Recording gear - need opinions

[balducci]

I am in the market for recording gear....
I am not sure which way to go. Either an all in one workstation or going to a pc based or mac based,,

a couple of things.... I don't want to spend a ****load of money... but i need it to sound as good as possible...
I want to set up a home recording base... instead of spending so much on studio's like it did in the past...

I don't have a computer at home either... so think of that in the cost......

any suggestions....

thanks
Rob........

[bob oakman]

I know I have posted many times about the recording power and versatility of Pro Tools. I am sure many are growing tired of it. Sorry about that, but having used a full blown Pro Tools rig in a studio setting for years, I have had a chance to compare to many other formats. Nothing comes close. You can easily move audio anywhere with a click and drag. There are a multitude of ways to manipulate the sound files, volume, pan and FX automation etc.

Cost is out of the park, but the Digi-001 rig is available for PC and WAY cheaper than it’s big brother. It does almost everything the full blown version does. I prefer to use it with an analog console and outboard FX. I use the plug-ins for automated FX that are to fast for my hands and a rotary pot on a console.

Anyway, I prefer Mac, but suggest Windows if you want to save a buck on a computer purchase. The windows version will run somewhere in the neighborhood of *$800.00, including 8 in/out at 24 bit resolution, MIDI, etc… I don’t know about the computer cost, but it has to have some speed and memory… as well as a sizable external drive.

Long winded, I know.

[shawn]

rob,
as far as versatility, ease of use, features, upgradability, and cost. . . . .go with a pc running win2000pro, steinberg cubase vst 32 for multitracking, wavelab 3.0 for mastering, and an echo card depending on your needs (i use a darla, but if you need more simultaneous recording ins, get a layla). *a stand alone unit is so confining and lacks the upgradability -- i worked on a roland and it too about 6 hours to do what i did in one on my system. *email me or give me a call if you need some really specific advice. *i worked with the guys at sweetwater for about a year getting the system that was the most cost effective for my needs and yielded the best product in the end.
--shawn

[J Todd Beachler]

I guess that makes me the flipside. *I am happy with my Roland VS-1880. *Check one out. *Easy to get up and running and can do MANY things that I haven't even gotten into yet. *

[ryan]

Or, you can go with the best of both worlds... (sometimes the pocketbook gets in the way of this one...)

For the Arc of Descent demo we finally managed to finish, we underwent the following rigamarole:

Drums:

Recorded to a Yamaha Digital 8-track mini-disc recorder.
The better sounding songs have 8 tracks of drums. *The ok sounding songs had a drum submix on 3 tracks cuz they had been bounced prior to my joining the band...

All drum tracks were dumped into my computer system running Samplitude Studio 5.9 thru a SEK'D ARC 88 multitracking card. *All connections are made thru a Mackie 1604VLZ-pro board. *Drum tracks were HEAVILY EQ'd at the board to clean up the sound as much as possible. *Kick drum tracks were routed thru an Alesis D4 since a ****ty mic was used and they didn't have enough thump.

Bass:

Absolutely 100% certifiably positively NOT recorded direct. *We stuck a large-diaphragm condenser in front of a 2x15 cab (powered by a teeny-weeny 115W Hartke bass head) and got mega-tone. *Bass was recorded into the computer.

Guitars:

Rhythm - 5150 right. *5150 left. *Straight thru. *No effects.

Leads - combination of Pod & 5150 sounds. *Reverb & Delay courtesy of the noisiest effects box on the planet - the fabulous Alesis MIDIVerb 4.

All (real amp) guitars were close-miced with an AKG-C3000 condenser. *Slight mid-cut was employed at the board. *Recorded to individual tracks in the computer.

Vocals - used a Behringer Autocom Pro in the Mackie's channel insert. *Mic'd with the AKG-C3000. *Used a lacy thigh-high over a coat hanger as a pop filter. *(why pay $30 for a real one when chicks leave stuff like this at yer house...) *Recorded up to six vocal tracks per song *(including BG Vox) in the computer.

The biggest project had 20 tracks. *Smallest had about 12.

Having typed all that, I have to say that using both a portable multi-track and the computer based system allowed us to achieve what I feel is the best sound of anything I've ever recorded. *I actually upgraded from Samplitude 5.2 to Samplitude 5.9 in mid-project, and the new version is incredible. *Go to www.magix.com if you wanna check it out.

I don't have a good room for drums, but the place where we practice does... so we recorded the drums there. *I don't like to uproot my whole system, so the digital multitrack came in very handy. *

The individual track outputs on the digital 8-track allowed full flexibility in dumping the drums into the computer and as I look at it, having stuff go thru one generation of analog isn't a problem. *A lot of engineers still run whole mixes thru analog equipment to warm them up before mixing to the final medium.

