burndaddy wrote:I purchased a Korg D888 about a month ago. I've been very happy with it. It's low on the bells and whistles, high on ease of use and flexibility. Records in wav format, internal 40GB drive, 8 channels at once, no communications/driver issues with a PC, can act as a reasonable live mixer for small ensembles. Portable and bulletproof.

Highly recommended.

So it IS indeed "awesome" as I suspected.

Awesome, no. But Korg definitely re-enginneered the needs of a portable multitracker from the ground up, hitting many of the important marks in the process. Recording 8 tracks while simultaneously providing a PA mix and monitor mix for 7 honies is pretty gosh darned groovy. I mean, fuck.

However, there are plenty of shortcomings. I ran into one last night that made me want to piss my pants -- it's not possible to record a multi-tune session and then mix down just one section/song. The D888 insists on starting mixdown from the beginning. There are plenty of work arounds, but they're all a pain in the workflow. My goal with this unit was to have some level of control in mixing the cream from live sessions. It turns out I need to either track individual tunes separately (too busy drumming for that) or take the session out of the box to mix, which is what I was looking to avoid.

burndaddy wrote:Awesome, no. But Korg definitely re-enginneered the needs of a portable multitracker from the ground up, hitting many of the important marks in the process. Recording 8 tracks while simultaneously providing a PA mix and monitor mix for 7 honies is pretty gosh darned groovy. I mean, fuck.

However, there are plenty of shortcomings. I ran into one last night that made me want to piss my pants -- it's not possible to record a multi-tune session and then mix down just one section/song. The D888 insists on starting mixdown from the beginning. There are plenty of work arounds, but they're all a pain in the workflow. My goal with this unit was to have some level of control in mixing the cream from live sessions. It turns out I need to either track individual tunes separately (too busy drumming for that) or take the session out of the box to mix, which is what I was looking to avoid.

Still sounds like the best thing to happen to all in ones since the Yamaha MD8 (DATA DISC BABY !! ).

I managed to find a DIGI002 on eBay for $500 (including shipping). Score!

ianscanlon wrote:I have the phonic version of that alesis mixer (called a helix firewire 18) I think it's been superceded by something newer so it could probably be had v' cheaply. I've used it as a mixer for live shows/ practices, and done alot of practice recordings.. it's good because you can route things to the firewire but keep them out of the speakers which can be handy in the practice context. When I bought it i went for that over alesis as I saw alot of stuff online moaning about the alesis drivers not working with the new mac's but they must have sorted this out by now?

http://www.floridamusicco.com/proddetail.asp?prod=phonic_helix_18_fw&partner=froogle

I just got this last week. Helix Firewire 18 MKII. It looks like it can be had for about $400 on line. I've only tinkered with it, but it seems like a decent solution for simple live and practice recording. It seems a little flimsy, so I wouldn't recommend a great deal of travelling with it.