Cliff, I had a Teac A-3400 reel to reel for a long time but never did record with it very much. I figured out how to record, bounce and how to use feedback to create echo but when you're a band of one and not a very good musician or singer recording quickly gets old.

I've had a Zoom MRS-8 digital recorder since 2007 and love it. The "MRS" stands for mobile recording studio and the name fits. The device is about the size of a book, has four stereo tracks, four mono tracks and two mastering tracks. It has a built-in, programmable drum and bass machine with 345 per-programmed patterns and room for about 200 user patterns. There is a parallel bus for reverb and delay. Best of all though are the algorithms that create signal chains. There are nine groups and each group has almost 100 variations!

My wife found a factory refurbished unit for $138 and bout it as a birthday gift. A few years later she bought Band-in-a-Box as a Christmas gift. I am a very lucky man! With those two gifts I've been able to explore music production and have fun with music.

Good luck with your Tascam recorder. Like you I much prefer using a dedicated recorder versus recording on a computer. My brother has a slightly different version and it is an impressive machine.

Jim Fogle - 2025 BiaB (Build 1128) RB (Build 5) - Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk Sonar - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home