Having splabblered and blathered all that, most of which isn't on topic, please feel free to test my results with your own ears:

http://www.ryanadam.com/02-AOD-FinalMix-Infinity.mp3

[goldboy]

I recently underwent and 'finished' my project studio. *
It took a lot of hard work and a' b'ing studio gear and versatility and yaddy yaddy ya and my opinion pretty much parallels that of Bob Oakman's. I have worked enough in a Pro Tools and Logic Audio environment that I wouldn't turn back for anything.

I have three setups you should consider and I won't get specific with hardware or software other than the basic formula and pricing. If you are after sound quality and production value a Digital Audio Workstation (D.A.W.) built around a PC or MAC is your best bet ONLY because of its expandibility and versatility. Just step in it slowly and add-on as often as you need to and more importantly afford to. Go all out on the processing power and RAM! The rest will follow but simply put, in the past year alone I did extensive work on three different D.A.W's, a PII/400 w/ 192 MB RAM, a PIII700 LAPTOP w/320 MB RAM, and a G3 w/ 320 MB of RAM. All did the job to my satisfaction, albeit I am VERY Apple biased, they are THE audio workstation.

Good Luck Rob, I really dig your music!
(P.S.) *I have some MP3's of music that I am helping produce for a friend of mine with music in your vein so that you can hear the 'quality' that my D.A.W's have given me, shoot me an e-mail.

1) *$800-$1200 *Get a used PC or G3 with minimum processing power of a PII400 (for G3 a 333MHZ) and MINIMUM 192 MB of RAM. This will get your foot in the door to a working system. *Seasound and Echo Audio produce high quality and affordable sound card solutions with great analog and digital I/O. *Get Logic Silver or Cakewalk 9 Guitar Tracks for under 200 bucks.
So for just around 1500.00 you can conceivably get a very working D.A.W. *

2. *$1500-$2300 Same as above but a newer machine. PC's are always cheaper, but in this range you can afford to get at least a PIII600 w/ 320MB of RAM. Or a Mac g4/466 with 320 MB of RAM. *Get the soundcard and the audio app of your choice for under 200 to get your feet wet here.

3. *$2500-$3500 Here is where the PC should stop!
In this range you can REALLY get a killer D.A.W.
Mac g4/466 w. 320MB RAM
Mark of the Unicorn 2408/comes with Audio Desk!
This is fully Pro Tools compatible AS IS. *You can upgrade to Digital Performer which will help it out though not necessary.

Keep in mind that ProTools FREE is available and works great if not fantastic with the last two options.

GOOD LUCK ROB!

[Josh Blagg]

Rob, if you don't already have a computer at home, then I wouldn't go that route. *I think an all-in-one workstation would be perfect for you. *Now there are several options.

The one that is getting great reviews and is cost effective is the Boss BR-8 machine. *You may want to check into that, as a used one could come pretty cheap.

A friend of mine has an Akai DSP16 (I think that is the model?). *Anyway, it's a killer unit. *I think it runs about $2,000, but it is really a great machine for recording. *The Roland VS series as mentioned above always gets high marks, and the real killer all-in-one machine right now is this one put out by Yahama (don't remember the model number), but it runs at about $3,500.

[ryan]

Couple of notes:

The BR-8 records to ZIP disks. *I find this to be limiting, as is the Minidisc recorder because you run out of space really fast. *They are also not cheap. *

I mainly prefer PC stuff for one reason: *IDE hard-disk space is DIRT-CHEAP, fast, and reliable. *With 40 GB, 7200 RPM drives hovering around a hundred bucks, there's no cheaper recording medium I can think of. *(We fit four songs, 12 to 20 tracks each, plus 24bit stereo mixes of each onto less than 2GB of disk space.)

If you're going with a digital stand-alone unit, I would recommend looking at the Roland VS stuff, as someone else already pointed out. *I believe these use SCSI drives, which aren't as cheap, but it allows you to easily hook up other stuff such as CD-R units and additional external drives. *Korg makes similar products, but I've heard that they aren't as high-quality as the Roland stuff.

Also, with either the BR-8 or the VS units, you have a fixed number of tracks and/or inputs.

With a PC or Mac solution you get what you can afford to put into the machine. *Unlimited (up to 999) track playback and 8, 16, 24, 32... track I/O, depending on what you need and how many cards you wanna buy.

You could probably put a decent 1GHz system w/ at least 256MB RAM, a CD-R and a 40GB drive together for around a grand. *Add a few hundred for your software and you still haven't hit the price of the Roland unit. *The catch is the multitrack card, which will probably push you over the price of the Roland stuff, but I feel the D.A.W. system is more flexible since you can add I/O and disk space when ever you need it.

