hellos - recording question

J

joliver

New member
Hello,

Not sure where the best place to ask a recirding question is, but here goes.

In a band and we are looking to make some Demos at home.... We have a good dual core PC with audacity and also Sony ACID Pro 6 on it. We are looking to record, primarily:

Lead guitar
Rhythm
Vocals 1
Vocals 2
Vocals 3
drums (possible from a drum machine or mixer with pre-set drum patterns)

I think i am looking for a Digital 8 Track Recorder but im not sure.... We want to all be able to play at once at record all the parts at the same time.... It owuld nice to keep the tracks seperate so we can edit them on the PC but basically we want to all (excuse the cliche) jam together and record all the various parts.

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions etc?

Much appreciated.
 
How much money do you want to spend?
Are you going to record into the computer or do you want a separate unit to record into, then transfer the tracks to computer?
 
i would suggest since you already have acid which supports multi track recording now, to purchase some sort of firewire interface or mixer/interface.

i have always found it easier on a computer rather than screwing around with a tiny screen trying to go through menu's to mix stuff.
 
You can pick up a delta 1010lt sound card these days for pretty cheap. I bought one for $115 a few months ago. That will give you 8 usable channels to record with, which gives you more options for recording real drums with various mics, provided you have some sort of mixer as well since most of the inputs are unbalanced.
 
well we seem prepared to spend up to £200 (brittish pounds) on some sort of 8 track if its appropriate.....

(use the following as a url - i am not allowed to post them as i am a newbie)

cgi.ebay.co.uk/Zoom-MRS-8-Portable-8-Track-Digital-Recorder_W0QQitemZ230182189372QQihZ013QQcategoryZ15199QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem[/url]

we had thought something like this......^ the main thing is we would like to at be able to all play and it record at the same time... or at least vocals and 2 guitars at once.....

*** we have been finding sony acid pro 6 very fidly and seems to take all momentum out of the recording process.... we have had guitars running directly into the pc to record but also had them in amps on CD input so we can monitor during the record..... but the amp sound and PC recording sound are always different.... i.e the amp is better.

I also have a:
(use the following as a url - i am not allowed to post them as i am a newbie)

thedjshop.co.uk/products.asp?id=471

avaliable to me as well......


thanks for the help thus far! i feel my journey to a perfect recording sound at home will take some time!
 
It looks like the ZOOM MRS-8 only records two tracks at one time:

Simultaneously record on 2 tracks with 44.1 kHz sampling
Each of the 8 audio tracks has 10 virtual tracks, giving you the equivalent of 80 tracks to play with for each song. You can record guitar solos or vocal parts as often as you like, and then simply pick the best takes later. A 128MB SD card gives a total recording time of 50 minutes. A 1GB card will provide an amazing 6 hours and 42 minutes of recording time.

You need something different that will record more tracks at the same time.
 
I'd persevere with recording into the computer. If you're not getting on with Acid, try Reaper. It's free to try and cheap to buy if you want to stick with it.

8 simultaneous tracks for £200 is tough, that Zoom will probably go for more than £200 and to be frank they're not very good.

Your best option would be the 1010LT, a cheap mixer for mic pres (most will have inserts which can be used for direct outs, check out the Yamaha MG series) and reaper. Then you don't have to worry about effects and processors so much because there are plenty of decent freebies around and Reaper's own suite of effects is pretty damn good. That's the cheapest half decent set up I can think of and that'll probably set you back £250-£300. Probably not achievable for £200> to be honest but you have a better shot at decent quality for less money going the computer route in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong there are some decent recorders around but they're way out of your price range.
 
Since you already have a nice computer you're wanting to use to record, I wouldn't even touch a standalone unit. With the PC route it's much more expandable all around.
 
liv_rong said:
i would suggest since you already have acid which supports multi track recording now, to purchase some sort of firewire interface or mixer/interface.

i have always found it easier on a computer rather than screwing around with a tiny screen trying to go through menu's to mix stuff.
Click to expand...

prestomation said:
Since you already have a nice computer you're wanting to use to record, I wouldn't even touch a standalone unit. With the PC route it's much more expandable all around.
Click to expand...

Kevin DeSchwazi said:
I'd persevere with recording into the computer. If you're not getting on with Acid, try Reaper. It's free to try and cheap to buy if you want to stick with it.

8 simultaneous tracks for £200 is tough, that Zoom will probably go for more than £200 and to be frank they're not very good.

