Whats the best way of doing this??!

[Spazhands]

Hi I am new here but have always been recording and composing. Basically I have a the beginnings of a small studio at home and need some advice on hardware etc. I have got to the point where I need to split my drum kit into seperate tracks as I cant refine them as much as I would like on one track.. I will be be using 6 microphones max with the kit. I have a 16ch mixer at my disposal and have access to protools and FL studio on my pc. I understand I will need an interface but all the reasonably priced ones seem to only have 2 mic inputs? Also what will need to be done on the pc end, specific sound card to match the interface?? How does it get split into the pc, does it run through usb or multiple inputs on the card?? Apologies for my lack of knowledge!! Regards, Ben

 

[hsnyder]

The presonus firepod is surprisingly good actually. It has 8 inputs IIRC. I don't own one, but my friend and bandmate does and I like it. I don't know what you mean by "reasonably priced", thats highly relative. but i believe theres a factory restock firepod on musiciansfriend for 399 at the moment, and you'll likely be able to find them on ebay.

However, its firewire, and if you use a PC that might be tricky. Even if you could get an interface that had 8 Channels of conversion over USB, I wouldnt want it. USB isn't generally considered to be fast enough for more than 2 I/O channels at any decent latency settings I think. I might be wrong with the new USB, but i think most of the interfaces use usb2 protocols anyways.

If you dont have firewire and want multiple inputs you're going to have to get a PCI or PCIe card that plugs into an external box housing the actual convertors. To be honest, therse no cheap way to do it and thats likely to cost you at least 600 dollars, and probably more than a grand for a good quality unit.

Theres another option: If you have Toontrack Superior Drummer, EZ Drummer, or any similar software, you can forgo microphones and place triggers on the drums. plug the triggers into a cheap trigger to midi convertor (one is available from alesis for 150 i think) and then go midi into the computer and use the 2 mic preamps on your USB converter to record the overhead microphones. Once you've recorded the midi performance, use software to replace the midi signals with recorded drum sounds. Its not cheating IMO - you've captured the performance, you're just replacing the sounds with recorded samples. I'm starting a pro level studio and I still do this with many of my drums. between you and me, for many styles, the drum kit you have and the room you record the drums in probably aren't gonna sound as good as a well selected sample bank anyways (just my opinion, some people can get marvelous sounds).

Hope it helps


EDIT: PS: If you decide to go the midi route for drums, the TASCAM US-144 mkII has two microphone jacks and midi connections (as well as SPDIF if you need it) and I think its a very good unit for the price. It also self monitors, preventing the excess strain on your CPU that latency free in software monitoring introduces. It connects via USB.

 

[Jim Lad]

Even if you could get an interface that had 8 Channels of conversion over USB, I wouldnt want it. USB isn't generally considered to be fast enough for more than 2 I/O channels at any decent latency settings I think.

Urban myth.
Sorry but this comes up so often.
There are plenty of multi channel USBs out there and they all work as well as your PC will allow. Same goes with Firewire. It's actually the computer that holds you back.
Having said that, PCI interfaces are far superior.
I'd go with a 4 or 8 channel audio interface which accepts ADAT I/O then the Behringer ADA8000 for an additional 8 channels. You can find those for about $150. http://www.behringer.de/EN/Products/ADA8000.aspx

 

[dgatwood]

Urban myth.
Sorry but this comes up so often.
There are plenty of multi channel USBs out there and they all work as well as your PC will allow. Same goes with Firewire. It's actually the computer that holds you back.

Yes and no. USB does not do as well as FireWire in general when handling lots of channels. It's not the bandwidth; it's the CPU overhead. With FireWire, the controller silicon is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for you. The difference becomes even more noticeable if you use an external hard drive. USB drives border on useless for recording because of the CPU overhead involved.

There are a few USB interfaces on the market that do more than about 4 channels. Purists like myself will argue that not one of these is compliant with the USB audio specifications, as they all use USB 1.x descriptors at 2.x speeds, which violates the specs. Well, there might be one or two legitimate USB 2.0 audio interfaces out there by now, but there weren't any as of a couple months ago.

Having said that, PCI interfaces are far superior.

That's very much an urban myth. AFAIK, no manufacturers have introduced new recording-quality PCI audio hardware in several years, so anything PCI is going to be based on outdated analog circuitry and converters with poorer specifications and sound quality when compared with newer interfaces.

PCI offers a very slight latency advantage (IIRC, PCI latency can get down to somewhere around 4-5 ms round-trip latency versus a little under 6 ms round-trip latency for the best FireWire interfaces). Inaudible is the word I'm looking for here. As for USB, I think a few can manage 8 ms round-trip latency, but most are quite a bit higher than that, IIRC. (This is all off the top of my head, so don't take these numbers as gospel.)

I'd go with a 4 or 8 channel audio interface which accepts ADAT I/O then the Behringer ADA8000 for an additional 8 channels. You can find those for about $150. http://www.behringer.de/EN/Products/ADA8000.aspx

Ugh. Speaking of noisy, cheap converters.... That's somewhere around 20 dB noisier than a FIREPOD if I read the specs right....

 

[hsnyder]

fair enough. I dont have enough knowledge about USB communication protocols to doubt that you guys are right. That said, I personally dont trust USB as much as firewire and dont trust firewire as much as PCI. But hey there are exceptions to every rule - the metric halo has firewire IIRC. But anyways thats off topic.

Speaking of personally not trusting things, behringer gear is on my "not to trust list". They're just so cheap, and unfortunately you get what you pay for. That said i havent used that particular unit so i dont know - maybe it'll do your job just fine.

 

[Jim Lad]

USB and Firewire are Coke and Pepsi.
PCI is far superior.
The ADA8000 is an excellent unit.
Those are my opinions based on experience.

 

[dintymoore]

I see Delta 1010LT's go for $60 to $120 used. If you got two for $75 each that would be 20 ins and 20 outs for $150. It's got MIDI.

Only 4 of those ins are pre-amped so you'd need a mixer or pre's for more mics than 4.

Each card is 10 in 10 out, but a pair of those ins and a pair of those outs are S/PDIF.

That card seems to be the rock bottom best deal, I haven't seen anything else close. I'm using one and I would rather have a high end unit but I'm not upgrading for awhile.

 

[Jeff_D]

That card seems to be the rock bottom best deal, I haven't seen anything else close. I'm using one and I would rather have a high end unit but I'm not upgrading for awhile.

I've been using 1 for about 7 years now. I got a second one about 3 years ago, so I have a pair running in my recording machine. Never so much as a glitch. A fine solution if you already have external preamps. I have mine paired with a Soundcraft M8 and a Presonus D8.

 

[dgatwood]

I see Delta 1010LT's go for $60 to $120 used. If you got two for $75 each that would be 20 ins and 20 outs for $150. It's got MIDI.

And its converters sound like ass. Seriously, the difference between this and even the cheapest FireWire hardware out there (probably the FireWire Solo) is night and day, and better hardware goes up from there. You're talking about converter and analog sections designed in the late 1990s. Its DACs are particularly heinous, with some machines exhibiting really annoyingly audible chirping, beeping, and other noises because they didn't properly isolate their analog section from the often-noisy power supply and ground rails on the PCI bus.

When I upgraded my machine to a machine that didn't have PCI slots, I was forced over to FireWire. It was like a fog was lifted. There's no other way to describe it. Night and day difference in the sound quality. I'm not saying all currently-available PCI gear is crap, just most of it.