Jah,

Well, now that you state how many tracks you want to record at a time, then of course the lexicon is out of the picture. I only have experience with the Tascam 2488 HDR, and very limited at that.

Some things you might want to check off:

1. Make sure you can easily get the files from the Zoom to the PC if you want to edit on the PC (this is inherently easier than on the HDR, if you can fly in your DAW software, IMO)
2. How's the manual? DL before buying and see if you can pre-learn the device
3. Make sure you have mic pre-amps for all the channels you would like to record simultaneously; or you'll be carrying around more gear than the zoom. Looks like the zoom has this, but always check. The tascam 2488 has only 4 mic pre-amps onboard, but a mess of sliders for post record mixing.

As a standalone unit, looks pretty cool - try to check out the bass and guitar amp modeling to see if that's serviceable. If so, then it does look like a pretty killer package for your above-stated purpose.

-Scott

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