An avenue worth investigating that I don't think anyone has mentioned is using your PC as a hard disk recorder. The ISIS Guillimot is a low cost (~£200) PC based system with a PCI card and an external breakout box. This system allows 4 tracks to be recorded simultaneously and 4 playback output tracks. The actual total number of tracks you can record is only limited by the performance of your PC. Using a Pentium 200 MHz I can achieve about 16 tracks with some effects such a reverb or chorus being added in software. Using a software sequencer package on the PC such as Calkwalk or Cubase to mix many tracks (only limited by the performance of your PC) onto the output buses. Using a Pentium 200 MHz I can achieve about 16 tracks with some effects such a reverb or chorus being added in software. This system also allows you to automate your mixdown and backup easily onto CDROM. The downside is that you have to try and keep the PC with its noisy fan as far away as possible from the mikes, and all control is through the PC interface. It is also beneficial to have an external mixer for to act as a mike preamp and general mixing and to have an analogue compressor to maximise the input to the ISIS.

Though the ISIS is a fully functional recording system on its own I tend to use it in conjunction with a standalone Fostex D80 8 track hard disk recorder because my setup evolved that way. I record all analogue signals onto the D80 and digitally transfer them onto the ISIS to give the best signal quality. I have found through experiment that often the best instrument sounds are obtained through using a number of mikes on each instrument to give a good stereo image. I have found that the best acoustic guitar sounds is obtained by using a fairly close condenser mike to get the attack of the pick and a stereo pair positioned a couple of feet away to get the full image. When you compare the finished sound with a single miked recording the difference is much more realistic and the guitar seems to come out from the speakers. You can see that once you start to try these techniques you soon run out of tracks on even an 8 track system with just a couple of instruments!!