Simple stand alone multitrack digital recorder

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raspberries

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My husband desires a simple stand alone recording unit and I would like to buy him one for his birthday. He wants to record a track of himself playing guitar, then record another track of himself playing along with the first track - etc! Can anyone recommend something suitable?:confused:
 
Two things:
1) None are simple.
2) He's a very lucky man.

What's your budget, please. :)
 
What gear does he have now? Specifically, does he have any microphones, and if so, are they condensors requiring phantom power?

If no phantom power is needed, I recommend the Boss BR600, simple to learn, pretty versatile. Limits are you can only record 2 tracks at a time, and no phantom power.
 
My budget is reasonably modest - up to about $700 Australian dollars? As far as what gear he has already, we have a "normal" (?) mike that we bought for vocals and that is all. I am happy to buy other accessories as necessary. As far as I can tell his desire to record himself is only for his own listening pleasure and for practicing purposes, so it needn't be particularly high quality.
 
You may want to look into a looper, something like this

Line 6 Looper

It has built in jam tracks, lots of drum tracks and guitar FX. You can layer several tracks on top of each other. You can't remix the tracks though. I've got one and it's great for practicing, it's not a replacement for a recording interface and a DAW program but may be just what you're looking for.
 
Tascam, Zoom, Roland/Boss and Fostex all offer stand alone DAWS that should be in your price range. Guitar World AU has the Tascam DP02CF for that price, 2 input 8 track recorder that uses compact flash card for storage instead of a hard drive.
 
Thanks Guys you have just saved me hours of inefficient trawling! I am leaning towards the loopers just because I have seen people (e.g. the awesome Mal Webb) working magic with them in performance. I will look at all the options mentioned though. Thanks muchly!
 
I like the look of this one - is it 4 track?

Cheers

Sue

TetraFish said:
You may want to look into a looper, something like this

Line 6 Looper

It has built in jam tracks, lots of drum tracks and guitar FX. You can layer several tracks on top of each other. You can't remix the tracks though. I've got one and it's great for practicing, it's not a replacement for a recording interface and a DAW program but may be just what you're looking for.
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You can record 4 tracks or a lot more if you want but it's not a 4 track in the sense that you can't go back and mix the tracks. You just keep layering the tracks on top of each other.

I believe you can import the tracks you recorded into a computer and use a program like Cubase to mix them but I've never tried it so I'm not sure how it works. It may just be a single file and not the individual tracks.
 
and that's why I'm not sure a looper is the way to go.
I'd think one of the basic things you'd want would be the ability to mix your tracks at different levels, change the amount of reverb on them etc.
One of the small DAWs like a Tascam Portastudio or Fostex MR-8's or something similar seems like a better choice to me.
As bassbrad said, there's lots of them out there .... I'm not sure which are available at decent prices in Australia.
But there has to be a flash card based 8 track recorder at that price or cheaper and possibly even a hard drive unit.
I know Australia reams ya'll with the import taxes though.
 
I would go for a TASCAM DP-02 Digital Portastudio which you should get in Oz for about $700 if you shop around or if that's too much a TASCAM DP-008 at about $300. Simple to use self contained, no computer needed.

Cheers
Alan.
 
Actually that is the way I am leaning. I watched a demo video for this product yesterday and it looks perfect. We don't need a lot of high-tech capabilities and I very much liked the simplicity of the way it operates.



witzendoz said:
I would go for a TASCAM DP-02 Digital Portastudio which you should get in Oz for about $700 if you shop around or if that's too much a TASCAM DP-008 at about $300. Simple to use self contained, no computer needed.

Cheers
Alan.
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