boss makes a mini recording studieo with cd burner in it thats around your price range. and you can hook it to a mixer and other effect boards. is that what your looking for? maybe elaborate more.

Why not get a laptop and record directly to the PC? A good lappy is less than $500 now and you can get good sequencing software for $50 to $60.

Paul I am old school analog as far as recording , how hard is it to learn how to do digital recording like this. I assume that the laptop would be able to plug into the mixer on the analog rca jacks that the tape deck is plugged into now?

bob

I'm pretty sure you just need a good sound card... something to convert the analog to digital. I'm old school analog too Bob. But, the digital recording software that I've used is pretty simple to get the hang of.

Dave

how hard is it to learn how to do digital recording like this

No harder than it was to learn analog recording Bob. Electronically you just treat the laptop as if it were a tape recorder.

I assume that the laptop would be able to plug into the mixer on the analog rca jacks that the tape deck is plugged into now?

Yep, that's it. The soundcard handles the analog to digital conversion for you. There are some settings you need to think about such as sample depth and rate but there's a myriad of documents online that discuss these settings in detail.

Once you have things set up you just record onto a virtual track just as if it was a multitrack recorder. Mixing and mastering is done in the software.

The only other thing to keep in mind is you need some decent speakers when you do the mixing and mastering. I use a cheap headphone amp and a decent set of headphones for mixing. When you want to hear the final mix you can take the lappy anywhere with a good sound system and play it back to check the mix.

It's all easy enough but it's more versatile than a dedicated recorder.

Really need to go CD? I think a recorder to a data stick, then manipulate things on a PC is much more versatile.

i agree with dave go cd, and good soft ware 50-60bucks? where do you get this software? even an old version of pro tools on a clearance rack cost more than that.

PGMusic has a sequencer called PowerTracks. $59. Great deal, great software for home recording.

I should add that Audacity is a perfectly good multi track recording app and it's free.