I would say if you're serious at all about recording, forget tape recorders. These days it's getting almost as cheap to go digital, if even at introductory levels. Consider these:
Zoom digital 4 track
Line 6 - Toneport
With the top one, you'll be limited to the memory card's storage capbility, but that can be overcome by dumping your tracks to a computer as needed, and doing final mixing with a software program (not included) there with them all combined. But with the bottom one, you'll be restricted to only record where you can connect it to a computer, but hey at least it comes with a software program for recording.