Additionally, these machines start to hiccup if you push them on playback. *Adding drives and spreading your data across disc spindles increases performance. *Adding a RAID controller more than doubles playback performance. *These are things you can't do with a stand-alone recorder.

[goldboy]

Yeah, what Ryan said!

[30yroldpig]

There are advantages and disadvantages to both worlds. Buying a stand alone unit (Roland, AW4416 etc..) allows you to have that "all in one package" right away, out of the box. Very good...especially if you are NOT into computers. If you are not into computers, I recomend an all in one package, so that you can start doing what is most important, making music.

Purchasing a computer allows you a great deal of versatility. Not only will you be able to have your DAW, but you will be able to use your system for other things (word processing, spreadsheets, surfing the net etc..).

However setting up a system for digital audio can be tricky and there are lots of different points to think about(lucky for you there are some VERY ressourceful people on this site).

Here is my recomendation. Processors are relatively cheap these days, so you might as well get something from the 400-700 Mhz range and therefore you have no reason to get anything slower. Make sure that the mother-board you are purchasing does NOT have on-board audio/video...things tend to conflict. Research the chipset also 440BX series are pretty stable for digital audio purposes (NO VIA chipsets...bad).I would strongly consider a minimum of 128Mb RAM and an M-audio Delta 44 or 66 (depending on how many ins and outs you want). Then all you really need is a little Makie 1202 and some monitoring speakers.

Macs have the reputation for being THE audio computers but truth is that PC based audio is easily up to par if not better these days. I wont get into a "PC vs Mac" or "My DAW is better than your DAW" flamme war, it all comes down to personal experience.

Think about what YOU want. Computers require more time, learning and praying to the mojo of techno, but offer you greater versatility. Stand alone Daws will get you straight to the point.

Hope this helps a bit.



(Edited by Pat7 at 9:44 pm on April 20, 2001)

[Doink]

I run Cool Edit Pro on my K6-2 450 with only 64 megs of RAM. For now I'm just running a couple cheap Soundblaster cards, but I would eventually like to get the Delta 10/10 card. I hear it's the best card for under $1000. GC has em for like, $550.
Another thing to consider is the "brand" of PC. The best "brand" is no brand. Compaq, Dell, HP, Gateway....They're all made from cheap parts. I have a friend that just built a 1000 mHz Athalon system for $600. Granted, he already had some parts laying around, but it's still costs way less and runs way smoother than any asian mass produced computer.
You'd also need to decide on an operating system. And unless you plan to use this for other things, it'd be best to get only the minimum of the OS installed. The fewer things you have, the smoother it's going to run.
But in the end, I would definatly recommend a computer based setup over, say, an ADAT setup. About the only thing better than a computer based studio is like, a 2" 24 track Studer and a Soundcraft console.
www.homerecording.com for more info.

[bob oakman]

When I have had my way I have happily lived in both the digital and analog world.

For one session I tracked in Pro Tools because of the ease of non-destructive editing. That was back when it was only 16 bit. I then condensed the session to 8 tracks and dumped all 8 to an Otari MX-70, 1-inch, 8-track machine. I saturated the tape as much as possible. The final mix ROCKED!

I love the convenience of computer editing, but have nothing against analog. Analog gear is cheap now-days. There was a time when my MX-70 might have been worth as much as a car. Now I would be lucky to get $500.00 for it.

Perhaps a decent, used analog multi-tracker and a good console would be a good money saving start…. Just a thought.

[30yroldpig]

About the only thing better than a computer based studio is like, a 2" 24 track Studer and a Soundcraft console.

No I completely disagree. First off, Unless you are a pro engineer, purchasing a Studer 24 track is expensive and requires a lot of attention and maintenance. Secondly, purchasing 2 inch tape is also quite expensive (even used)!!! So that is definately not an option...As for Soundcraft....well *everybody has an opinion :sarcasm:

With regards to Dell, compaq and HP, you are absolutely right. These systems are NOT optimized for home recording. The problem is not that they are made from cheap parts somewhere in asia, the problem is that all their components are proprietary to their brand...therfore installing a different PCI card for example would prove many conflicts and possibly not even function.

Just my two cents on that one

[Jimi D]

In defence of the BR-8, I own one and think it's a great "idea" or "songwriter's" tool; somewhat analogous to the 4-track porta-studios we all new and loved from the '80s :-)... If you want to get something down quick and dirty, it's hard to beat. And the "limited" recording time really isn't an issue unless you want to keep more than twelve individual tracks on a song of more than 5 minutes length... for the average demo track, there's plenty of space on a Zip... The advantages (as I see them) are that they're cheap, simple to learn, and require NO outboard gear except a mic, a guitar and a set of headphones. They are also a WHOLE lot of fun :thumbsup:

my $.02

[Finn]

yup