digital recorder advise needed

Ken Williams · Post by **Ken Williams** » 16 Feb 2002 3:38 pm

I was thinking of buying a either a Fostex D160 or D1624 16 track digital recorder from musician's friend. If any of you have ever had any experience with these recorders I would appreciate any advise on the pros and cons of each. Prices seem to be very reasonable although I assume that these models have been discontinued, since they are in the "closeout" section of the catalog. I am a novice at digital recording so ease of use would certainly be a factor. Any help would be appreciated.

Ken

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 16 Feb 2002 4:11 pm

I've been using a Fostex VF16, "16" track but only 8 at a time unless you have an external ADAT then you can do 16 at a time. Other than the marketing "16" track crap it's a neat recorder. It belongs to the club owner where I pick but I wouldn't mind having it myself.

Matt Steindl · Post by **Matt Steindl** » 17 Feb 2002 3:26 pm

Ken, Not sure how much the 16 track Fostex is going for, but I have heard a lot of complaints that their converters are not too natural/musical sounding, kinda brittle. I think your money would be better spent going for the Tascam 788(super simple/Great sound) or one of the Roland/Boss products (if you dont mind burying yourself in the manual for a few days). I would imagine that if you bought the 788, you would still have $300-$400 left over to buy a nice Microphone. Check out Tascams website and they have a user group for the 788 thats pretty awesome and truthfull.

When looking at the new crop of digital recorders, you need to make sure they record in 24 bit for the full amount of tracks, as lots of the compannies(Fostex included, I think) advertise that they record 12 or 16 tracks, but they are only able to do so at a lower resolution. Kind of a scam!

The knocks against Fostex are all second hand info to me, but do your research before you spend $1200 on something that might never yeild pro sounding results.

I do not work for Tascam, but I have owned and loved the 788 for over a year.

Let us know which way you go!

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Mattman in "The Big Sleazy"-:
S-10 Dekley, Suitcase Fender Rhodes, B-bender Les Paul

Joseph Barcus · Post by **Joseph Barcus** » 17 Feb 2002 4:20 pm

D-88s are very clean and easy too use I have two linked but find myself only using 8 tracks most of the time. if you like send me a self addresed that will hold a cd and Ill send you one free. I do everything on them some things are better then others. my address if interested is Joe Barcus rt 1 box 129 volga west virgina 26238. Joe

Larry Beck · Post by **Larry Beck** » 17 Feb 2002 8:16 pm

I have a V-16 with a Plextor CDRW connected to the SCSI port which is about the equivalent of the V-160. Like Jack, I love the unit. My biggest complaint is that the manual is a bad Japanese - English translation. I've used it for two CD's and a half dozen projects and given the choices now, I would go with the V-160. 14 tracks is the max I've used todate.

Jay Ganz · Post by **Jay Ganz** » 18 Feb 2002 8:01 am

Here's a bunch of info & opinions on the
Fostex stuff.
<a href=http://homerecording.com/bbs/search.php ... ing>*Click Here*</a>

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 19 Feb 2002 7:02 am

I've been using a Roland VS-1680 for the past 2 years in my project studio and it's been great. You can't buy them new anymore but they do sell the 1824 which gives you 18 tracks and a built-in CD burner. Despite the bad Roland manuals there's lots of support on the VS Planet website. Also, if you have the bucks there's the VS-2480 which has tons of features. I've done full-blown projects with my unit that we sell in the bar and with some tweaking they can be air-playable.