8/4 track for home recording

MrVoracious

Hey i'm looking to get a relatively cheap 4 track or an 8 track for personal recording at home.. Guitar and maybe vocals.
I was just wondering if anyone could recommend one or perhaps something similar as I've never done any recording before and don't really know what to look for.

Halloween Jack

Do you have an iPad or similar?

I have garage band on my iPad, pretty handy for mucking about with, has loads of amp, cab and pedal sims for playing guitar through, you can hook up a mic for vocals and record virtual drums/keys etc.

It's also handy to export the stuff to iTunes etc and share via email.

It's pretty basic, but easy enough and fun to use, plus the app is cheap as I remember.

MrVoracious

Halloween Jack wrote: »

Do you have an iPad or similar?

I have garage band on my iPad, pretty handy for mucking about with, has loads of amp, cab and pedal sims for playing guitar through, you can hook up a mic for vocals and record virtual drums/keys etc.

It's also handy to export the stuff to iTunes etc and share via email.

It's pretty basic, but easy enough and fun to use, plus the app is cheap as I remember.

I don't actually have tablet of any kind... Would I be better off getting a tablet and getting garage band?

Demeyes

I'm guessing you have a laptop or desktop at your disposal. The best thing to do is pick up a small audio interface. It's a device that you can plug your mics into that connects to a computer via USB or firewire. Here are some http://www.thomann.de/ie/usb_audio_interfaces.html One with something like 4 channels will do the job nicely for you, it means you can record 4 tracks at a time but you can overdub as many layers as you need then after.
You can get a program like Reaper to do your editing and recording in. It's a fully functioning DAW that loads of people are using http://reaper.fm/ You can try it out for free.

Halloween Jack

MrVoracious wrote: »

I don't actually have tablet of any kind... Would I be better off getting a tablet and getting garage band?

No point buying a tablet for this purpose, but would have been a very cheap way to get up and running if you already owned one.

savoryan

If its just a 4 track you are looking for i have a Zoom MRS-4 at home i dont use. I could sell it to you for €50..... http://www.zzounds.com/item--ZOMMRS4 You can bounce tracks so in effect you can record a lot more than 4 tracks. I just dont use it anymore

population

As a cheap analouge starter I would echo the little zoom recorder. For demos and licks it is grand. It is well worth sitting at home and working on demos and getting the structure of the song correct before you decide to head in and pay for decent studio time. A little recorder like that will save you tons in the long term

MrVoracious

Thanks for all the advice! I'm probably going to look into getting a tablet mainly because I need it for other things too