cheap recording gear?

[TheToneZone]

i agree with the boss br-600 recommendation. to me, anything that keeps you away from the computer desk is conducive to creativity. you can run the outs to a PA system or headphones and can also drop your recorded tracks into sonar directly for additional tweakage at a later time. all and all, with it's capabilities, you'd be hard pressed to beat the price.

mike

[VanWyck]

Research, as mentioned above! Ask your self what you wanna do and how much you can spend. There are recording guys on this site with a deep wealth of knowledge.

I understand that Santa is bringing me a Boss Micro br four track recorder, since I was a good lad this year. Fits in your case, runs on batteries. I'll fill you in on more as I begin using/getting acquainted with it. BillV.

[Bluestreak]

I bought a brand new BR1600CD for $750. It was a redneck rental (someone bought it, used it for less than 30 days and returned it). Guitar Center had it on display as a refurb, and after one of the employees who knew the equipment demo'd it for me, I bought it. This was about two years ago.

I know the standalone consoles aren't exactly the most popular thing around this forum, but this one is great and is very capable. It takes a little perseverance to learn where everything is and how it works, but any system has that learning curve. When I was in a band, we used it to record our practice sessions including a mic'd drum kit, bass, guitar, keyboard, and vocals - and the recordings were great. The on-board tools are excellent. The only downside is that it takes a while to export a song.

It's a complete studio in a box and it's a lot cheaper than buying a bunch of components or most better computer recording software/equipment. It's ultra-portable and I even got a free carrying bag with mine (had to mail away to get it, but still... it was free!) I'm glad I did it and I've never looked back.

-R

[Destro 007]

I'd suggest a copy of cakewalk home studio (around $120-140) and pick up a used drum machine from *bay.

Total, around $200-300 bucks.

assuming you have the guitar, computer, amp, mic, and a pair of headphones.

[boss^is^dead]

jesus christ, scare the **** outta the kid why dont ye!

Dude, go buy something from Line 6, either a POD xt Pro, a POD xt Live or just a tone port, all will do the same thing with regards to recording in your bedroom,which is what we all wanna do.get some vids and tracks online somewhere to show our mates!

So get yourself something like i mentioned above and you wont need anything else. You can get audacity for free somewhere,thats recording software and is easy peasy.

also get yourself fruityloops from somewhere. I used it to make all my bass and drum backing tracks and its really simple to use after watching a few basics videos on youtube.

[rty13ibz98]

Originally Posted by boss^is^dead

jesus christ, scare the **** outta the kid why dont ye!

Dude, go buy something from Line 6, either a POD xt Pro, a POD xt Live or just a tone port, all will do the same thing with regards to recording in your bedroom,which is what we all wanna do.get some vids and tracks online somewhere to show our mates!

So get yourself something like i mentioned above and you wont need anything else. You can get audacity for free somewhere,thats recording software and is easy peasy.

also get yourself fruityloops from somewhere. I used it to make all my bass and drum backing tracks and its really simple to use after watching a few basics videos on youtube.

this actually pretty good advice. just something to get started, then if you like it, move up to something bigger.

rich

[Jasu1978]

I have the cubase sx, my home stereo system and Korg toneworks 1500g straight in the computer mic line. works for me.

[Jasu1978]

I forgot my Zoom MRS-4b MultiTrak Recording Studio.

[connorguitar15063]

record all the stuff seperatly or together. i have no idea. i know nothing about recording. but we all need to start out somewere. thats why im asking for something cheap to start out with. thanks guys for all the help!

[ken_r152]

I think "simple" might be more important than "cheap" if you are a beginner. It also helps if other people around you use the same gear, so that you can swap info.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by connorguitar15063

record all the stuff seperatly or together. i have no idea. i know nothing about recording. but we all need to start out somewere. thats why im asking for something cheap to start out with. thanks guys for all the help!

If you're recording in your room, the first question is, can you even fit a drum set in there?

