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Fostex R8
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Published on 03/03/09 at 10:30
This is one of the most influential 1/4' 8 track tape recorders within 90's electronic music, used most notably by Squarepusher and Aphex Twin.

All in all it is a good piece of kit for the home studio, especially if your doing a stem mix from a DAW. I have been using it for a year now to add the warm feel of tape saturation to my mixes, and on the whole it has worked flawlessly although tape prices have sky rocketed recently but thats not the multi-tracks fault!
I had used a Studer B67 which was on loan to me from a local studio but it didn't have hiss reduction and was an expensive venture to service and find parts for!

Personally it was a rather large step up in price that what i had wanted to pay but i knew that the unit had been well looked after and was serviced regularly which was a great ease setter as when these things go wrong they can cost a lot to repair many times more than what they originally cost. After using it for a period of time i have started to feel that it is an integral part of my work process and my setup and would be greatly missed if anything were to go wrong with it.

I think i would as i have grown to like the sound of saturation on my mixes and i think i would buy a replacement if it broke down and couldn't be repaired!

Good Points.

It really sets your mixes aside from the rest, adding a nice level of hiss to your mixes also it does give the ever so often said term 'warm' sound to your mixes. Plus it does look cool in the back of the studio with phono looms connected to it and the detachable transport.

Bad Points.

how ever much it pains me to say this there are some bad point to this piece of kit, first being the weight as it is a heavy one to carry around and although its said to be portable its unlikely that your going to be able to take it on the train to any sessions. the second and final bad point is the counter intuitive built in computer that allows you to set points in the track for fast forwarding and re-winding.