From the starting point of the standard portastudio there was a bifurcation: first came the downmarket models typified by the still popular Fostex X15 now available at around £269. More recently came the likes of the very upmarket Tascam 246 and the Audio Technica RMX 64, with six input channels, innumerable auxiliary sends, powerful equalisation, etc, etc and a price tag over the grand mark. Between the two extremes washes a sea of permutations continually expanding as more manufacturers present their idea of the perfectly balanced product.

The Looks

The latest configuration to drift up on the shore of... well anyway, Vesta Fire just sent us their new machine to take a look at. It's imaginatively entitled MR-1 Multitrack Recorder, and at £698 it's definitely upmarket. Cosmetics are obviously a matter of personal taste, but I do think the MR-1 suffers from an imprudent use of two shades of red, orange, grey, black, white and blue to produce a rather unsophisticated, unco-ordinated appearance. At almost £700, and when competing with the likes of Audio Technics, Teac and Yamaha, it really could do with looking a little classier.

Having said that, the standard of finish is good, and I've no doubt that it could physically stand up to prolonged periods of rough treatment. Of course, how it stands up electronically and sonically to long hours of use over a period of years we won't know for a period of years, but the transport seems to be reasonably solid, although once again peering down inside towards the head assembly there still seems to be a certain lack of the polish and sophistication found with the other major manufacturers. This may simply be cosmetic, and the base plate onto which the heads are mounted seems solid enough.

The record/playback head is apparently made out of permalloy which still seems to be what everyone uses for four-track applications, although there is a new, harder wearing alloy being used (by Teac for one) in the hi fi market, which gives longer life and good sonic performance. Hopefully this will soon find its way into the portastudio market where it is much needed. Meanwhile, this head should last about as long as any other portastudio's.

Considering the facilities offered, the MR-1 is not notably small, neat or compact in its design. It measures 19" x 8" x 8", and is in fact 19" rack-mountable. The case is all metal and commendably solid and hardy of finish, though anything but light. Its main claim is that it has six input channels as opposed to the relatively wingeing four to be found on your average middle of the road item, and this immediately puts it in an exclusive bracket with the 246 and RMX 64. Each channel has four track routing buttons so that any or all of the six inputs can be routed to any combination of tracks. The only other input channel controls are a pair of knobs for level adjustment and an input/tape changeover switch. There are no auxiliary sends, there's no equalisation and no solo button. Okay, so it's £300-400 less than the Big Two, but is that sufficient to justify this rather serious list of omissions? It is suggested that one might like to buy a couple of Vesta Fire parametric equalisers offering a single channel of two-band fully parametric eq (adjustable gain, frequency and Q). This is all very well but they do cost about £89 each, plus power supply if you don't want to rely on batteries, and you'd need six of the perishers to really sort yourself out (£534 + PSU!).

The Lack

The lack of auxiliary sends is somewhat ameliorated by the existence of insert points for each input channel. What this means is that the signal path through the channel is routed via a pair of bridged phono sockets on the rear panel. By removing the metal bar that joins these two sockets you can replace it with a signal processor of some kind, whether a compressor, an auxiliary equaliser (as mentioned above) or an effects unit so that the device is inserted into the signal path. This is fine unless you want to apply the same effect to a number of channels; for example with reverb you might want to put a touch on various instruments as you record them to multitrack or as you finally mix them to stereo. Without an auxiliary send (echo send/effects send) this isn't possible and, unlike the eq, there's no way this can be compensated for by the addition of auxiliary boxes.

There is a single ¼" unbalanced jack input (470kOhm) for each channel to cope with both mike and line level inputs. The level trim control allows any high impedance input signal from -70dB to +15dBV to be connected directly without problems, and this should include most low cost mikes, mixer line level outputs, drum machines and electric guitars. The rear panel provides a second set of six inputs, together with four line outputs and main stereo mix outputs, all on unbalanced phono sockets. The common defense for machines such as this that lack eq and aux sends is that if you already have a reasonable mixer for PA, why bother paying again for all those facilities? Occasionally, if delivered with sufficient verve and certainty, this might pass as a fair and sensible thing to say. In this case, however, one might feel moved to point out that with a mixer in tow you wouldn't need six inputs, or comprehensive routing and that you might as well use a cheaper system altogether. In this way the MR-1 could be seen to fall between two stools.

The Limit

Four large illuminated VU meters grace the top of the front panel giving clear indication of what's going on in terms of average record/playback levels. In addition to this, the first four input channels have built-in limiter/compressors with LEDs to show when limiting is taking place. There are inherent difficulties with limiters that have no adjustments in that the average settings written in by the manufacturer are bound to be a compromise for most applications and actually just right for very few. No figures are available but it seems that the attack time is fairly fast and is certainly capable of catching a slapped bass, whilst the release time is extremely slow. This means that if you are playing a bass line with an occasionally over-enthusiastic string pull but a generally moderate and even dynamic, the occasional peak will have everything diving down a few dB for several seconds before the system gain gradually eases back to normal. The amount of compression can, in fact, be controlled by the way you set the MR-1's gain structure: while recording, the two level knobs on each channel both really act as input/record level controls and come before the input to the compressor. Thus increasing the gain of either of these knobs will effectively lower the compressor's threshold and increase the amount of compression. On the master section there is an overall input level control which affects all record levels for all tracks. By turning this up and turning the individual controls down you can decrease the amount of compression, and vice versa. For small amounts of gain reduction (compression) the system is not too bad, but any big peaks will really send the dynamics of your playing haywire. A nice feature is that of being able to link the limiters so that if one triggers, they all trigger; this is useful for recording stereo pairs — or even two stereo pairs. I find it a strange balance to include limiters on four channels but no eq or auxiliary sends. One good compressor/limiter is enough to meet most self-op home recording requirements, but eq and sends on all channels is almost always very important.

It must be said that the system is extremely simple to use, which is a big plus if you have no experience. There is a separate monitor section with four dual concentric pots providing level and pan for each channel. There's also a master output control and a headphone volume control — the headphone amp is wonderfully powerful and for once there's plenty of welly to be had even through a pair of 600ohm cans.

Tape speed is 3¾ips with a ± 12% Varispeed. Dbx noise reduction has been used and, although I tend to much prefer Dolby C for cassette-based systems, in this case it seems to work very well with hardly any modulation noise, even with drums, it's disconcerting that no frequency response figure has been given in the manual, but the sound quality is very acceptable. Drop ins and outs can be accomplished by a standard momentary footswitch, although these aren't quite as quiet as would be desirable with a slight click when going in or out of record. The digital tape position counter has a return-to-zero facility, but no 'loop repeat' as found on more expensive machines.

The Conclusion

Producing new portastudios is largely a case of creating the right combination of facilities at the right price. I feel that for most applications the MR-1 doesn't offer enough for the money asked, and that the balance of facilities won't suit the average home recording musician. On the other hand if you specifically need six inputs and aren't worried about eq and aux sends, this is your most inexpensive option. Perhaps it will find a comfortable home in the world of semi-pro audio-visual production. Rather it than me, I must say.

RRP: £698