Bob, if your primary interest is home recording rather than live performance, you should research the Tascam DP-32sd stand alone recorder. I'm sure you will find it does a more efficient job than the Model 12 in the home based recording studio. The DP-32 (and the DP-24) are designed and engineered for small non-commercial home studios and can work as a stand alone recording unit or provide audio tracks for any DAW. The Model 12 is a hybrid that's better suited as a mixer than as a stand alone recorder and it's designed to act as an interface to a DAW. Transferring tracks from either the DP-32 or Model 12 function nearly identically. The Model 12 costs $100 more than the DP-32 and you will be paying more for features you may not need or use if you don't plan to utilize the unit for stage performances and you will also be paying more for less because the Model 12 doesn't have features that are focused toward home recording scenario's that the DP-32 does have.

The DP-32 will have all of the DAW features necessary to complete a project from start to finish without smothering you with so many DAW features, techniques, procedures and decisions. You aren't swamped with thousands of plug-ins to choose from but the included plug-ins are very good and more than sufficient to do the job. The bonus is also, you'll have complete and unfettered access to any DAW or plug-in if you want or need more processing than the unit provides.

What you won't have is any of the multitude of issues that comes with every software DAW. There will be no latency, no asio driver issues, no additional cost for an audio interface, no issues between PC or Mac systems compatibility or soundcard issues.

The biggest shortcoming of a DP-32sd is the lack of MIDI input/output which may not be an issue for you.

These units are very robust, rugged and versatile and have nice preamps, physical controls and are quite easy to learn.


BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.