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I’ve now have my Tascam 4-track recorder for 3 weeks and worked with it quite a bit. Most people think of a 4-track as just a means for a garage band or songwriter to lay down ideas or a demo.

I have found it to be an amazing practice tool. It allows you to play along with a built-in metronome and play it back with or without the click track. This is an amazing way to open  your ears to rhythmic issues.

You can also load your own .wav files onto the SD card and record yourself along with it on a second track. Again, what a great practice tool!!! Upon playback, your ears immediately open up and you hear your playing in a whole new light. Musiciality, pitch, and rhythm take one real meaning when you can hearself as an outside listener.

It is also great fun to record yourself playing different parts of a song and for writing your own music and playing the different tracks.

My only real gripe is the lack of a backlit screen – it is a little difficult to see. Tascam’s DP-008 has this. The DP-008 is the 8-track model which is really nice and adds several features but battery life and portability suffer slightly. The DP-004 is really small. I don’t even notice it in my briefcase when I take it to work.