Hey friend...I appreciate the concern,but I've done my homework thoroughly on this unit & yes,I have read the user reviews & some of them are not good....but you need to take it with a grain of salt. Some folks want their instructions spoon-fed to them,if the PDF's or printed manuals are not spelled out to them to their particular liking....meaning that a lot of people are spoiled with YouTube videos & the like.
I knew beforehand,that some people were buying tutorials for the 2488neo,because the manual did not suffice in guiding one through the in-depth editing features.Since I had some experience with multi-tracking,I thought I might be able to find my way through this unit with no hitches....but I had always considered the possibility that I may need the DVD at some point.You may find it interesting to know,that for several years,Korg has been making horribly vague user-manuals for their keyboard workstations-
yes,that's right....their manuals basically listed all of it's functions & parameters,but failed to instruct one on
how to utilize the said functions.
I can't speak for the Korg multi-trackers,but in recent years...Korg started including DVD's with their workstations,as my Korg Triton Extreme came with one.It's actually very commonplace to end up with a product with only a quick start guide(of sorts)...M-Audio does this,Hewlett-Packard does this & even my Propellerhead software was slim on instructions & I had to spend $50 on a tutorial DVD to learn the program.Trust me Oren....all these inputs & outputs have already proved to be useful.I have two Korg Workstations running through my mixer & into the first two inputs...then there's my microphone in input 3...& once I get the Kurzweil PC3LE keyboard,I will have exhausted my # of inputs on my mixer,so any extra device I end up using,will have to be directly connected to my Tascam-which I will be able to do easily and I will still have additional inputs for something done the road that may come up & I'll never have to worry about running out of options.There's two other points to consider as well....one,is that my Zoom recorder(which was only a $175 less than my Tascam,only had two Mic/Line inputs...which was one of the main reasons why I had to buy the Mackie mixer in the first place.Secondly....take a good gander around....what else is there besides portable recorders in the hardware world??Any stationary hardware multi-tracker will begin at around $2,000 to start....& my only other alternative,is to spend a small fortune on a custom computer,just so that I may have stability & reliability with software.
Seriously man,it's literally impossible to find anything that even comes close to the Tascam 2488neo for the money & if you dig deep enough,you will see that $674 for the 2488neo is by far,the absolute best price on the internet(brand new).By the way...I have read through 5 star reviews on the Tascam tutorial DVD & in terms of saving a few bucks,the price of the 2488neo & the DVD guide,is an absolute steal,in contrast to everything else that's out there.I have also read through posts in forums,where people are becoming disgusted with all the excess time they are spending on all of the advanced editing,instead of just creating & making music(not to mention all of the time wasted on fixing PC issues).....so they are looking towards recorders like the Tascam,so they can get up & go...make the music-record it-master it,with great sonic quality in no time flat!
-Thom