Whats the best cheapest digital multitrack for guitar?

[Steve A.]

I've heard that you can get those so-called *special* versions of Pro Tools LE 6 to to work with M-Audio hardware, like the Delta 1010 (don't ask how I know this)

I don't know how this translates to other hardware than M-Audio (which I like: I don't care if people call it a toy, it's great value for money and works with Linux)

The Pro Tools that comes bundled with the MBox is AFAIK the same as what they sell as Pro Tools M-Powered: the limitation in either case is 32 tracks. A friend of mine has the MBox 2, and it seems to work well: we've used it to track guitars and bass for a multitrack recording project. We just hired a practice space and took the amps, a pair of cans, a SM57, a laptop and the MBox in there for an afternoon, much cheaper than hiring a studio. (The drums, and guide tracks of everything else, were previously recorded on Pro Tools in a real studio. This is one advantage of PT, it seems to be almost an industry standard.)

The guts of the MBox 2 are made by Focusrite AFAIK, and it works fine as an ASIO soundcard with other audio software: it's not tied to Pro Tools. The only strange thing is that it appears to be USB 1.1!

I'll have to look into those, er, *special* on-line versions... LOL

I believe that most of the DigiDesign packages come with the limited edition (LE) version of ProTools, but that the M-Powered version is even more limited...

"Industry Standard"... that was the phrase I was trying to think of! Knowing Pro Tools can be a marketable skill whereas telling them that you are really good with "Cool Edit Pro" will probably get you booted out of the building...

I forget which program someone was referring to (maybe PT) but they ran a studio and had bought the latest version of the program, but would run the *special* on-line version because the copy protection dongle was sometimes not recognized properly by Windows and they couldn't afford to have their studio shut down until tech support could get them working again. "No dongle, no record-le..."

[Shark_Sandwich]

Just wanted to recommend the Boss Micro BR. For the money, I don't think it can be beat. I use mine to record live performances as well as a guitar trainer. The sound quality is very good, and the drum machine is quite good, especially for the price. I typically record using a homemade stereo microphone, but the on-board mic works well and the guitar input jack can be adjusted for sensitivity, which is nice.

Don