moving above and beyond my tascam 314...

[R. Alcatraz]

Hi everybody. This is my first time posting here. "first-time long-time" as they say on WFAN and probably every other sports talk radio in the country.
I have been recording on and off for the past few years with a Tascam 314 porstatudio. I could probably count the number of fully arrainged multi-tracked songs that I made on it on my hand(s). I really used it for a songwriting notepad, sometimes putting harmonies in or drums, but often as not filling up seperate tracks with totally different songs. Honestly, my Sony pocket memo thingy was better for this until thieves stole it from my car. For more ambitious projects, a friend/ bandmate usually had something shiner and more digital that I could record on.
The protastudio is dying, it's power brick is definately very dead, and, like I said, theives are listening to my drunken fear-ballads on a Sony mini-casette (at least it's an audience). I have been recording into Cubase with my powerbook built-in mocrophone, putting insane high shelfing on everything to cancel the noise of my hard drive.
No more. I got some money together, and I'm delving in the wonderful prolitariat world of consumer recording. I'm thinking about buying a Yamaha AW16 or something equivalent. I just want something fairly simple and compact enough to fit in a Honda along with drums and a wurlitzer and guitar and all my other crap. The idea of being able to (re)mix in Cubase is nice.
Do you guys think I'll miss working with tape? I did get severly addicted to slowing the tascam speed down about 30%. and I liked tracking superloud drums with a Nady Starpower. I feel like this things won't be the same in digital. Is there something like an older, better version of my tascam? like an Alec Baldwin to my 314's Stephen? I just don't really want to buy a tape machine the size of a dishwasher, or have to fix/jimmy/re-break something a lot.
Thanls everybody, your advice is welcome.
[/i]

[Mark]

You don't mean a Tascam 414, do you?

As for replacing it, you could try its bigger brother the 424 (6 channel, 2 buss 4 track). OR, if you're not scared of the second hand market and ebay, one of the following

Tascam 246 (Six channels, four buss 4-track)
Tascam 464 (Ditto)
Tascam 644 (8 channel, 4 buss 4 track. With automation!)
Tascam 488 MKII (8 channel (4 mic, 4 line, with XLR jacks and phantom power on first two channels), 4 buss 8 track)
Tascam 688 (20 channel, 8 buss (I think) 8 track)

Note: All of these use standard compact cassettes and will fit comfortably in the boot of the average family car.