Fostex MR-8

i never recorded before i got my MR-8. I got it in 2004, and now know it like the back of my hand. Simple with some insight into recording.

Ive recorded directly into this, with preamps, and live mics. Ive never had a buzz problem. the built in effects are mediocre,but ive used them all. Of the three reverbs, i like one. i have recorded using the distortion several times, it sounds digital, but then again i was recording with guitar and i am typically a clean-sounding bass player. I used the reverb on nearly every vocal track though. No EQ is a minus point.

very reliable. never had any problems and have never kept in any kind of case in a smokey studio at times. the back light has dulled, thats the only problem. its been dropped, had other gear piled on it, etc. i do not have a backup and am not worried about it.

never dealt with them, never had to.

I have the original red one. i think its capable of doing a lot. if it were stolen, i may buy a new one, depending on how much money i had at the time. for 100 bucks or so used, i think its a great deal. Ive used it for 5 years and i am just now switching to a computer recording interface for my rack set up. I just wish it had an eq, and the effects could be a little better. i bought it knowing nothing about recording, this machine has taught me a lot and for that im grateful.

JUST REVISITING HOME RECORDING HAD A FOSTEX X-15 IN 80S LIKED THE IDEA OF THE LAYOUT VERY USER FRIENDLY...I WAS RECORDING WITHIN HALF HOUR OF OPENING THE BOX ...ITS AS CLEVER AND COMPLICATED AS YOU WANT TO MAKE IT...WELL IMPRESSED...MANUAL NICE AND CLEAR....NEVER DONE ANY BOUNCING OR TRANSFERRING TO PC..OR CD MAKING YET (MINES CD MODEL) BUT EXPECTING GOOD THINGS

USING BASIC STUFF FRETTED/FRETLESS BASS,LEAD GUITARS,ELECTRO ACOUSTIC, DRY AND THROUGH A ZOOM MULTI AFFECTS...KEYBOARD AND ALESIS DRUM MACHINE...ALSO VOCALS....THE ONLY NOISE IM GETTING IS FROM GUITARS (JAZZBASS OFFSET PICKUP VOLUME)...NOT NOTICING MASSIVE DIFFERENCES IN MIC AND GUITAR EFFECT OPTIONS...READING PROBS ON SOUND/LEVELS/VOLUME.....ONE DRUM TRACK I DID YOU CAN FEEL THE BASS DRUM IN YOUR CHEST!! THROUGH HEADPHONES...LOADSA VOLUME FROM WHERE I AM

EARLY DAYS BUT FINE

NO KNOWLEDGE

MUSIC STYLE I PLAY ROCK,AMBIENT DANCE,FUNKY MIX UP......PLAYING 30 YEARS......LOVE ITS SIMPLICITY FOR GETTING IDEAS DOWN AND IN TIME SENDING THEM TO MY PALS VIA COMPUTOR TO ADD TO AND SWAP IDEAS.....WOULD REPLACE IT DEFFO...BUILT IN BEATS WOULD BE NICE BUT NO PROBS....EASY TO TRANSPORT ABOUT.......LOOK FORWARD TO USING IT EVERY TIME

As an electronic drummer/acoustic percussionist, the mr-8 mk2 is almost perfect. For $150, I???ve got solid 6-trak recording capabilities.

I do editing with Audacity but wanted something durable & portable for the road. I dump the totally raw tracks into my laptop & do minimal editing/mixing/fx there. For aspiring producers/audio engineers, I recommend a laptop w/ pro level software. For rolling stone musicians like myself, I rec this or the Tascam DP2 CF. Anything w/o XLR inputs & phantom power is a toy.

While the mr-8 is capable of producing a final CD via an external usb burner in its host mode, I would NOT use it to produce even a demo CD. I recommend it to lay down 4-6 tracks anywhere inspiration strikes. U can then dump the tracks onto a CPU for finalizing & burning a CD.

+:
6 AA battery power enhances portability; Invest in rechargeables batteries
built-in mic is ok 4 capturing ideas b4 they disappear; I surprisingly use it a lot ;-)
2 xlr inputs with phantom power
MIDI OUT for syncing with my MPC drum sampler
2 headphone outputs - genius

-:
need wav manager software to transfer tracks between PC [free but annoying]
maximum 2gb cf card = max ~400 mins of single track mono recording
actually 6 tracks, since tracks 5/6 and 7/8 are paired stereo channels
basic reverb,delay but NO EQ ??? software fills in here anyway

---dok brown music

my fostex kicks butt.
i recorded a whole song the min. i opened it.

i guess depending on your guitars mics and amps.....i have really nice equipment and what i put in to this unit is what comes out.

very tough.
i've dropped mine on a tile floor and spilled coffee all over it at the same time wiped it up and the thing just keeps ticking with no flaws.

if your some one looking for an easy to use and not to pricey i say buy it.

its hard to figure out at first but after some messing around i had no trouble, and that was without any previous recording experience.

