Tascam DP-24 SD

No MIDI!
That's my main gripe with this machine. Can you believe that? My two-decade old first-generation DP-01 Tascam 8-track has MIDI and intuitive controls. This model certainly doesn't. It took me about a month of continual usage to familiarize myself with its controls.
And no CD burner either! I would have expected that at this price point, which I believe the older model of this line had.
The sound of the recorded tracks is fine.
However the guitar effects that come with this model are inferior in every way to the preset effects that were included in my older DP-01. Disappointing. The amp modeling is considerably noisy with audible hiss.
I still haven't quite figured out how, or even if, the compressor facility that's included as a mastering utility is useable without degrading the overall sound. I decided to omit that from the mastering process.
The pros would be 24 tracks of good quality recording ability and a certain TASCAM familiarity coupled with some level of perceived quality.
The cons, well, all of the above.
This was my first recording gear purchase after a 15-year hiatus and I have mixed feelings about it. I really don't understand how TASCAM can put out a digital recording WITHOUT MIDI after all those years.
Frankly, I continue to use my trusty old DP-01 more than this guy. But if you need to record a large band live and you require simultaneous recording ability on a large number of tracks, you'll find this digital recorder quite useful.

My band used this in our studio to record our first record and we're starting the second with it as well.

The attraction is the ease of workflow- we simply don't want to deal with a non-dedicated laptop, the delays caused by endless clicking to get things set up.

The sound is good, though we have had a few problems recently preventing clipping on the snare, even with compression and the gain all the way down.

One reliability issue concerns the SD card- at a certain point we ran into some trouble with a "writing timeout" error. It's a Tascam-approved SD card, which is frustrating. It hasn't happened on the 3 other cards (also Tascam-approved) that we've used with it.

The unit is solidly built. If lost or stolen i'd definitely buy another. I may even buy another one anyway.

This is my 3rd Tascam dp machine. The prevoius two got used heavily every day for about 5 years each before they started giving me enough problems to merit buying a new one. I hate using computers and soundcards for multitrack recording. DP24 is great if you just want to record things quickly without farting about editing before moving on to the next piece. I dont use the internal fx apart from reverb on saxes and i cant be arsed with the mastering. I just mix, take the sd card to the computer and save it or cut a CD. I love CDs. The reason i need newachines is that the switch gear on these machines is pretty poor. If you use it every day you are going to be pressing the stop/start transport buttons a lot. After 5 years the stop button os knackered. These buttons are probably pressing down on some kind of plastic membrane and this wears out. The stop key is flimsier than start and record. This was a design flaw. It should be the same as the other two. The other major flaw is that a power cut while you are recording renders your current song unusable. Thus isnt a big problem but make sure you backup your sd card regularly to prevent losses. The first fp models had midi - tgese later ones dont. That was a mistake too but I can live without it. Obviously as Im nowbon my third, I really rate these machines if demo quality is all you need.