General Digital Question

[DingoPepper11]

I've been out of the music scene for about 15 years and recently got back into a band. The group wants to do a demo cd and we have a 4-track cassette. We played around with it a little, then our bass player had a friend build him a PC and install one of the cakewalk programs on it (not sure which one).

Obviously, the appeal of more than 4 tracks is big, but my concern is that I've never used digital/pc recording before. I have some experience with 4-tracks and feel pretty comfortable with it. My temptation is to use the 4 track, since they want to get something done within the next couple of months.

Question is, being computer literate and fairly intelligent, can I expect to learn the digital medium as I go and come out with a decent product, or should I expect months of disappointing results while learning the process? In other words, should I go with my experience and deal with the limitations of 4 analog tracks, or take the plunge now? I'm the only one in the group with any real experience at recording, and the only one doing any homework on it (mostly at this site), so it's going to be up to me.

Any suggestions welcome.

[dachay2tnr]

IMHO computer-based recording is still a long way from "push the record button and start playing." However, the benefits (non linear editing, cut/copy paste, non-degradable bouncing/track cloning, and so on) far outweight the negatives.

So the bottom line really is how much time/energy you are willing to invest. There IS a learning curve - shortened to some degree by how computer literate you are. You may also find you will need to make additional investments yet - most probably in a decent quality sound card and possibly pre-amps (or a mixer).

You can get a lot of help and hand-holding at this bbs as well. Just swallow your pride and don't be embarassed to ask the dumb questions.

Good luck and let us know what you decide.

[DingoPepper11]

Well thanks. I'll be using a mixer either way, not sure about the quality of the sound card as I haven't actually put my hands on the pc in question yet. I'm still debating at the moment, and probably won't make a decision until I get the computer in my hands.

Thanks for the info.