I record clean with no effects, i just record with a mic up to my amp. What you hear when you actually play is what you'll hear when you play it back. The day I got this my friend was using it and i was in the next room and i kept wondering why he kept playing the same song but he was just listening to it, thats how accurate it sounded. If you have sound issues you either dont know how to use this, you are a ****** musician, or your mics or other equipment is shit.

so far so good, i haven't had any problems, i've never had it freeze or anything, i dont know what people are complaining about.

never used

great product, if you cant get good recordings with this then you are the problem, not the recorder

The unit is pretty straight forward. You plug in your mic or guitar, set trim track volume master volume activate track hit record and play and that's it. It only gets sort of tricky when you decide to bounce tracks. Other then that the manual is pretty good at answering your questions.

The sound from this unit is exactly what you should expect from a portable unit like this. Decent to good quality.

I use this unit for recording my bands myspace tracks. However I do not use it in a "normal way". I plug the bands instruments into my mackie mixer and use the sub outs to feed the inputs of the recorder. this way i get to use our pa's effects units (lexicon mpx 100, TC M one, and a dbx 166xl). i also get EQ from doing it this way.

After recording all the tracks i take out the flash card insert the card into my computers flash reader on my computer at home and mix the tracks using acid pro and and sound forge.

The volume at first i thought was low but if you adjust the trim levels on the inputs and balance it before you start recording you'll be fine. Just like if you were playing out you'd do a level set procedure before you started you should do the same thing for this model before you start recording.

If I wanted to drop bills on a mac book or a nice laptop with a firewire interface I could get a much better recording but its just for demo style recordings and it does perfect. I only payed $120.

I have put it in an old laptop bag and it's never given me a problem.

I have read of people saying that this unit has just "stopped" on them and the only thing i can think of that would have caused this would be that you can only record 60minutes on 1 track for 1 song.

I've never had to deal with them.

We play rock and roll. drums two guitars bass and vocals it does the job and pretty well.

i had been looking around at other products at the time and this was the most cost effective unit for our needs. i would never use a portable units effects and for eq we use the mixer so it just a way to get the sound on a portable storage card.

The Fostex MR-8 is good for someone who wants to waste their money! This product will freeze on you in the middle of your recording session like it did to me on more than one occasion. If you want a good product, don't buy this one. You will be sorely disappointed. The only good thing about this product is the fact that it's light and transportable. I have not had any luck with bouncing tracks or editing tracks. The sound this product gives my music is pathetic. The entire unit is worthless. The manual is perhaps the only easy part of this product. The level of sound when you're recording is so low that the playback is distorted. The idea of putting your music on a CD after using this product is hopeless. The sound on the CD won't come through to you. When you call the company, they won't help you. They'll just tell you that you have to play around with it to make it what you want. I don't want to waste my time with a recording system, I want to record tracks. DON'T BUY THE FOSTEX MR-8 or the MR-16!

Very bad sound throughout the entire unit. There isn't any outside noise from the unit but the recording volume is weak. You would have to use a really strong amp to get the sound out and recorded onto your MR-8 in order to really hear your track.

This product is so unreliable. First thing you're doing is recording a track and the next, you're wondering why it stopped right in the middle of your track. This unit skips a lot and when you go to bounce the track over to a WAV file, it skips and freezes. When this happens, you've lost your track and you'll have to re-record. I've done this millions of times and it's really frustrating. I'd give it a zero but the option for this category went to Think it worked once. Don't think so. It worked not at all.

Very, very poor customer support. They are friendly and all but when it comes down to fixing the problem, they don't know. I was told that I should just tweak it until it got to where I wanted it to be. How nice. I should spend my time tweaking a product that I spent 300 dollars on instead of actually recording a track.

I play New Age music and have been for 16 years. This unit should have been worth the money and quite frankly, I am devastated at the loss of money I've spent. I cannot believe that this product is even being sold to musicians.

Easy as using a tape recorder.

-set the input type, guitar, microphone, internal mike.
-Put a guitar or Micrphone into Input A
-Press a record button over the required track
-Hold the record button and press play

Keep doing that for each track you want.

