Help finding a cheap decent 4 track recorder, please.

[+SAM+]

Hello, I play guitar and have some melodies and rhythms etc. I want to record.
I write my stuff on guitar (obviously).

What I am looking for is a cheap 4 track recorder (£100 or under preferably) that would give good quality recordings.
It'd be used for later recording vocals, extra guitar stuff, bass etc.

I'd need to be able to connect it to my PC to put tracks in Audacity or whatever.

If I'm not making sense I'll provide an example:

I record rhythm and a melody, I put this melody/rhythm on my PC and send it to my band mates, they listen and the singer applies my lyrics to the melody.

Then the singer comes over to record the vocals on the 4 track
Bass does too bla bla
And I store tracks on the PC if I exceed 4 or when all is done and then mix them together from the PC.

Hope this info helps. Thanks.

[GoofyDawg]

Audacity is all you need to start out with. What you need is an interface. You should check out the StealthPlug by IK Multimedia. You can get it in a few bundles of amp models. Not sure how it'll work with Audacity - you could try contacting their tech support.

I use this regularly with my Macbook to put down ideas. It's very convenient, and the sound quality is excellent. Here's a link to a review I wrote on it: http://guitargear.org/2009/07/14/fender-studio-review/

Excuse the clip. Don't know what I was thinking. Yikes! HA!

[stodge]

Buy an interface for your PC and get Reaper (http://reaper.fm).

[smooth55]

Go with any number of cheap USB interfaces if you're only looking to record one or two tracks simultaneously to your computer. You'll need something more if you want to do a drum-set or full band in one take, but for just piecing things together one at a time, go with a cheap 2-4 track USB interface. I wouldn't recommend anything stand-alone. Lexicon makes decent stuff that is demo quality. A lot of them come with a free version DAW that you can also try out along with Audacity. You aren't going to sound pro on the recordings but at this point, that will be due to your skill at engineering rather than the limitations of the piece of gear.

[stodge]

Be careful with cheap USB interfaces; I had an MAudio USB interace (can't remember the exact model now) but the output signal interfered with the input signal. So the drum beat during playback could be heard in the input signal. MAudio reproduced the problem but as far as I know they never fixed it. I guess you need to be careful with all cheap interfaces, but just a note.