digtal multitrack recorder vs recording software

I love hardware....and the hardware multi tracker is great for recording........you can master in software though.....best combo!

Akai DPS hands down!

And I prefer to track to software. I've gone the hardware route (cassette 4-track -> 1/4" fostex 8-track -> fostex vf08 -> vs880) but don't have the space, and since I need to have a computer at home anyway (for running development tools and stuff), I thought why not?

I would go with software, I started with a tascam
cassette 4 track and had to mix alot of instruments
onto two tracks, which left me with two tracks for
the vocals . I also had to always sing the hook,
chorus 6 times if I wanted adlibs and they never
sounded the same Figuring that I was very limited.
I bought a roland vs880 and was happy for a year
untill I started getting more complex with my beats
and adlibs. Another thing, being I was getting a
little side money with recording M.C's that been in
big studios that used cubase and protools, it was a
step back for them to have to mash everything into
8 tracks . As much as I hated computers it was no
other choice if I wanted 32 tracks with the ability to
record eight instruments at once it was either spend
$3000 for another roland or akai hardiskrecorder
and still be limited with editing capabilities, or get a
good computer and a digi 001 which ran me $700 for
a Dell Dimension 2.53ghz 512mb and 60gigs harddrive
space.The Digi 001 was $800 which totalled to about
$1700 . You do the math??? Honestly I was a fool to
not have done this from day one. Sure the hardisk
recorders are portable so is my complete session on
a c-dr or dvd. Most professional studios have protools
and if I decided to take my session or one of the people
I'm working with wants to go to get their song mastered
of mixed by a profesional engineer I dont have to carry
my computer.You'd have to carry that expensive hardisk
recorder and pray you dont drop it? it rains or you get
jacked for it ? Also you have to dump all of your tracks
one by one unless your hardisk recorder has more than
stereo outs. With software you can reverse a curse word
drag sound effects and replace words that might be to hot
for radio. You can copy the chorus so that the song sounds
perfect.If your into remixing you can drag a totally different
beat and put it into the song..Try that on a hardisk unless
you sync it up using midi or smpte ??and you still have to
record the output into something. Another big issue is have
you tried editing on those lil screens compared to a 17inch
monitor ?? . You have the ease of locating a particular
piece of the song. The ability to normalize low recordings
and so many more options with software. As far as sound
goes it's all in the mix .If you don't know how no matter
what you use your mix will sound like crap.
My 2000xl has eight outs my proteus six my motif six how
many ins does your hardisk recorder have and how many
tracks can you record simultaneously??? If your not using
a patch bay all that wire pulling and pushing is going to give
that hardisk recorder a short circuit and than you'll have to
send it somewhere for service which can mean lost money
and studio time.I would have a hardisk recorder just in case
of emergency.If I was spending alot of time away from home
and just had to record I can use a digital portable recorder
that has a hardrive and transfer my vocals through the usb
port.

sure protools is cheaper, but you don't have the same automix than on ralond or yamaha Hard disk recorders; if you want the same , youcan spend lot of money in a controle surface....they're not so crazy!!!
the problem with protools , you get 8 anaol outputs (10 with the monitor)
and 8 numeric with adat (10 with spdif monitor)
in our studio, we've both protools and 1 yamaha aw4416 with optinnal adat card, and 8 analog output card
with theese two gear, we can send 24 audio tracks in our analog mixer and make some good analog mixs
with only protools, we could send 10 audio tracks...
what ever you do, you've to pay cash each audio output!!!

I guess to each his/her own. I guess I'm just a hardware cat. I started out on a 4 track reel to real. Then I got the fostex 4 track cassete joint. Then I got the Sp808 (pure sh*t) and then went with Sonar. I never liked the idea of recording to computer but it was very easy and I learned to like it. Except when it started dropping out and crashing which would really f*ck up my day. I'd come back and some of my audio would just be missing or sounds just happened to get in a track and I didn't know where they came from. After the sh*t f*cked up on me for the last time I went the hardware way and copped the VS1680. I'm not going back to software to record again. Maybe if I get some good mastering software I'd use it just for that. But hardware does it for me