Your best option would be the 1010LT, a cheap mixer for mic pres (most will have inserts which can be used for direct outs, check out the Yamaha MG series) and reaper. Then you don't have to worry about effects and processors so much because there are plenty of decent freebies around and Reaper's own suite of effects is pretty damn good. That's the cheapest half decent set up I can think of and that'll probably set you back £250-£300. Probably not achievable for £200> to be honest but you have a better shot at decent quality for less money going the computer route in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong there are some decent recorders around but they're way out of your price range.
Click to expand...

+1
icon14.gif
 
Behringer ADA-8000 for $249, an Emu 1212M PCI card for $149 and Reaper for recording. Hook the Behringer and Emu together with an ADAT cable and you've got 8 track recording for around your £200 budget.
 
RexHavoc48 said:
Behringer ADA-8000 for $249, an Emu 1212M PCI card for $149 and Reaper for recording. Hook the Behringer and Emu together with an ADAT cable and you've got 8 track recording for around your £200 budget.
Click to expand...
Good call although with UK prices that would be more like £250. Ebay would probably get it within budget though.

I see that Zoom went for £350! :eek:
 
If you've got firewire, why not go with something like the Firepod? 8 tracks simultaneously, and you can easily score one used for around US$300.
 
Hi. There are a few options that I'd recommend (some which have been mentioned before). Some of these come with either complete free DAWs or Lite versions which would have you up and recording straight away!

Presonus Firepod £269- includes Cubase LE
Alesis I/O 26 £259- includes Cubase LE

You could also consider getting an interface and buy extra pres such as:-

EMU 1212M £101

Additional Pres:-

SM Pro Audio PR4 £54 - 4 channels of pres
SM Pro Audio PR8e £104 - 8 channels of pres
Behringer ADA8000 £155 - 8 channels of pres via ADAT

There's a few options here. Some are over your £200 price range so might not be possible?
In terms of getting a decent DAW for your PC, Reaper is the way to go for £25 unless your every going to need a commercial license?
 
joliver said:
Hello,

Not sure where the best place to ask a recirding question is, but here goes.

In a band and we are looking to make some Demos at home.... We have a good dual core PC with audacity and also Sony ACID Pro 6 on it. We are looking to record, primarily:

Lead guitar
Rhythm
Vocals 1
Vocals 2
Vocals 3
drums (possible from a drum machine or mixer with pre-set drum patterns)

I think i am looking for a Digital 8 Track Recorder but im not sure.... We want to all be able to play at once at record all the parts at the same time.... It owuld nice to keep the tracks seperate so we can edit them on the PC but basically we want to all (excuse the cliche) jam together and record all the various parts.

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions etc?

Much appreciated.
Click to expand...


Ditto Delta 1010. Good strating point. But dont be too lazy to double rythm guitar tracs and all vocals once you get solid scratch tracks.
 
joliver said:
Hello,

We have a good dual core PC with audacity and also Sony ACID Pro 6 on it.

I think i am looking for a Digital 8 Track Recorder but im not sure.... We want to all be able to play at once at record all the parts at the same time.... It owuld nice to keep the tracks seperate so we can edit them on the PC but basically we want to all (excuse the cliche) jam together and record all the various parts.

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions etc?

Much appreciated.
Click to expand...

EMU1820 is over 8 I think...I got one for $140 or something at GC over a year ago or so, it has a nice interface dock..uses 24/48 which is good enough, or 16/44.1 too... doubt you'll use 24/192khz option, which is the chasing the tech rabbit stuff and huge files (I didn't hear a difference).

I know mine older EMU setup runs great on a really really old pos pc.....not even close to your dual core.

But I only do 2tracks, songwriter type thing, so not much is required.....
doing 8 TRAX at once, I have no experience on what the pc has to handle?

the water may get "choppy"........:p
 
I love my setup and it cost next to nothing.

I scored my first Terratec EWS88MT (now Phase88) (8 analogue in/out) for £60 on eBay, and a second for £40; I think you can have up to four in one system. Basically it's a PCI card with a breakout box. All connectors on phono (unbalanced unfortunately, but for the price who cares!)

I use the Nady PRA8 preamps, brought back from the states for $100 each, I think you can get the SMPro equivalent on thomann.de for a reasonable £80 or so. Very cheap and simple multi channel I/O system and I've made some very good recordings on it.

It may take a while to find the terratec on eBay, but is certainly worth the wait.
 
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