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Posts: 1281
Location: Ohio | Those of you that are doing home recording, what are you usiing.
Software, hardware, etc. |
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October 2005
Posts: 4044
Location: Utah | iMac computer running Logic Express software. Garage Band works fine, LE has more bells/whistles. Lexicon Alpha USB interface. The Alpha is ok, no complaints other than it is only 2 channels.
You definitely will want an input device other than the built in sound card in your computer. USB, FireWire, or a dedicated card in a Windows machine. Plenty of good options running in the $100 +- range. Minimum 2 channels!
Various boxes between the guitar or mic and the Alpha, such as mixers, effects, amp emulators, etc. Stuff we already use for playing live at home or at a gig.
A decent set of headphones. Two sets plus a splitter if you'll have two people playing/singing at the same time while recording.
A couple of adequate mics. Good mics and preamps make a big difference. Don't cheap out on mics. In the $150 to $200 range you can get some very good mics these days, and of course if you can afford the $700 mics you can get really really good mics. The preamp in the Alpha is adequate for what we do. If we were making a serious pro CD we would need good preamps and a better interface device, but honestly the affordable stuff is pretty darned good these days. Just stay away from the bargain basement mics under $100 if you can afford better.
Edited by FlySig 2012-06-25 9:56 PM
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Posts: 6994
Location: Jet City | Lot's of things get used, but the basics: Currently a new Mac Pro with dual 4 core 2.4 Xeon processors 24G Ram running Logic Pro for the DAW software. Had to install another OS (Snow Leopard) to get the peripherals to work, mostly the Tascam FW 1082.  
Sometimes I use an easy USB interface if I'm only bringing in 1 or 2 inputs. Then I'm usually using an old Edirol UA-700 
So the current configuration is running in 32bit because of the Tascam. I intend to pick up a Sapphire Pro 40 soon and when that happens, I'll jump back over to the Lion OS in 64bit and do a wireless control surface solution with my iPad (undecided on which one).  
Edited by Damon67 2012-06-25 10:15 PM
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Posts: 1281
Location: Ohio | Should have specified that IM using a PC |
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December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Depending on how elaborate you want to get, there is everything from free software you use with the built in sound card to high-end D/A converters.
I have been using Sonar (Cakewalk) forever and love it. I also really like the EchoAudio adapters ... they have several that meet the needs ranging from recording two tracks to recording 24. My pro studio will have a Tascam DM4800 which can record 24 tracks without any additional hardware, but that's probably bigger than you were thinking.
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Posts: 1227
Location: Connersville, Indiana | Mac mini computer, with Logic Express and Garage Band, Lexicon Lambda interface. Works nice.
The lexicon lambda was $99 and came with it's own recording software but it was so complicated it was not worth the time to learn, So i just use the interface and record with the mac software.
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Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | well you got the PC so.....minimum starting point would be
decent DAW
decent mic
decent soundcard
and you are making music.....
then you can add and upgrade over time until you have you dream setup. |
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January 2009
Posts: 4535
Location: Flahdaw | I use this...cheap and easy
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DP008?utm_source=none&utm_me... |
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April 2012
Posts: 15
Location: Outside Providence | I'm on a PC myself with a Fast Track Pro interface and Mixcraft 5 DAW software. It's pretty much the PC version of GarageBand.
I've also got a couple of budget condensor mics...large diameter for vocals and pencil/shotgun style for instruments and amps as well as a Shure SM58 for vocals too.
I recently completed my first recording start to finish. There's a link below. All parts (guitar, bass, harmonica, vocal and drum machine track) by me. Lots to learn but it's a blast!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53882105/MP3's/Out%20on%20the%20weekend...
Edited by lapetrarca 2012-06-26 6:49 AM
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January 2006
Posts: 2120
Location: Chicago | Also... for point-and-shoot don't dismiss the Zoom H4. Awesome sound on the fly. My "Blues for Lester Young" and "Carbon 14" were done that way (see the "Music Gallery" in my signature). |
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October 2005
Posts: 4044
Location: Utah | I used to run Guitar Tracks Pro on a Windoze laptop. I really like that software, a Cakewalk product, and would use it on the Mac if I could just to avoid learning a new software package. The other Cakewalk software gets consistently excellent reviews too. My laptop was the problem, as it was old and very slow.
Audacity is a free software recording package which gets good reviews. The price is right!
You'll want a fast hard drive if you get at all complicated. The issue is that you will be reading and writing at the same time while recording. The more tracks you have playing and the more effects you have running in the software, the more it taxes the hard drive data rate. I run an external FireWire hard drive just for my music projects. This also avoids clogging up the internal hard drive in the computer.
Think about backup strategy with hard drives. I use the external drive during recording and mixing. Then when the song is complete I keep a copy of the final .wav file on the FireWire disk, the internal hard drive of the computer, and on an external backup drive for the computer. So there are at least 3 copies of the original high quality .wav file.
For effects such as reverb, amp emulations, echo, tube distortion, etc there are a ton of free plug-ins. They are small programs called VST files, which are simple to download from the internet and then activate within your recording software. Don't pay for VSTs until you've explored the free ones and can't find what you want for free. |
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Posts: 6994
Location: Jet City | nikon4004 - 2012-06-25 9:01 PM Should have specified that IM using a PC I used Sonor/Cakewalk when I was on a PC. The Tascam and Edirol units will both work with a PC as well, though it would require a firewire port for the Tascam. One thing I didn't mention is the point and shoot method. I also use an Olympus LS-11 to record on occasion. Especially just to record while the band is playing. The recordings come out quite nice. The Zoom H4 used to be in my arsenal too, and though I didn't use it, you could record 4 seperate tracks on that thing. |
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Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | .
Edited by muzza 2012-06-27 12:06 AM
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February 2002
Posts: 613
Location: Zion, Illinois | I have a Korg D16XD. It is a 16 track recorder + 2 tracks for mastering. Each track has 8 virtual tracks. It was top-of-the-line in 2004 and is still a great machine that I will keep using until it fails someday. |
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November 2008
Posts: 400
Location: Northwest Arkansas | A Boss BR-1200 has efx you can add postrecording. I've had it 5 or 6 years and you can find them for a song on eBay and Craigslist! They list for a grand but you can get them for 1/5th of that. |
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January 2009
Posts: 4535
Location: Flahdaw | I had latency issues with Audacity |
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September 2008
Posts: 1281
Location: Ohio | Thanks everyone. Decided to go the same toute as BobG.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DP008?utm_source=none&utm_me...
Just arrived and its going to be in the high 90s so I get to stay in and play. Might have a complete album by the time I;m done.. lol |
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Joined:
August 2005
Posts: 616
Location: cincinnati, ohio | I kind of took a similar route to BobG's. I have a Tascam DP001FX multitrack (8) recorder with a 40GB hard drive. It's all digital, but it looks like a tape deck, and when I push the Rewind and Fast Forward keys, it fools an old dog like me into thinking it's actually rewinding and fast forwarding.  After the songs are recorded, they're exported to a PC as a waV file, where my son normalizes them with either Audacity or Gold Wave. He's a wizard with stuff like that. He's assistant head sound technician / recording engineer for Greaves Concert Hall at Northern Kentucky University, and has run sound for the likes of the Indigo Girls. He also designs and builds websites and is the webmaster for Northern Kentucky's Music Department.On top of that (his actual degree is in Music Performance) he teaches private trumpet lessons, teaches in Northern's prep department, and works for Campbell County High School as a band instructor and trumpet instructor. He's a busy guy. My music's in good hands - if I can ever get him to sit down long enough to work on it!
Edited by rick endres 2012-08-03 3:45 PM
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Recording
