Reddit mentions of Boss BR-864 8 Track Recorder

I use pretty simple stuff. I don't ever really know what I'm doing, so mostly things come about by accident. Here are a few options, in a loose order from simplest to less-so:

If you have garage band on a mac (or can get it on a pc), this might not be the best method, but I've done it before: plug your guitar straight into the computer with a 1/4 to 1/8 adapter plugged into the computer's input (I think this works, I honestly can't remember- or you can feed it through pedals, effects, or an amp. This might blow some shit up, though. I have no idea), and mess around with the various effects. You can preview them after setting up a new "song", adding a "real instrument", and there should be a big list of different effects for guitar, vocals, etc. I like to put vocals through guitar effects because a lot of music I like has blown out vocals, and it's a rough approximation.
-- even simpler, I used to use the computer microphone (you might have to go into system preferences and change it from external/computer mic to the audio input, or the other way around) and play with my acoustic while the effects were played through "live" via the preview option or while I was recording. If you use headphones, you can kind of get a distortion effect. There's some background noise, but it's mostly just for experimentation. If you don't use headphones and the "live" preview of the effects is on, it can create feedback. Even then, if that happens, if you press your finger up on the computer mic hole and mess around with it, it kind of acts like a poor man's theremin. Again, that's just for fun.

Moving onto actual equipment, I am not the best person to ask about this kind of thing, but I just try to figure out how to do stuff with the options I am given. So a long time ago, my little brother was given a digital 8-track recorder, and he never ended up using it. It's a Boss BR-864, and I believe my parents gave it to him because they got it for a lowered price because it was a floor model. Always ask places like guitar center or music stores if you can get a good deal on the floor model on stuff like this. It might not be worth it, seeing as how it might have been abused by customers and their curious kids, but hey- the one I have has been working for years.

Anyhow, for a few years, I used that digital recorder just to play through all of the different guitar effects that came with it. Including all of the guitar-, synth- and bass-specific effects, it has 99 total effects. There are also some vocal-specific effects, but I usually use distorted vocals because I think it sounds neat. So you can plug in your instrument, plug in some headphones, and play around. It's also great when you live in an apartment where your neighbors are close by, or if you live with your parents or roommates and don't want to bug them while you want to play guitar late at night.

In any case, I finally figured out how to record one song at a time on that recorder, which kind of bugged me because when I was a teenager, I had a 4-track recorder that used cassette tapes, and when I got tired of messing around with one song, I could put in a different tape and work on a different song. As far as I know, you can't really do that without backing up and reloading data via USB and a computer.

As far as drums, the recorder I use has buttons on the bottom that can be used as a "rhythm pad", if you just want to have a rough approximation of a beat, or you want to loop a beat to play over. I don't really use that. As far as that goes, a keyboard with drum sounds would also work, if that works for you.

I luckily got a set of electronic drums (Roland TD-9KX2-S) over the past year, which has made recording much, much easier. They sound pretty great, and the only part that leaves something to be desired is the cymbals, but when you're beating on rubber to trigger a signal that approximates a cymbal peal rather than actually having the ability to hit the cymbal exactly how you want to, you give up a bit of the dynamics. It's not bad, but when you tend to beat the shit out of your equipment, you realize how inexact you're being when you're forced to sit down and play. I'm not the best drummer, but I try to be the loudest. That's just my own dumb thing, though.

I used to just play my acoustic drums in a small room with a microphone hanging in the middle of the room, and since it was structured in a quasi-pyramidal shape, things kind of worked out somehow with the way the sound bounced around. Usually the roar of the cymbals was kind of an ever-present hiss and the bass drum was overbearing, but I usually liked it sounding fucked up like that.

NOW: as far as what you can do for percussion, I don't know what your specific accommodations and limitations are, or how loud or soft you like your percussion to be, but consider alternative objects for percussion. I've seen a guy sit cross-legged on the floor, standing a cymbal (I think it was technically a crash, but it was being used more like a ride) on its bell, so it was played on its underside and could ring a little, but was muted enough for the other person playing acoustic guitar and singing to be heard. (He also played a snare that sat on the carpeted floor, muffling the resonance quite a bit. It all sounded pretty decent for what it was.) A friend of mine who did quiet acoustic music recorded the sound of scratching his fingernails on his jeans and the snip of some scissors for a beat. When I was recording a demo with a friend of mine back in college, he recorded the guitar on bandcamp with an acoustic with the method I described above, and I played "drums" by smacking my palm and a cassette tape case on an empty keg of beer. It was ridiculous and didn't sound that good, but it worked at the time.

However! I don't know your musical tastes, but one of my heroes (at least regarding improvised and sometimes jank-ass recording methods) is Jay Reatard. When he was 15, he recorded a demo in his bedroom on a 4-track recorder, beating on a bucket with a stick for drums. I think it sounds kind of awesome. He kept on recording by himself up until early 2010 when he died at 29, but just to give you an idea of the progression, he recorded this song, Fashion Victim by himself and under the moniker "The Reatards" when he was 15. Fast forward 14 years and hundreds of recordings with a ton of different bands, his most successful recordings were still done by himself and in his room. By this point, he had moved into a place of his own and upgraded his equipment while also learning how to play, but essentially, it's the same guy, doing the same thing, as "Jay Reatard." This is his song, "It Ain't Gonna Save Me". The link is to the video for the song, and the music actually starts around one minute in.

That guy might not be your flavor, but it was an example to show that if you have the basics, you can kind of do whatever you want and are only limited by your musical abilities (my current struggle) and creativity to record a bunch of shit. Even then, sometimes you don't need to know how to play to be able to make something.

I know I wrote a shitload more than I meant to, but I accidentally took a double dose of my ADD meds this morning and words are flowing like molten butter out of my head. A few more people to check out who record solo: Potential Johns is one of the guys from a band I like called The Marked Men. I can never remember which recording it is, but one of his has over 20 guitar tracks, which is ridiculous and awesome. Another guy is Bradford Cox from Deerhunter a Atlas Sound. That's less of a pop-punk vibe like the previous examples I gave. And MY MAN, Mark Sultan, other wise known as BBQ (as one half of King Khan & BBQ), is a damn modern soul junk genius. And Ty Segall is a San Franciscan wunderkind.

I'm typing too much now, but a few more things. Check out some modern one-man-band guys, just for fun.
Philip Roebuck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KERZJKI41i0
King Louie: http://youtu.be/Gb5ca21FBWg
Jeffrey Novak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c38zf7Ke9LM

Sorry that's a bit of an overload, but I get excited. If you decide to start recording, message me / pm me with the results, if you want. I always like to hear new stuff, regardless of genre or quality. Also, I just joined this subreddit the other day, but http://www.reddit.com/r/wearethemusicmakers seems to be a place on reddit where people can share/critique/whatever stuff they record.

If you made it this far, high five.