Analogosaurus
New member
Greetings from a new member.
I'm embarrassed to admit I'm an analog dinosaur in a digital age.
My wife is a fine fingerstyle guitarist and I play standup bass to accompany her. Unfortunately, my last knowledge of digital recording was the ADAT machines that recorded on VHS tape. For reasons I can't get into, we stopped actively performing and recording around that time, and have been unable to return until now. Of course, that puts me completely out of the loop as to recording software, online distribution of songs and albums, etc. (I'll never forget the first time I tried to buy my wife a CD only to find the artist chose to release only .mp3's ...)
So I'm looking for input on how to get up to speed in modern PC-based recording. We'd need multiple tracks for guitar, vocals and bass, plus basic signal processing (chorus, delay and reverb, and possibly multitap). We'd also need decent mikes, of course, although her guitar is equipped with a fine Baggs pickup. Finally, I'd need proper data backup to protect her work. (It will be just the two of us to start with; she'll want to multitrack herself, but we will not need the simulated sounds of other instruments, neither by MIDI nor any other means.)
My fears, of course, are that (1) I'll be forced to spend hundreds or even thousands for bells and whistles just because a software company wants it that way, and (2) everything will be obsolete the second the download completes. (Already I know our operating system isn't sufficient even for ProTools' free "beginner" suite.) I cannot afford to become a slave to endless upgrades, nor to re-buy everything should my computer die.
I'd also need beginner's manuals hopefully independent of the software itself. So far, the only books I've found at my local library start with how to apply compression to a signal, while I need to know where the "play" and "record" buttons are and how to set levels.
Any help is gratefully appreciated. Thanks -- Analogosaurus
I'm embarrassed to admit I'm an analog dinosaur in a digital age.
My wife is a fine fingerstyle guitarist and I play standup bass to accompany her. Unfortunately, my last knowledge of digital recording was the ADAT machines that recorded on VHS tape. For reasons I can't get into, we stopped actively performing and recording around that time, and have been unable to return until now. Of course, that puts me completely out of the loop as to recording software, online distribution of songs and albums, etc. (I'll never forget the first time I tried to buy my wife a CD only to find the artist chose to release only .mp3's ...)
So I'm looking for input on how to get up to speed in modern PC-based recording. We'd need multiple tracks for guitar, vocals and bass, plus basic signal processing (chorus, delay and reverb, and possibly multitap). We'd also need decent mikes, of course, although her guitar is equipped with a fine Baggs pickup. Finally, I'd need proper data backup to protect her work. (It will be just the two of us to start with; she'll want to multitrack herself, but we will not need the simulated sounds of other instruments, neither by MIDI nor any other means.)
My fears, of course, are that (1) I'll be forced to spend hundreds or even thousands for bells and whistles just because a software company wants it that way, and (2) everything will be obsolete the second the download completes. (Already I know our operating system isn't sufficient even for ProTools' free "beginner" suite.) I cannot afford to become a slave to endless upgrades, nor to re-buy everything should my computer die.
I'd also need beginner's manuals hopefully independent of the software itself. So far, the only books I've found at my local library start with how to apply compression to a signal, while I need to know where the "play" and "record" buttons are and how to set levels.
Any help is gratefully appreciated. Thanks -- Analogosaurus