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Thread DAW vs. Digital Recorder & DAW

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1 DAW vs. Digital Recorder & DAW
I am a simple acoustic musician. I use Sonar 3, but I don't use 95% of its capabilities. I don't use MIDI, I don't use many effects, I don't use loops. I just play real musical instruments and sing. And I record these things with a microphone.

My question: What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of (1) recording, mixing and mastering with Sonar and a stand-alone mixer, and (2) recording with a Boss or Fostex, for example, stand-alone digital recorder, and then mixing, EQ-ing, and mastering with Sonar?

Does anyone use the second set-up, and if so, why?

Thanks.

Paul S.
2
For your application (which is very similar to mine) the only real advantages the DAW will have is it will do a better job of audio editing, adding effects, mixing down and mastering.

The standalone device like the Tascam 2488 or the Yamaha AW-16 will do the same thing, but it is much more cumbersome and less effecient. It will take much longer to do the same thing with the standalone recorder.

The advantage to a standalone device (or SIAB as I call it) is that you can record as many inputs as it has (8 in the case of the Tascam 2488) simultaneously with no latency issues. This is much more difficult to do with a DAW, or impossible with my system.