A really tough decision

K

kp174

New member
Hi everybody,

I am facing a really tough decision. I really want to buy the ADAT studio pack, because I want to be able to record more tracks, get involved with digital recording, and use it for live band recording. I have a tascam 414 right now, and I think I can get along with it for a while, but its really starting to hold me back. I have a budget of about 3500, and I need to buy a new good mic and a good effect processor, not to mention monitors and other misc. things. I dont want to run out of money buying the ADAT studio pack and then not having enough money to increase my other equiptment. Do you think I should upgrade my current system around the 414 and then eventually move up to the ADAT (which i really want) or should I go for the ADAT and then spend the extra on better mics and monitors? thanks for the help!
 
IMHO there are better mixers and compressors on the market in the same price bracket than what you get with the Studio pack.Plus,correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't that package come with the cheaper LX20 recorder as opposed to the XT20? If it were me and I was looking to get an ADAT,I would get the XT20 by itself and then get a Mackie 1604 or 1642 VLZ Pro mixer and a good compressor like a Behringer or RNC.It will cost you a few hundred more than the Studio Pack,but you'll have a more robust recorder and a better mixer.
 
Roland VS series??

Have you considered going VS? If so, here's a suggestion:

Roland VS880 EX digital recorder (includes unbelievable selection of effects including compressors) - appr $1500

Audio Technica 4050 or AKG C4000 condensor mic (or something similar) - apppr $500

Mackie HR-824 Studio Monitors (or something
similar) - appr $600

Now you've got an eight track digital recorder to go along with the Tascam 414, decent monitors, and a good mike with $900 left to buy misc stuff.

Just a suggestion.

Tripp
 
I know very little about ADAT recording but I can offer you this, virtual.ray seems very wise in the art of recording(every post I have read has shown this) and I don't think you can go wrong with virtual.ray's advice. Also you probably already know this but the Roland digital recorder does compress the data quite a bit.
 
Not only that....but.....

With a VS unit, you are pretty much stuck with the rather cheap DSP that is onboard the unit. This means that your compressors, gates, eq's, reverbs, whatever, are what they give you. In this case, you are paying for a box that cost's $1500, still less then one ADAT XT-20. The converter quality on these VS units are not all that great IN COMPARISON to ADAT's, then you have all that cheap DSP. Something had to give on the VS units to offer that much for so little money. You can't expect that it would offer as robust of a recording system as other solutions can.

virtual.ray is offering some very sound advice. With his suggestion, you can try different outboard gear for processing, and of course add to the setup as you can afford more. There is of course no denying that overall, analog based processing, even with the cheaper units works better and sound more natural then low quality DSP.

It is a matter of potential quality here. I can assure you that the potential quality of an analog mixer/processing, and outboard effects units and an ADAT XT-20 is much higher then any of the VS units are.

I would avoid the Studio Pack. You are paying extra money for Alesis products that are not held in high regard.

Good luck.

Ed
 
ADAT XT - $1800
Mackie 1604VLZ Pro - $900
500 feet of Good Cables- $200
Good Connectors $80
AKG 414 BULS - $800

---------------------
$3800

not bad for shooting for $3500, and that is all NEW prices. this leaves with a good basis to expand, when you rake up some more cash you can expand your 8 tracks to 16 with another ADAT, and have t a 16 channel mixer for mixing 16 channels :). Im supposing you have your decent dynamic mics with the tape multitrack right now. obviously since you have your own system you arent in a rush now, you can save money up while tracking and buy your processors. my 2 cents.
 
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