the 8-track digital recorder

^i do believe i've mixed songs containing some vocal tracks recorded on that machine

You certainly have!

I screwed up the hard drive controller on my DPS16. I miss it and got the Tascam years ago.

That Akai has the easiest to use auto punch I have ever seen on a recorder. With the scroll wheel you just go and set the input and output points back it up and start playing with the track, it just pops the part in and out automatically. I miss that feature. It was badass and great to fix a small flub, easier than even most software.

They sound good too, I'd imagine is uses the similar converters to a Akai sampler, as that DPS16 was about the first one that could export as wav files without having to some kind of conversion (like an MPC2000xl or S5000/S6000 sampler from the same time period).

They make good stuff.

I want to buy a multitrack recorder that is easy to use. That is my primary consideration.

New or old, number of tracks, editing and effects capabilities — those are secondary. I just don't want to mess around with menus every time I go to record a track.

Got any recommendations for a recorder that will help, not hinder, the recording process?

Again, I don't care how many tracks it has. Just more than 2.

So I'm thinking about setting up the most very basic of home recording setups, just to fool around with and make demos and stuff, but better sounding than just using the mics in my laptop. I had been scoping out interfaces like the Lexicon Lambda and the Focusrite Scarlet, etc., but just found out that companies like Boss and Tascam are still making stand-alone digital multitrack recorders, which just appeal to me because I used to drool over their analog ancestors in musicians friend catalogs when I was a kid.

Any of y'all have preferences or opinions on the ins-and-outs or recording via either format?

bump?

there's definitely something to be said for a purpose-built device (eg i would always choose an mpc for live sequencing over a laptop w/ daw) and if you're treating it much like you would a 4-track it's probably a decent option. if you were looking to get into much in the way of non-linear editing and plugins etc it starts to look like a bit more of a pita

the standalone option that is

Thanks! Still not quite sure which way I'm going to go, but that gives me more to think about.