Hi Ben
Thanks for the advice. I am a retired guy and only doing my recording to please myself. At the moment I don't have any tape recorder at all and if I want to record anything I have to use the computer. I spent my whole life working on computers and now with the covid around I even have to do my shopping by computer! - I am starting to get rsi again
So I thought to simplify my life a bit and be able to just get up and make a quick recording on a tape that is always available if I wake up in the early hours of the morning with an idea in my head and just put that down without needing to turn on computers.
I suppose, from there other ideas emerged. My previous effort at recording were all very much stereo approaches - even my guitars were wired for stereo and split front and back pickups. I left my studio and all my equipment except my little mixer in Germany and I am now just setting up again in the UK. Now everything in the studio seems to be mono, guitars as well.
So I am going to pursue this mono idea - maybe even make mono finished tracks, I don't know yet. I am also all analogue into my computer ... which is very interesting, because I don't know anyone else doing that. Most non-computer people might think that was unprofessional, yet it is quite the opposite if one understands the limitations of USB and budget audio interfaces.
I have my computer OS set up to run it's sound subsystem at 24bit 96khz and I plug the analogue mixer directly into the analogue sound input jack. The noise floor is pretty much zero - as good as USB. The advantage this gives is that the recording levels are analogue not digital, and the problem of distorting the level in the digital domain is eliminated. This really helped in getting a good sound into the computer reliably and since I have been using this setup I would definitely not wish to go back to USB.
As I am using Linux, the USB subsystem is also not 100% yet because of USB 3 and beyond - things take time in the free software space.
So I am already analogue mostly, and it's easy for me to feed the same source to either the computer or the Tandberg - it's just a choice and then try it out, see how it sounds.
I have lots to learn and perhaps the Tandberg may not be good enough eventually. I have a limited budget and I managed to pick this up at a very good price, so it gets me started.
Having said that, if the machine is working to spec then I would be most surprised if it cannot deliver a vocal track into a mix of say six other digital tracks without degrading the result to unacceptable levels. We will see in practice. What I liked about the Tandberg was the ergonomics of it and the build quality, also the use of metal parts rather than plastic in some places. I was looking at stereo machines yet I am now glad I ended up with the mono version - it is so much simpler on the (human) head and the number of cables and channels involved.
Thanks for your help.
Regards
Adam