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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Recording Corner »

Permalink Curious about the Fostex MR-8HD CD 8-Track Recorder

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Anybody out there have a Fostex MR-8HD CD 8-Track Recorder? Could you tell me how you like it? I'm thinking of picking up one in the next week or two.

Thanks.
Ivan

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

I was thinking of buying this product but I had a last minute change of heart. I've heard horror stories about the hard drives on these things.

What I did instead was buy a M-Audio MobilePre USB interface that has two XLR and a 1/4 inch input. That cost be $100 on Amazon.com. Then I bought Sonar Home Studio 6 which is recording and editing software for my computer. That cost me $80. You can also get a bunch of other software through your schools bookstore at academic pricing if you are so lucky.

Of course you should have atleast 1gb of RAM on your computer and probably 2 if you are running more than the basic version of Vista.

Jake, I don't want to use my computer for recording. I want a freestanding unit. But thanks anyway.

Ivan

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

I have an old MR-8, one that doesn't have a hard drive or a CD burner and only two inputs, yet I've always been pretty happy with it. I imagine if my MR-8 got the upgrades of a hard drive and a CD burner and two more inputs, well I might just love it.
Although, as with most recorders with a dot LCD display, you will end up transferring any good recordings to a computer if you plan on editing at all.

http://about.me/nicholaus.lee

Are you going to mix and edit via the recorder as well? And then burn straight to the CD? I actually figured you'd use a computer at some point because that is all I've ever seen my friends do.

I can't substantiate this, and I'm skeptical about it, but supposedly the Boss recorders have better pre-amps than the Fostex one. I don't think I'd ever notice the difference personally.

I should mention that I just need something for demos. I may use it to add guitar-tracks-only to recordings intended for wider release, but I don't anticipate that happening very often. I don't need any serious editing capability - and honestly, I have no interest in that, anyway.

I also heard good things about Boss recorders, but there is a serious difference in price - $200-300. Not worth it, I think. I also heard Boss recorders are much more complicated to run.

Ivan

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Ivan this model kicks ass I have it Rock check it out!!
they sell for about $460 not bad for a hard disk recorder with the same specs as other units going for $700 and up.

Zoom HD8CD
They also have the HD16CD model.

-Kyle

Beyond The Surf YouTube channel
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I've got the Fostex MR-8HD - no cd burning capabilities, I just load it onto the computer and burn them that way.

It's the only one I've ever used, so I can't compare it to others. I do like it - It's easy to learn - very intuitive. Punching in - which I do a lot because I mess up a lot - is easy too.

Adding tracks is easy - and mixing down to two tracks is a snap.

I've mic-ed guitar cabinets, and I've done some pretty decent sounding direct in recording too. I just plugged in my tank between the guitar and Fostex. I think the neighbors appreciate that feature.

I recorded all the guitars, and the drums for the SG101 comps on it. I've even recorded some band practices with it with decent results. The sound is a little dark sounding initially, but nothing a little EQ can't fix.

"You can't tell where you're going if you don't know where you've been"

I have the older flash card only version and it's pretty cool.

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IvanP
I should mention that I just need something for demos. I may use it to add guitar-tracks-only to recordings intended for wider release, but I don't anticipate that happening very often. I don't need any serious editing capability - and honestly, I have no interest in that, anyway.

Ivan, esp in that case, consider to spend a bit more or choose something with less options for the same. as funny as it may sound, the simpler the use you want to make of it, the more you need in terms of
- tracks
- memory
- cd burning

what's alsways been eating me up when making demos is the time you spend doing 'non-music' things like bouncing editing and transfering to the PC.... in your case ID sooner opt for a model with only two channel simultanious recording and 8 track mixing (8 dedicated channel strips) and maybe a cd burner.... the micpreamp stuff is about the most expensive in porduction, so dropping two mic-channels gives you room to opt for more mix-channels and maybe cd burner. choose a unit so that you will have to do as little buttonpushing as possible to get from scratch to demo...

you also dontwant to hassle with extra equipment and cables and shit, so an onboard compressor and reverb (mix, not surf) would add a lot of value...

just some thoughts

Rules to live by #314:
"When in Italy, if the menu says something's grilled, don't assume it is."

https://www.facebook.com/The-Malbehavers-286429584796173/

Thanks to everybody for your thoughts. I believe I'll pick up one of these. They're actually now going for only $399, which is a hell of a price for something with a built-in CD burner. A few things are not ideal, but overall the bang for the buck seems to be undeniable, and I'd prefer not to spend several hundred dollars more for something that would be at best a marginal improvement. And again, I do not need this to make finalized recordings but just demos.

Again, I really appreciate it!

Ivan

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Ivan, it would be great if you could post your thoughts on the 8-Track after you play around with it. I've been casually looking for one of these myself lately.

Ryan
The Secret Samurai Website
The Secret Samurai on Facebook

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