I thought it might be interesting to see how you ended up with your current set-up.
 
Here's my history:
1. Tascam Portastudio X-15 - 4 track cassette (1984 - just learning)
2. Yamaha MT10 - 4 track cassette (double the tape speed - better sound)
3. Yamaha MD8 - 8 track mini disc (OMG - 8 tracks and digital sound - my life had changed)
4. Garage Band (got a cheap Mac)
5. Sonar Home Studio 6 (another life changer)
6. Sonar X1 Studio

Now being that I'd have to go back to 1963....
I'll just say...what a trip it's been and I don't think it's over.

Been told before many times before here but....

1. Tascam Portastudio One 4 track cassette,  Roland TR-505, Roland Juno2, Mirage Sampler
2. Tascam 80-8 with M312 console and Roland 24 Channel line mixer, PC with Voyetra Gold Sequencer synced to track 8
3. 3x Alesis ADAT (Blackface), Alesis X2 console + Cakewalk
4. In 2005 I went full on PC only SONAR 6 (although I owned from ProAudio 4 thru X2)

first board i ever used, was a Teac Model 5B, into a 1/4" reel to reel. this was at the studio....


first systems i actually owned prior to Sonar:

1.  Fostex R8 
2.  Tascam 688
3.  Roland VS-880ex
4.  Roland VS-1880

Complete history in a nut shell....

1. Way back in the 60's I had a small reel to reel..... tape on a 3" reel.... battery powered.  Sounded like crap.

2. Cassette tape recorder, that sat on a desk...also battery powered.  sounded like crap.

3. In the 80's picked up a TEAC 4 track reel to reel.... and a TAPCO mixer..........still sounded like crap...

4. 90's..... got a Tascam Porta-One 4 track cassette and a Roland 505(?) programmable drum machine  Started sounding better.

5. Late 90's early 2000 got Cakewalk Pro 8 Delux and a midiman PCI card and entered the digital world of Cakewalk. THis worked until the OS was upgraded and the PCI card driver didn't work......

5 b... tried a stand alone Korg D-1600 and hated it.....sold it after only a few months..... 

6. I got a new  Dell lappy running  Vista  and bought  MC4.... then MC5.... then MC6.... then X1 essentials...... built a new custom DAW in 2009 and installed them all on it..... still rocking it today....

7. to be continued.....

Guitarhacker


Way back in the 60's I had a small reel to reel..... tape on a 3" reel.... battery powered.  Sounded like crap.

Actually me too.


Anybody who was 9-13 years old in the 60s and is still recording music and DID NOT have something similar then..... well they are NOT actual recording engineers, IMHO

Pretty soon Doc Hollingsworth is going back to tape. I can feel it.

Those tascam 4 tracks were way too expensive for me back then... So I used to rent them and rent/borrow equipment whenever I had a bit of money and some time off to spend a few days recording demos.

The rest of the time, song ideas were recorded using an ordinary tape deck - or sometimes a pair of them, so that I could add overdubs. 

I eventually got an old Sony open reel machine, which allowed me to simplify the overdubbing process. I used it in conjunction w/ a friend's Akai XR-10 drum machine and an old piece of junk synth, which I used to run through guitar pedals to make things a bit more interesting.

But it wasn't until I realized that you could record and mix audio on a PC in the late 90s that I entertained any idea of actually having my own studio, giving up on live performances and focusing on songwriting. 

Cakewalk Guitar Studio was the software.

The set up grew up from there.

My dad's Dual reel-to-reel and 2 Philips cassette decks in the early 1970s.
Then a TEAC A-3440 4-track reel-to-reel in the late '70s.
<long period of not doing much, music-wise>
Got a TASCAM 4-track Portastudio in 2000.
Music Creator 2003 in 2002, then on to Music Creator Pro 24 and SONAR Home Studio 6 XL.
It's so much simpler now.
 
 
 

1 Radio Shack and 1 Kenwood cassette deck with a Radio Shack mixer. I'd dub back and forth between the two until audio quality got too bad.

Tascam 4-Track cassette of some kind. Can't remember which one. It was the one that played tapes at regular speed and used the entire width of the tape.

Tascam 488 8-Track cassette.

Cakewalk Pro Audio 9

Sonar 4 PE

Sonar 8 PE

Sonar 8.5 PE

Sonar X1 PE

Sonar X2 PE

I've dabbled in all the major DAW's ... but I keep coming back to Sonar.

I'm addicted to it.