The manual is basic and good. Shame they don't give some recording tips for learners, things like. Don't put reverb on every track and similar. I'd imagine FosTex have a world of knowledge to share in this area.

This machine is like any other. Garbage in, you'll get garbage out, but with reverb. So tips would help.

I do like the easy access mastering effects, to make the final version sound bright, or powerful or normal.

I would also have liked a standard bass and tone control for each track.

Bouncing is easy enough, the wizard runs you through this. Though this is very much a 4>8 track machine. You've got 4 individual tracks and 2 stereo tracks for mixing down to. So you can get 8, with some bouncings.

The punch in/out is good with an auto feature as well.

I'm using this with a BOSS DR-880, guitar and vocals.

Noise is just the background noise I get because of all the household appliances in my place. If I had a seperate phase, the noise would be nothing.

The final quality of the recordings I've made have been excellent.

Hard to answer. I think the quality of the kit seems good. Like all modern equipment. It probably wouldn't take a drop from a high place.

Not had to phone or contact them at this time.

As I mentioned. I'm recording into this, with a BOSS DR-880, guitar ( with some effects ), and vocal.

My music style is rock/grunge and it has really opened up an artistic avenue of home recording for me.

With this and my BOSS, I've got a world of grins from the ability to put artistic promise into real recordings.

I found it incredibly difficult to figure out and actually i never quite did. the manual did not help at all.

sound quality is fine but still very difficult to control volume levels and such.

the buttons seem kind of weak compared to other multitrack rec.'s

n/a

youd probly be better off with any other recorder, i ended up selling this thing.

I found it a bit difficult to figure out. I'm used to a computer recording interface like ProTools or Garage Band. But once I got the hang of the menus and buttons, it's pretty easy. Like anything, it takes getting used to. The manual is detailed, and after a bit of hunting it usually answers my questions.

Sound quality is good. It's basically a great little mixer. The two inputs have trim knobs and a clipping indicator light. Input A allows mic modelling and amp modelling. So you don't need a pre-amp or a direct box. There's a gain knob for overdriving the input to get distortion if you're playing directly into the unit. Room, plate, hall reverb and a delay option.

I primarily use it for rough song demos, with a guitar-vocal and a few other backing tracks. It's perfect for that.

I use an Audio-Technica AT825 Stereo Mic, and I get close to studio-quality sound. I haven't used the internal mic. There are three pre-sets for mix-down: "powerful" (a compressed, wall-of-sound-type setting); "natural," which is exactly what it sounds like; and "bright," which is also exactly what it sounds like, with a bit more space in the mix than the "powerful" setting. You can also choose to just ride the faders and forego any mix presets.

This is an interesting question. The plastic buttons feel flimsy and unpredictable. I bought the unit used, and shortly after I bought it, several of the buttons stopped working. Recently, the "record" button stopped working, and I decided I had nothing to lose by taking it apart and attempting to repair it. (The local Fostex authorized repair center is 30 minutes away, and they wanted $50 just to look at it.) Underneath the plastic buttons, there are tiny micro switches, which look like they might malfunction if the tiniest dust particle were to interfere. So I sprayed them all with electronic contact cleaner (no residue). When I reassembled the unit, everything worked perfectly. So I guess the answer is, with a little routine maintenance, it's dependable. But apparently the maintenance requires some ingenuity and courage. And I'm sure that what I did is not recommended by Fostex. I think there's even a sticker on the enclosure to that effect ("no user-serviceable, etc. inside" whatever). So I'm giving it a "7."

Never dealt with Fostex. Downloaded the system upgrade from their website and it worked great. That's about it.

I write country/acoustic music, mostly. And I use this unit to record my demos, usually with guitar, vocals, and a few additional instruments. I've been playing for more than 20 years. I have a dual-core Intel Mac, and that's where I export my digital recordings. If this unit were stolen or lost, I'd look for another one, because it's perfect for what I do. And I've already mastered the learning curve. I love the fact that it records onto a compact flash disc (I use a 1GB disc, which is usually more than enough for anything--same one I use in my camera). I use a card reader to import the files to my Mac, and it's painless. The display is hard to read unless you're at the right viewing angle, and I find that a bit annoying from time to time. I compared this to hard-drive multi-track recorders, as well as audio interface packages for my Mac. But I settled on this, because it's portable (runs on batteries, if you want it to), and I thought it was the best value for the dollar. Especially picking up a "previously enjoyed" unit. It has become an indispensible tool for me as a songwriter.