New DAW setup

[suprstar]

Ive been out of the game for a few years, my interface died on me and I wasnt writing anything so I never got it replaced. I have an i5 laptop with 8gb ram and a small ssd drive, and a large external usb2 / fw / esata drive to track to. The laptop has usb2, usb3, esata, and firewire so I can go any which way with the drive and the interface. I have an ancient cubase version, YEARS outdated. I might try reaper since it's cheap and looks pretty functional, and I'm basically starting from scratch anyway.

I need to track 8 channels (16 would be nice) - and I need basic reverb/delay fx for monitoring vox while tracking, and not print those fx on the recorded tracks.

I really like firewire mixer interfaces bc I can keep all my stuff plugged in at once. I also use em for other computers, ipods, other non-studio things. I'm currently looking at the Behringer UFX1604, it has everything I want. I have a dmp3 I can run into a couple of the 'line in' channels if that'd be a big improvement over the xenyx pre's. I'm trying to find out how good/bad those pre's really are. I'm not a pro so.... And for the price I could afford to buy an even better preamp too. Is a good preamp into a budget board way better, or is it all about the AD conversion? Having 2 'gold' channels is fine if the rest are 1/2 way decent. I'm also looking at a mackie 1640i on CL, then Id have to get an outboard fx unit like a quadreverb or modern equivalent.

Im kind of shying away from the rack-unit route like a presonus firestudio, then I have the same fx issue. I do have a cheap mixer with fx (and no interface capabilities) so I could probably route a couple out's to that for monitoring while tracking, that's getting kinda sketchy...

This is the room I'm in, I put it together when I moved here. I jam around a lot but I haven't recorded ANYTHING in it yet.. I have some new stuff I've been working on and it's time to get back to work! I have all the same gear except a couple guitar switches, new computer, and no interface
https://homerecording.com/bbs/gener...-treatment/new-suprstar-studio-thread-342369/


My budget is around $1000, thought / suggestions?

 

[Steenamaroo]

I need to track 8 channels (16 would be nice) - and I need basic reverb/delay fx for monitoring vox while tracking, and not print those fx on the recorded tracks.

I really like firewire mixer interfaces bc I can keep all my stuff plugged in at once. I also use em for other computers, ipods, other non-studio things. I'm currently looking at the Behringer UFX1604, it has everything I want. I have a dmp3 I can run into a couple of the 'line in' channels if that'd be a big improvement over the xenyx pre's. I'm trying to find out how good/bad those pre's really are. I'm not a pro so.... And for the price I could afford to buy an even better preamp too. Is a good preamp into a budget board way better, or is it all about the AD conversion? Having 2 'gold' channels is fine if the rest are 1/2 way decent. I'm also looking at a mackie 1640i on CL, then Id have to get an outboard fx unit like a quadreverb or modern equivalent.

Im kind of shying away from the rack-unit route like a presonus firestudio, then I have the same fx issue. I do have a cheap mixer with fx (and no interface capabilities) so I could probably route a couple out's to that for monitoring while tracking, that's getting kinda sketchy...

Hey,
You shouldn't need to be looking at hardware effects for monitoring.
Any half decent computer will let you use reverb/delay etc whilst tracking without introducing noticeable latency.
An i5 machine with 8gb ram and an SSD certainly shouldn't have any issues with that! Mine doesn't.