Monty's got it right. You essentially have 8 tracks and 7 alternates per each one that are directly linked. To go into detail, In the case of the 880, think of it like having 8 channels, with each channel having 8 tracks. The channels are assigned directly to faders on the unit, and each channel has 8 specific tracks associated with it. You can select which of the tracks (virtual) to associate with a given channel at any point in time from within the pool of 8 that go with the channel.
Here's a rough diagram, with the channels across the top and the tracks underneath:
1 ___ 2 ___ 3 ___ 4 ___ 5 ___ 6 ___ 7 ___ 8
v1 _ v9
v2 _ v10
v3 _ v11
v4 _ v12 etc.
v5 _ v13
v6 _ v14
v7 _ v15
v8 _ v16
You can only play or record with one track per channel at once, so with 8 channels you have a total of 8 tracks that can be played at once. You also have the limitation of having the virtual tracks only associated with a specific channel. For instance, you can't have v14 or v15 playback on channel 3, as they are only for channel 2. 1-8 can only be played on channel 1, so if you want to mix something from tracks v6 and v8 together, you have to copy one of the tracks to a virtual track on a channel you aren't currently using.
On the 880 bouncing is relatively easy, and you can even copy or move tracks from channel to channel with a few button pushes.
[This message has been edited by Jon X (edited 05-08-2000).]
