FD-8

[PHILWILL]

Hi,
We have a gospel band and we were thinking about trying to record some of our music and burn it to cd. I am going to use my computer-I have a memorex crw-1622 with ez cd creator software and cakewalk pro audio 9.
We are new to this and do not have the slightest idea what we are doing. We were thinking about buying a fostex fd-8. There are five of us in the group only four sing. We have 3 instruments (keyboard, bass, lead). Is it possible to record all of us at the same time with the fd-8. I see in the book where it has 3gb of memory. If this is not possible do any of you recommend we purchase some other type of equipment, or are we okay with the fd-8.
We would like to get some demos out to a few some radio stations in the area who have said they will play them if we get them a good quality cd that can be played on air.
We are not very savy when it comes to recording wquipment we are in the infant stages fo our knowledge about such things.
Give us some input please.

 

[Purple-Tortoise]

Are you really good? If your great at what you do I would say buy some great mics, mic preamp/preamps, and mix it down directly to digital, like your computer (with a great soundcard).This would take trial and error (and a mixer (digital or not (if you use a converter))) to achieve the right balance of all the sounds by practice recording a lot. But no, the fd-8 can only record two tracks at once, it can record eight tracks at once via ADAT lightpipe. I record four seperate tracks by having my drummer go "spdif out" of his fd-4 into "spdif in" of my eight track. I don't know of any digital multitrack in the price range of the fd-4 that can record more than two tracks at a time (unless some of the other channels(tracks) are via digital source).

 

[PHILWILL]

Thanks for the info
So here's another dumb query.
If we can only record on two tracks at a time.
Would it not make any difference if we just purchased a digital 4 track instead of a digital 8 track?
Also with either one can we just plug it into the computer after getting everything down and then mixing it on the computer without having to buy anything else.(we're cheap asses).
Keep in mind that we are also dumb as doorknobs.

 

[PHILWILL]

And also I forgot.
According to the sales book (samash.com)
The fd-8 is also a mixer.
Any comments on that?

 

[Purple-Tortoise]

Well, if you have 3 instruments and 4 vocalists. This makes 7 sounds , if you want to control each sound separately after the fact and mix it all down. They will need to be recorded on separate tracks. You do this by recording up to two parts at a time. For example, start with bass and drums on tracks 1 and 2, guitar on 3 , keys on 4, vocals on 5,6,7 etc.... No, it doesn't have to be this way , I mean you could record all the intruments on 2 tracks and vocals on the other two tracks. But your stuck with the levels you recorded at. And no, you can't do any mixing on your computer unless each track is recorded on separate tracks in a multitrack software on to your computer, or if you have a very expensive sound card that can do it. You don't seem to have a grasp on the basic concepts of multitrack recording and you have to realize that your computer can't just magically mix something that you dump into it. You can proccess all you want, but only everything all at once. Understand? Listen, you sound like your pretty hot on the FD-8, and you should be, it's a great machine for the money. This is what I do with my FD-8: record drums on tracks 1&2,bass on 3,gtr. on 4, gtr. on 5, keys on 6, lead vocals on 7 , backups on 8. Now, I mix all of this until I like it, by eq'ing, adjusting levels of each track, adding effects from my proccessors. When this sounds the way I want it to sound on the cd , I dump it to my computer via "SPDIF" optical cable. My sound card has optical inputs.(you do have digital inputs on your computer right? These are not on the soundcard that came with your computer .) Doing this keeps it in the digital domain. If you just go line out into the "line in" of your computer sound card, well, your losing a lot!Anyway, back to the studio for me, good luck to ya!