Zoom H4 or Fostex MR-8mkII for a newbie?

For you learned fellows...

I'd like to try some recording. I've done abit with just a mic and my laptop's mic input, and I have a M-Audio Blackbox with a USB interface but it's quite a headache to use. My laptop is nowhere near state-of-the-art and I'd like something stand-alone. My buddy does alot of recording with a fancy multi-track recorder (put out a few CD's for his students) and he suggested a cheap 4-track stand-alone, but everything I find is $300 plus.

The Fostex looks cool, and the Zoom looks rather gimmicky, but it comes with Cubase LE and has pretty high-end built in mics,even though it has phantom power for it's 2 XLR inputs (I have a farely high-end condenser mic).

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4/

Ideally I just want to mic my amp and record the guitar, then play that back through headphones/monitor while recording the vocals, being able to mix the monitor and my vocals in the headset, maybe add some lead and drums over the whole works. Obviously I'm new to this!

Any feedback most appreciated!

Darcy, you're explaining two different things.
If you want to "mic your amp" then you need to setup a DAR workstation and it looks like you've had some practice doing that.
I don't know what you mean though by "quite a headache."
There shouldn't be any headache at all.
Can you be a little more specific?

The Zoom H4 is for remote recording. A band practice for example. Or to record some ideas on guitar while away from home. That sort of thing. Two different requirements.

BTW, I own the Zoom H2. It is $100 less than the H4 (and doesn't come with any software). But I'm very impressed with the quality and it is VERY easy to use. Having no bundled software should not be an issue because you should have sequencer software anyway loaded on your PC. There are several, as you know, to choose from.

Here's a portable digital 8 track recorder for under $300. Uses SD Cards so if you have a card reader on your computer and a cd burner it would work for what you want. I'm sure there are probably a few more like this for under $300. I own one, it works good but prefer recording with the computer.

http://www.zzounds.com/item--ZOMMRS8

Thanks guys. The USB interface, well, it took me quite awhile to figure out the software, I'm not that computer savy and my laptop is a tad dated. I would record a guitar track to my laptop through the M-Audio Black Box, then when I played that back (through the Blackbox) into a monitor to record the vocals, the end result was the tracks never lined up. Latency that I never figured out how to fix. I just want something REAL user friendly and easy to use, as I know I'm lazy and if there's too much work involved, I won't bother. I had to restart everytime I plugged in the Black Box, reassign drivers, etc. etc...

I just read up some more on that H4, it also has amp modelling, and is about 1/4 the size of my Black Box, so it could replace my Black Box when I travel, even if I don't record when I'm away. Something to jam with with my little electric travel guitar when I'm in the hotel (work has me on the road a fair bit).

And the local shop will let me rent one for a week to try, and I can put that towards the purchase if it does what I need.

That MRS8 looks perfect but I didn't consider the amp modelling aspeect of the H4 before.

Cool Darcy, good luck.

If you need help with general home recording stuff, you know there are lots of forums out there to assist.

Though I've been working with computers for many years now, I'm still pretty stupid when it comes to a lot of stuff. But it doesn't take a lot of knowledge to get very decent results.

If you possibly can go for a new (or newish) desktop PC as it will give you a far more flexible tool for the money.