hi newbie here

[gremlin]

Hi all Im new to the site, and have been recording on a cassette type recorder for a while, recently I have been aquiring gear to set up a nice studio, and wondering what else i need and how to connect all this stuff together. My goal is to have both analogue and pc based digital capabilities.

so far i have purchased:
Tascam DA30 MKII
Tascam DA88 with remote
Tascam dual cassette deck
Evantide Harmonizer
Beheringer digital Eq
Alesis midiverb4
ART tube compressor
Digidesign Pro Tools (software)
M-audio (interface)
M-audio (uc-33 controller)
Tascam studio monitors
e-mu drum machine
MXL studio condenser mic w/shockmount
Carvin instrument condeser mic
shure sm57
shure sm58
Tascam CD burner
48 space server rack (a freebie from work)

any idea on how to make all this stuff talk to each other and work together? Im used to my cassette all in one unit but wanted more of a "pro" set up that is more flexible with more track capabilities and better sound. Im looking at all this am a little overwhelmed right now so any hep would be great.

[Riverdog]

Quite a change from the "all in one" cassette thingy you had, eh?
(Heheheheh)...

You've got a lot of good gear here...
You've also asked a whopper of a question...

Best thing to do is / start reading..
Learn what each thing does and begin from there...

You're going to need some type of mixer to put all the gear and signals together into one coherrent group... That's where I'd start...

Next - You don't need to buy anymore for the moment...
You've got some redundancy here that you're going to have to decide what you want to do...

One is the DA88 Recorder compared to the Pro Tools software....
Do you want to go analog or digital?

Lastly, if you were going to keep all this stuff / I might suggest this:

Tascam DA30 MKII - (Mixdown Unit)

Tascam DA88 with remote - (Multitracker / hook to that mixer we spoke of)

Tascam dual cassette deck - (Not much use / but good for mixdown)

Evantide Harmonizer - (Hook to mixer / use as insert or effect)

Beheringer digital Eq - (As above)

Alesis midiverb4 - (As Above)

ART tube compressor - (Use for tracking or mixdown depending on digital or analog)

Digidesign Pro Tools (software) - (Primary Tracking for digital)

M-audio (interface) - (Primary INPUT for tracking digital)

M-audio (uc-33 controller) - Use to control PT tracks for digital)

Tascam studio monitors (Obviously for listening!)

e-mu drum machine - (INstrument for recording)

MXL studio condenser mic w/shockmount
Carvin instrument condeser mic
shure sm57
shure sm58
(= = = = = = = = == Mics for Tracking / either digital or analog)

Tascam CD burner (Final product / master / whatever)

48 space server rack (a freebie from work) (Someplace to put it all)

I hope this helps get you started in the right direction..
Hooking these up is up to you in terms of how you want set your system up for optimum useability for YOU..

Let us know how we can help further...
And welcome aboard!

[gremlin]

thanks riverdog, you asked the question weather i wanted to go digital or analogue, I want to primarily record digital, but i do want to have analogue capabilities (for now) as well mainly because I have tons of stuff on reel to reel that i want/need to convert to digital. you mentioned a mixer , I do have a mackie 16 channel i use for live sound, will this be sufficent or should i go ahead and get a digital board dedicated to the studio? im looking at a roland or tascam digital board right now and trying to convince the wife to let me ding the checking account yet again ( I ordered about 4,000 worth of guitar stuff from carvin and she took my credit card lol)

[kojdogg]

Originally Posted by gremlin

thanks riverdog, you asked the question weather i wanted to go digital or analogue, I want to primarily record digital, but i do want to have analogue capabilities (for now) as well mainly because I have tons of stuff on reel to reel that i want/need to convert to digital. you mentioned a mixer , I do have a mackie 16 channel i use for live sound, will this be sufficent or should i go ahead and get a digital board dedicated to the studio? im looking at a roland or tascam digital board right now and trying to convince the wife to let me ding the checking account yet again ( I ordered about 4,000 worth of guitar stuff from carvin and she took my credit card lol)

one of the advantages that many people with hybrid analog/digital systems will speak to is the ability to use them together. the advantae of working in tape is that there is a kind of musically desirable saturation (pleasant distortion) that occurs when audio is recorded to tape at higher levels. some people track drums on analog and then dump them into protools to overdub other parts, perform editing such as "nudging" drum hits into time, using sound replacer to replace the drum hits recorded with high quality sample drums, etc. on the back end, you can mix out of protools back onto digital. many people perfer this to mixing exclusively itb (in the box-- in the computer software daw's virtual mixer, which is based on summing algorithms), as dumping the outputs of your interface back through a mixer and through outboard signal processing will take advantage of line drivers, transformers and other goodness that might be in your mixer. several companies now market analog summing units/mixers to do just that. to take advantage of this, you need as many outputs from your interface as tracks you would like to be able to mix in analog, but you can just record the stereo mix back onto tape to take advantage of tape saturation as well.

[Riverdog]

I think if you're already pinching your CC's and your wife is ready to NAIL you the Mackie should be fine...

I'm assuming you're talking a CR1604??? If you have something like that / it's great to start with...

This may also be a moment where you may want to just back up a little bit to get used to the gear you've got now... Sounds like you're going all out to start something up - That's great / But sit back just a bit and figure out how all this stuff is going to fit together... With the gear you have (IMHO) I think you'll want to start 'pinpointing' your purchases for specific things you may need after all this is "Breathing together"... Your dollar will go a lot further / and you won't be strung up by the flagpole out front!