Korg D32XD

This unit does a good job of giving you the quality of sound that you originally put into it. I like the fact that the unit always remembers your last fader positions so you can get right back to mix settings. You do have to be careful as to which tracks you have armed for recording as the same faders are assigned to two different sets of tracks so it is easy to record over track ones lead vocal thinking you are recording on track seventeen... a great way to get singers upset with you! Just be mindful of keeping track of the correct fader modes: 1- 16 or 17-32!

I use the unit as the center recording piece for an elaborate keyboard/midi module setup. I also bring in vocals, bass, guitar and electronic drums through outboard preamps:Presonus MP20 and Demeter HXM-1. With proper gain settings the unit is quiet. I enjoy the onboard effects...very usuable stereo reverbs. The unit remembers all your eq,panning and effects settings so once you dial in the sound you want it is always there...very nice! I also use outboard dynamics processors: Art Pro VLA and dbx DDP to sweeten the final stereo mix tracks on the way to the Alesis Masterlink.

I've been a little frustrated at times with having to stop in the middle of recording to optimize all the tracks to get the unit to work properly...this can be a drag when you have a guitarist taking a great solo that is interrupted with an error message and you have to start over!

I have not had a need yet, but, I am concerned that the unit was discontinued relatively quickly.

We do Contemporary Gospel music. The unit gives us a clean sound so it is a good match for our style. I'm a high school music instructor, I've been a musician for over 30 years. I use a Kurzweil PC2X Keyboard Controller with about 16 midi modules(including 3 for drums)I also use various other outboard gear: Preamps,Compressors,Effects,etc. I'm a bit "old school" so I'm comfortable with working with a digital recorder that operates similiar to multitracks of the past but with modern features. I almost bought the Roland VS-2480CD but after reading evaluation reports I decided the D32XD would be simpler to operate and not demand as much down time in learning to produce quality music. I like the convenience of having an "all in one" unit.however, I know I 'll have to move on to a computer based system eventually. The new studio production class I will be teaching and the fact that PDS recorders in general seem to be on the decline demands it.

It is easy to use..it seems... until you begin to find the wierd counter-intuitive things it does... plus the fact that if your overdubbing you have to set up this whole elaborate que mix or you won't hear the part you're about to dub over..

Also ...if you ever use "undo" it returns your virtual tracks to whatever v-track you were on previously (without telling you) so then you ultimately wind up recording over something really precious that you needed to keep.

Also ...if you "comping" a track like say when your editing down a bunch of v tracks on the same channel to get a good vocal track.... the editing is unneccisarily clumsy and won't allow you to copy a section of one v-track to another on the same channel without going thru a big ass clipboard or master traxk rigamaroll.

So bottom line is when you fire this sucker up and just wanna record something the first time...it seems simple but as soon as you need to do anything the slightest bit more involved then this seemingly simple machine becomes way worse to use than any other manufacturers machine you've ever seen!

Ultimately this thing works very poorly!

The basic sound quality is good ... nice and clean and uncolored.

The effects range from useable but boring and unimaginative to just plain lame!

The unit seems to have been quite reliable over the three years I've owned it.

This is where it gets even worse... The customer support is arrogant and unfriendly. The arrogance is made even worse when you realise that they are so unfamiliar with the machine that they either have no idea what you are asking about or they completely misunderstand the question and want to give you unrelated information about a problem that you're not even asking about and have already dealt with yourself and have found a much more elegant "work-around" that what they're jibbering on about!

Ultimately their way of dealing with these problems was to discontinue this flagship $3000.00 machine (actually I have about $4000.00 into mine) less than two years after it's release... and discontinue all support without warning.... NO upgrades...fixes or anything else ... including loss of availability for optional upgrades etc.... I could go on but.... why bother?

I absolutely cannot recommend Korg. I just hope that my experience and time spent bothering to try to type some of this out will help save sombody else the experience of dealing with this company.