Home Studio Recording Hobbyist

[snow_man]

I'm looking at setting up a small home studio for doing some recording as a hobby. I've been looking at an Alesis iMultimix 16 USB Recording Mixer to interface with my iMac. Anybody have any thoughts or reviews on the Alesis or what could be a better choice for me? I'm looking around the $1000.00 mark which I know isn't much for a Recording Mixer but it is just going to be used for screwing around with and having some fun. As it will be quite a small home studio, having the capability of having a recording interface combined in one package with a mixer would be a great attribute. I'll be purchasing Cakewalk Sonar to use as my recording software.

For speakers I'm looking at KRK Rokit8 Powered Monitors and a KRK 10s Powered Subwoofer. Would I need a PA as well?

Any thoughts and reviews would be greatly appreciated.

 

[gcapel]

I would check out the mackie onyx i mixers. They will give you conversion on all channels both ways (analog to digital and digital to analog).

 

[Kingofpain678]

I'm looking at setting up a small home studio for doing some recording as a hobby. I've been looking at an Alesis iMultimix 16 USB Recording Mixer to interface with my iMac. Anybody have any thoughts or reviews on the Alesis or what could be a better choice for me? I'm looking around the $1000.00 mark which I know isn't much for a Recording Mixer but it is just going to be used for screwing around with and having some fun. As it will be quite a small home studio, having the capability of having a recording interface combined in one package with a mixer would be a great attribute. I'll be purchasing Cakewalk Sonar to use as my recording software.

For speakers I'm looking at KRK Rokit8 Powered Monitors and a KRK 10s Powered Subwoofer. Would I need a PA as well?

Any thoughts and reviews would be greatly appreciated.

the thing about usb mixers (and non interface/mixers in general) is that they take those 8, 16, 24, or however many inputs it may have and "mixes" them all down into 1 stereo track (left and right) so no matter how many inputs that mixer has your still only going to be able to get 2 tracks into your computer at once which would, again, be stereo. one channel left and one channel right.

firewire mixers on the other hand are capable of recording every input of the mixer into its own channel into your computer. so you might wanna check out a firewire mixer instead.

something to keep in mind is that you may only need two channels as of now. maybe your only recording vocals and an acoustic guitar but as you grow as a musician and an engineer you may find that it becomes more necessary to record more than two tracks at once and if you have the usb mixer your stuck with it. with a firewire mixer it will be readily available when you are.

 

[NinthHour]

the multimix 16 is what i started my adventure into this hobby with and it sounded pretty good to be honest but that one disadvantage is that they claim you can multitrack out of the box with it when in fact you cant if you are ok with taking your entire mix and swedge it down into a single stereo track then the multimix is great but it does limit what you could do down the road. however the multimix firewire will allow you to take each channel into its own track in the DAW which offers far more options in the mixing and mastering phase of your project i'd look around a little more and if need be save some more cash and get into a box that offers room for growth because there is one universal truth when it comes to recording at home and that is you'll never be satisfied with what youve got for very long and the gear shopping never ends so i'd try to get the most bang for your buck!