies is not the best ways to build one's vocabulary. There's also a clear cultural difference as we Finns are acustomed to express our opinions straight to the face without the other person getting upset making all of the a**kissing and small talk that seem to be needed here unneccessary. At least here people can have different views or opinions about things without being labeld as an enemy or being divided into different camps.

Back to the MR8. I'm not saying that MR8 is bad for what it is but I've seen so many people here asking for advice how to turn it into something that it was never meant to be and this is why I from time to time feel the need to address this issue. In most of these cases some other piece of equipment would be much better suited for the task at hand than the MR8 and a bunch of external gadgets which in many case added together cost almost the same or what's even worse more than the other more suitable solution.

How many of you have bought the MR8 really knowing about it's shortcomings? I bet there's a lot of those who got excited about the low price of MR8 thinking they can get a portable full blown digital multitracker for $300 so they'd be able to record their next album or serious demos with it. How many of you were annoyed to find out that the $300 was just the down payment for such recording rig and you'd need to spend at least another $300 for an external mixer and much bigger memory card or even a laptop computer to take the full benefit of MR8 and it's portability. I quess what I really want to get thru especially to those who are thinking about buying the MR8 is that no matter how much money you throw into external gear that 's not going to make MR8 a good choice for band recording beacuse of it's limited number available input for simultaneous recording. Even the limited recording time can be expanded by spending more money in additional memory cards but this is something that no amount of money is able to fix.

Let's take two examples of band recording from real life with real world prices taken from Ebay to make this clear to even the most hardcore MR8 fanatics. You have a band (vocals, couple of guitars, bass, real drums) and you want to record a demo of 4 songs (20 minutes of 8 track recording = 800MB ).

Example #1 (My way)
- Used Fostex VF16 /w 20GB HD BIN price on Ebay $489.99
Total: $489.99

Example #2 (The MR-8 way)
- Used Fostex MR8 BIN price on Ebay $259
- Used Mackie DFX12 mixer BIN price on Ebay $220
- 1GB memory card BIN price $193
Total: $672

This clearly shows that ditching the MR8 not only saves you almost $200, that's two SP B1 condenser mics, but saves you from most of the headaches caused by trying to work around the limitations of MR8. Not to mention the much better effects, EQ, twice the tracks to work with (three times if you count the ghost tracks), fader for every mixer channel etc. of VF16.
 
Pete, how come the price of the Vf160 is so cheap on ebay? That's over 50% less than the price of a new one. The price of the MR8 on ebay is 15% less than it's new price.
The MR8 is a hot item right now because most of us are using it with our computer and are able to access the incredible editing capabilities this offers. If I remember some of your previous posts, you are doing the same with the Vf160. I completly agree with you about the live band situation, the MR8 is not so hot as a stand alone recorder, the editing capabilities are almost nonexistent. But then Fostex never really designed it for that purpose. They saw a gap in the market and filled it with the MR8. You track in the thing and then dump it into the pc. It doesn't get any easier than that. I am still working with the original 128 CF card, for me it doesn't make sense to pay for more memory. At the end of the day, our needs are all different.
If you check a lot of the MR8 posts you will find that the majority of people are doing the same. They are not idiots, they bought what is right for their situation. And if they did make a mistake, so what, there's no sense in making them feel worse. They'll figure it out in their own time.
On another note. I spent a year playing in Scandinavia in the early 80's and met a lot of Finns. They are wonderful people and really love a good drink. By the way, your English is excellent. :)
 
Here's why the MR* is DOPE-
I get an idea- I flip it on (note: I don't wait 5 minutes for my laptop or desktop computer to boot up, then double click on sonar (or ntrack, or cool edit, or...) I record to a click track.
Bam!- I'm done.

Hey. that was a great little "ditty" (industry term), wouldn't it be great to put some drums to it? If I'm using live drums (which are down stairs)- its easy, I've got an easily portable machine (my desktop computer is not- and the laptop would need a $400 USB sound card(so would the desltop)) plus my "ditty" is in time thanks to the the click track.
If I'm using my Dr550 I slave it to the MR8- record on track 2 and I don't even have to hit start on the dr, it just goes(gotta love MIDI). (note: I just did this last night for the first time- and it was AWESOME. Considering I wasted some cash on an SMPTE striper for my old X-14 cassette tracker (to comical results) this IS what I've been waiting for and the answer to my needs).
(anyone looking to pick up a PPS-1 cheap? ;)


IF I want to do pre-programmed keys (on the QY-10) and drum machine at the same time, I can chain them (MIDI thru)- no issue.

I can throw on some keyboard, or vocals, or bass and use the $60 mixer I got off e-bay, and then either mix down to a wav (if I just want to burn a cd) or I can import all the tracks as seperate wav files and do my damage in my application of choice.

Last month I had WAY too much gear and not a clear way of tying it together. As of this week, I've got my MR8 as the heart of my operation.


next experiment: backing up the DR550 (With its hysterically crappy and bug-prone "analog backup") onto a track on the MR8.
 
mekkab said:

next experiment: backing up the DR550 (With its hysterically crappy and bug-prone "analog backup") onto a track on the MR8.
Click to expand...

Now that's a new and creative use for the MR8. Let us know how that works out - I'm always finding old cassettes that have that "screeeeeeeeeech" from some long forgotten data dump!
 
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