Virtual studio versus external equipement

B

bcnx

New member
Hi guys 'n girls,


I hope you can help me out on this one. I'm currently building my own home-studio and I'm facing a big dilemma. I just read a review on the Creamware Pulsar II card in Future Music - I quote: "This may sound rather dramatic, but if you own a Pulsar II you should seriously consider ditching the majority of your outboard gear."

I was just about to get me some synths and possibly a hardware sampler, I already own an extensive effect-box, but if I read this review, all seems to included in this little baby.

What do yo think about a system that's completely PC-based? Pros are, I think, the flexibility and the price. The biggest cons to me are the fact that you don't have knobs to turn and the possible instability in live situations (the Pulsar runs on Windows 98).

All comments welcome.

Cheerz!
 
Howdy BCNX,
Well I.M.H.O. and owning both, and not knowing what kind of recording you will be doing. I would suggest that you DO NOT pitch out you real gear. The harsh but honest hard facts are,,,,,,,Live on site computer multitrack recording is to say the least is a bitch. But...it is a great way to polish your final recording without generation loss.
 
Studio or live equipment?

If you are building a recording studio, thats a different thing than aquiring equipments for live shows. Here is my thoughts on both questions:

Recording studios:
My limited experience tells me that a completely virtual studio is slower to work with, and that PC recording gives more hassles than dedicated gear. Dedicated gear however is a bit more expensive and takes up physical space.
Now, the BIG problem is: If you want to use both PC recording AND outboard gear, you need soundcards with loads of inputs and outputs, which will be very expensive. To get cost effectiveness in the studio, you need to decide which way to go: PC or dedicated, and go ALL THE WAY.
To replace outboard gear you need a powerful PC and an expensive sound card. The money for that you can instead spend on improving the "physical" studio, so if you already have a lot of outboard gear, it will cost you a lot to replace the things you have, without much benefits.

Summary: If you have started on the "physical" path already, stay on it. Switching is expensive, painful and doesn't give you that much of a benefit. Instead of shelling out for PC and SW and soundcard, buy a dedicated HD recorder.
However, if you don't already have something to record on, no mixer and basically no outboard gear, then PC recording is probably a goodie.

Live equipment:
Now, using a PC as live equipment? Well, if you have a dedicated portable PC, used ONLY for this, where you install no uneccesary software to keep it stable, fine. Portables are made for lugging around, but ordinary machines aren't. I have shoved around a lot of PC's in my life, and I wouldn't like to shove an ordinary desk-PC around on live gigs...
A powerful portable PC, with a PC-Card soundcard (the builtins are usually crappy), is expensive. I would strongly recommend Compaq or IBM, those are the only ones I have felt good about, and that will set you back AT LEAST $2000. So be sure that the things you are replacing it with isn't less expensive than that.

Of course, I might be TOTALLY wrong on all accounts...
 
Not at all, Regebro.

The stuff your telling me actually makes a lot of sence and basically points directly to the root of my problem: which filosofy to follow with what kind of hardware path as a consequence.

I worry a lot about being set back by delays - making music is an intuitive process, that should progress as fluently as possible. I wonder how and if a PC would fit in this.

I guess it can save you some bucks, but will delay the creative process.

For recording I'm still leaning towards a PC-solution, since this gives a lot of freedom in editing and a good samplercard is still cheaper than a stand alone solution, correct?


Thanks for your reply!
 
Originally posted by bcnx For recording I'm still leaning towards a PC-solution, since this gives a lot of freedom in editing and a good samplercard is still cheaper than a stand alone solution, correct?
Click to expand...

Correct. (Unless you take the cost of the PC into calculation, that is).
 
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