I was looking at this Fostex MR8 and it looked pretty good. Does anyone know how close to an actaul studio this would sound or if it even has good recording for a full band. Does anyone own it?
i play a fender telecaster and i need to know about effects!
I own one: Good 16-bit linear, 44.1kS/s sampling rate quality, which is no longer state of the art, yet sounds very good -- much better than a cassette-based porta-studio.
The drawbacks for recording a band:
1. Only two channels can record at a time -- so works best as a recorder from a mixing board's stereo mix.
2. The total recording time is fairly limited, especially with the 128 MB CF memory that comes standard. At full quality, this is only about 24 track-minutes of recording => 12 minutes for stereo (2 tracks) or 6 minutes for 4 track. However, given the need to bounce tracks, one won't realize the full time for more than 2 tracks. To extend this time, one can record at half rate sampling (22.05 kS/s). This will double the recording time. Also larger CF memory is available. 512 MB memory provides 4x the original recording time.
I think the MR8 is best as a recorder for a hobbiest to produce high quality demo songs. Working on more than one song at a time is difficult without increasing the memory or lowering the recording quality.
-=tension & release=-
The recording time and cost and hassle of memory cards is why I went up to the VF80EX. It's got a 20 GB hard drive and a built-in CD burner. I don't remember how much the MR-8 was, but the VF80EX is quite a bit more expensive. But I figured I'd drive myself crazy with all the memory cards.
I'm a novice and don't do very sophisticated recording, but I've been quite happy with my recorder. It seems to me that you could make a high quality demo with it.
The cost of cards helps make up part of that difference in price.
I've always dumped my MR8 tracks to a PC for mixing immediately after recording, so nothing has stayed on the MR8 for very long. This reduces the need for memory cards, but doesn't take care of points I mentioned above.
The MR8 streets for $299.
-=tension & release=-
Take a look at the TASCAM DP-01 Digital 8-Track Portastudio. It's a hundred bucks more, but it's gots some cool features.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/241106/
