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[smooth55]

I'm new to recording but I want to get into doing some computer recording in my basement. I've done a little research into audio interfaces and DAWs and am leaning toward a firepod and Cubase 4. I have a 10 track yamaha mixer which I figure will suffice for any larger, live recordings that might involve drums etc. That said, I'm looking for bang for my buck and good quality recordings that, while amateur, would be good enough for the average listener. I'm partial to firewire because of what I've read about latency but by no means set on anything. I'm running Windows xp, but will switch to vista at some point down the road. What's out there that I should take a look at?

[Drew]

Don't switch to vista. It's a massive resource hog, and driver support is still a little iffy.

The Firepod will support 8 tracks at a time, which is enough to do a quite good drum recording. The pres are also pretty transparent - not exciting, exactly, but clear and with good signal-to-noise ratio. Assuming your room's good, you have decent mics, and you know what you're doing, there's no reason you couldn't record totally serviceable tracks with one. I'm a firepod owner too, and the way I see it, it's good enough such that any limitations in my recording are due more to my abilities than the gear I'm working with.

In other words, you could spend more, but I think you'd be better off buying some decent mics and doing a bit of sound treatment to your room, especially if you're new to recording - it's MORE than a good enough peice of gear to learn the fundamentals of tracking and mixing.

[rty13ibz98]

Originally Posted by Drew

Don't switch to vista. It's a massive resource hog, and driver support is still a little iffy.

The Firepod will support 8 tracks at a time, which is enough to do a quite good drum recording. The pres are also pretty transparent - not exciting, exactly, but clear and with good signal-to-noise ratio. Assuming your room's good, you have decent mics, and you know what you're doing, there's no reason you couldn't record totally serviceable tracks with one. I'm a firepod owner too, and the way I see it, it's good enough such that any limitations in my recording are due more to my abilities than the gear I'm working with.

In other words, you could spend more, but I think you'd be better off buying some decent mics and doing a bit of sound treatment to your room, especially if you're new to recording - it's MORE than a good enough peice of gear to learn the fundamentals of tracking and mixing.

i second the firepod, as i am using the firestudio. really good pres for the money. the fp10 is a bargain at $400usd for 8 channels sim. firewire linkage is also a plus.

rich

[jb4674]

I'll reiterate what Rich said and suggest going with the firepod.

Jimmy

[Rip]

Originally Posted by smooth55

I have a 10 track yamaha mixer which I figure will suffice for any larger, live recordings that might involve drums etc...

Im really not being a smart ass when I say the following..


You mean 10 "channel" mixer, not 10 "track".

A track is what you record to. A channel is for lack of a better word a "path".

You can have a 48 "channel" mixer, and mix all that info down to 2 "tracks".

Or you can have a single "channel" of audio split to 8 "tracks"


(just trying to start you off right with the simple things)

[smooth55]

Thanks for the terminology lesson. Aside from tracks, does the firepod differ from the firebox?

[smooth55]

So, aside from the Firepod, what other recommendations for something of that caliber do you guys have. I've been trying to find a store that had one and no one in Columbus has them in stock. I'd rather be able to see before I buy. GC told me they're closing them out and can't order it. They said I can still buy it online but it always seems like no matter how much checking I do, I'm always dissappointed with buying something sight unseen. That said, if I bought online, would it be inadvisable, albeit cheaper, to use the bay?

[Whey]

Other FireWire Interfaces.

MOTU have a lot of products in presonus' price range. The 8PRE, Traveler and 828MKIII are some of just a few they list.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/manufacturer/MOTU

A step above that would be RME with their fireface 400 and 800 (only up to 4 mic preamps on these, but have the ability to process much more than that with the use of external preamps). Nicer conversion than Presonus and MOTU.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/manufacturer/RME

If you use Apple products than Apogee might be the way to go, great interfaces but pricey.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/manufacturer/Apogee

Other FireWire Interfaces by brand;

http://www.sweetwater.com/c683--Fire...dio_Interfaces

I'm not a sweetwater sales rep or anything, just find their site easier to navigate though than musicians friend/music 123/*******.

That is a start for ya. Lots of reviews on the web, just Google it. I currently use the 8pre, pretty good value for the money. Here is a very basic sample of its sound quality http://noisynature.com/inhumane.mp3 - Just a really rough track, but it will give you an idea.

Cheers,

[Bowie]

I've worked in and around the recording industry for a while.
The main concern with your computer interface will be the quality of the analog-to-digital converters. Numbers don't matter but reputation does. Stick w/ as few inputs asyou can possibly get away with as cheap units with multiple ins usually sound pretty bad. You'd be better with a nicer unit w/ fewer ins.
Aside from that, get some decent mics, an outboard mic preamp, and a compressor. That's a solid start.
It's all relevant to what you want to spend and what you expect to achieve.

[smooth55]

I know to look for something like Class A preamps but how do I compare different A/D/A converters?

[Bowie]

Originally Posted by smooth55

I know to look for something like Class A preamps but how do I compare different A/D/A converters?

You don't necessarily need class A preamps. In fact, if you're into shred, you'll probably want a nice tube mic preamp. I run all electric guitars through a UA 610. That's a bit pricey but there's a lot of inexpensive ones out there.

There is no easy way to determine the quality of mic preamps or converters other than word of mouth and the price-tag. Don't feel that you need to get something that does 192kHz as you don't need it and probably don't want to record at that rate. Also, the DA doesn't matter as much as the AD.
Lynx and RME make very useable interfaces. The newer Lynx converters are pretty good in fact.
The "Gearslutz" forums are dedicated to producers and recording engineers. Use their search engine and you'll find tons of usefull info from people in the biz. Good place for anyone interested in recording gear.

[smooth55]

Just as an update, I stumbled onto a Firestudio through Craig's List that is being brought over to my place this evening. If everything works well, I'm planning to buy the FS with the software and faderport from this guy for $425. I think that's a pretty good deal and he's got better gear, hence the selling of his FS. I'll let you know how things go down and I'm sure to have some questions about using the FS since I'm new to computer based recording.

[smooth55]

Well, the guy brought the firestudio over last evening, fired it up on his macbook to show me it worked and I bought. I spent the next hour or so setting it up on my computer, along with cubase and everything seems to be running. The only downside is that he didn't have any of the manuals for the gear, so that made it kind of a pain going through the steps to set up. But it seems to be running ok. I haven't really done much with it as it was already late and I just went to bed. We'll see how things go this weekend.