There's a number of problems with recording live drums, and the short answer is there's no good way to do it on the cheap. The biggest one is even if you're submixing everything to a single stereo track and not recording the kick, snare, a left and right overhead, even if you don't close mic toms and the hihat and rely on the overheads you're still talking four microphones, two dynamics and two small diaphram condensors. A pair of SM57's and a pair of decent overheads will set you back maybe $3-400+, and that's the bare minimum - a lot of guys will close mic the hi-hat as well, and maybe the toms. And this is just assuming you record a stereo mix (which will invove a cheap mixing board), and don't also spring for a recording interface that'll allow you to record 4 or 8 tracks at a time.

If I were you, I'd try to rely as much on freeware software as you can - I still use the Fruity Loops demo for drum sequencing for demo recordings, where I'll make a drum look from either the included "realistic" kit, or from various kits I've put together from sample hits over the years. I'll just export as a loop, and run with it.

Meanwhile, I'm a recent convert to Reaper, for two reasons - one, it really is a pretty great program. Two, they'll sell you a "personal use" liscense for $50, as opposed to a commercial liscense for $250. It's fully functional, there's no extra features you're not getting - they just price it so that guys like you or me who are recording for fun in their bedrooms and not charging for their services at a "pro" studio can still afford it. That's awesome.

Likewise, there's some great freeware plugins as well - dig around a bit.

Then you just need a recording interface. Does your computer have Firewire, or do you need USB? An interface and a mic is really where you should be spending your money here. There's a numberr of one-track or two-track options you can get for $200 or so, and then I'd grab a SM57 - it's the industry standard guitar mic, and while some people prefer other alternatives, it's a great starting point to learn with.

Also worth thinking about - you can get a Presonus FP10 for like $399, I think. It's a bit more money, but if you're REALLY serious about recording live drums, it might be worth saving up for a while and getting something that can do 8 audio (plus 2 digital) tracks at a time.

[Darin]

Trust me on this. $100 and you'll be recording 24bit bliss.

http://www.lexiconpro.com/ProductIndex.aspx?ProductID=7

[rty13ibz98]

imo, stay away from standalone DAWs. in the box computer recording is way more flexible..even on the cheap. if you have a good machine, a good i/o box via usb/firewire is good enough for just a handful of channels and a good outboard preamp will suffice to get better bandwith into whatever DAW software you end up with. not to mention that plugins abound to help get your projects more polished. that is something that is way limiting about standalone DAWs. the other thing is track count. standalones will only give you fairly limited amount of tracks to work within in a project. on most computer based DAWs, the track count is extremely high. depending on machine, can be near infinite. i use sonar 8 pe and back in the days of 5-6, i had a project that had over 60 tracks in the project. standalone DAWs also really can't be upgraded over time and the editing is a pain on them as well. i used to run strictly standalone back in the days of minidisc, but after i had a taste of non-linear, drag and drop editing those days are not missed.
i will admit that i came from the days of old cassette 4 track via a tascam 414. those were hard times and VERY frustrating with ping ponging tracks to bounce them to make room for more recorded tracks. destructive editing and low fidelity. beginning recordists have it so good now. i paid $350 for a crappy 4-track back in 1997. for $350 now, you can make demos that sound better than most commercial recordings from 1997.


rich

[IBANEZRG320DXFMTG]

if you want to record on your own music with your own idea here is an example of basic recording tools that you can just download on the internet

Cakewalk pro 9 and sonar

Hyper canvass

Yamaha xg softsynthesizer

Cool edit pro/Adobe audition

SRS LABS

[TheMusicBucket]

I know there's already a ton of recommendations here, so I guess I'll throw in mine haha.

If your computer has a firewire 400 port I highly recommend some kind of presonus interface. I have a firestudio project(costs $499) and it has 8 mic inputs that can be assigned to separate tracks for simultaneous recording of multiple instruments or pieces of a drum set. You'd still need to buy mics but there are some great packages out there like the shure drum mic kit that comes with 3 SM57s and a Beta52 kick drum mic. You can use two of the Sm57s as overheads(not ideal, but it works!) in stereo, and put the remaining SM57 on the snare or something, then the beta52 on the kick. All this into the presonus firestudio project and you've got a great setup for recording drums, as well as guitar!

All in all thats around $900, but it would get you what you needed and it would sound great.

There are definitely cheaper options out there, but I've wasted a pretty good chunk of money on buying cheaper things because I couldn't afford something better in the moment. If I had just saved up initially, I actually would have saved a lot of money!