Unfortunately recording a CD live on a PC isnt going to truly work..it's best to go with a standalone CDRw such as the Tascam model you mentioned..great performance and great sounding converters too..

Opus

If you plan to do some cutting, pasting, any other mastering type stuff etc., you may want to go direct to HD. Going to CD means you'd still need to dump into the HD anyway. Why not cut out the middle man?

However, if you just want an archive of the performances and don't intend to mass produce off it, direct to CD would be fine. I've been using HHB 800 series burners for a while now with good results. All the format options make life pleasant. I've only used the Tascam unit a couple times, and no problems yet. I'm not familiar with the i/o options on that one offhand.

One caveat, I would keep the CD burner in a shock-mounted flight case to minimize vibration while the CD is burning. And try to put it in an area of the room that won't vibrate too much either. This would still be the case with a HD based recorder, or even DAT, but much more so with CD. I've had a couple ssskickikick
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pipipipipipipipipipip problems burning CD's with the mains up loud and the burner on a tabletop. Use your best judgement.

Thanks for the input :)
I'm going to recommend they go with the hard drive. That way they can edit and chop all they want.
I'm also going to encourage them to continue going to cassette until they get used to the format.
Again, Thanks

Wayne :D

Why not have both in one box?

Alesis makes a box called ML-9600 Masterlink. It combines a hard drive that records about 5 hours of 16bit 44.1khz stereo audio, built-in editing, and a CD burner.

Very portable(three rack spaces).

I don't work for Alesis, btw.

Rick

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Opus2000:
the Tascam model you mentioned..great performance and great sounding converters too..

Well, I can agree with the performance statement. However, I own one of the CD-RW5000, and the first thing I checked was the D/A converters. The converters in my Sony player sound better than those in the Tascam. The difference is marginal, but Super Bit Mapping seems to work pretty well. ;)
As for the original question, a stand-alone burner will be easier to carry and set up for live recording. You can always transfer your data into the computer if you need to edit and master.

:cool: