DP-008 EX : Fantastic Piece of Kit for Beginners.

I'm a singer songwriter and I've been plugging away with Acoustic and Electric for a few years and decided to buy this to expand my horizons. I didn't want to fork out a grand on a laptop and music programmes and all the other kit so just started with this.

It's incredible. I am able to plug in my electric and fire away. The default setting is A for input and B for internal mics and it has 8 lines which you can configure any way you want for input. I layered 6 vocals on one track for instance. I find 8 is enough as anything more and you are going into really heavy producing.

Pros..

1. It's really easy to use. There is a bit of figuring out when setting up inputs and all that but you will get it with a bit of practice.

2. The internal mics are really good. I was using them for vocal and acoustic guitar. But I decided to invest in a good condensor mic and the Tamscan has a phantom power button for this which is great.

3. You can set the input and output volume.

4. The mastering feature is great and very flexible.

5. Cheaper alternative to a LOT of kit. Personally I adore it.

Cons.

1. You absolutely need a power adapter which doesnt come with it. It eats batteries.

2. You can store lots of tracks on it but once one is mastered you have to overwrite it for the next one. Its not the end of the world but if you intend going back to update a song you have to remaster from scratch which is a bit of a pain.

3. Can only record two lines at a time so its suitable for one man bands but not really for recording a group.

4. The editing feature- forget it. You have to go start to finish in one go with one take or it's a disaster. That works for me. I look at it more as a really well designed digital eight track

Overall I am very happy, I think its insane value for money and has really let me record high quality stuff from scratch.