I was wondering if someone could help me with deciding on what setup to get with a $2000 budget for homerecording. Please post any comments even if it involoves going a little over $2000. The things I was looking at are the Korg D16, Akai DPS16, Akai DR-8, and the Alesis ADAT studio package. Thanx!
Depends on your needs. You want 4 track or 8? Digital or Analog?
You could get a nice 4-track digital setup.
Fostex 4 track and zip drive $450
Rode NT1 $200
ART Tube MP $100
RNC or Behringer compress. $200
3 sm57s $250
Bass drum mic $200
cables and shit $100
Mackie 12 Ch. Mixer $330
Lexicon Reverb $250
Total $2080
Or you could get an 8 track Roland VS880 and Cd burner for around $2100.
Of course I left out monitors, phones, rack, power, patchbay, stands, snake, new live room, iso booth, eq, adapters, acoustic treatment of your shitass basement......
It's funny that you say the fostex 4 track, because I own the version w/the internal HD right now. The only problem I have is that it can only record 2 tracks simultaneously and I really want to upgrade to a 8 or 16 track instead of 4.
Alesis sells what they call the studio pack. for about $2000
It contains:
ADAT LX-20
Studio 24 Mixer(8 mono, 4 stereo, 2 group)
Nanoverb
Nanocompressor
Cables
You could buy these suckers separately, and upgrade the compressor and verb units to your liking for a bit more money. It has the advantage over portastudios of being upgradeable if at some point you should want to add another ADAT and 16ch mixer. This, of course means, spending a shitload more money. I personally like pushing faders and twisting knobs, so I stay away from computer HD software, though something like n-track would be a good companion to any digital setup. Unless you feel the need to record 16 tr simultaneously and independently, you're probably better off w/ an 8 tr (remember no signal loss during bouncing) or submixing drums or whatever.
That said, I can sympathize because I'm in the same situation, and I'm leaning toward (gasp) the yamaha md 8 despite its data compression. Money saved there means more money for good mics and fx! Good luck.
My money went on the Korg D16 ..Its digital, 16 & 24 bit, 8 or 4 simultaneous ins for live or ???? It has everything you need to be a working studio.. including a wall of effects that can be stacked in almost any combination to a max. of 8 per channel.... If I had to say anything - about it it would be that it is so compact ...I'm not sure why one would want all of these great features in a laptop size computer. But hey I own one and other than that its like owning one of the studios I'm usualy recording in only I can do it all in my dining room....
just read your mail. you seem to be quite happy with your new d16. i heard so many things about it, but not many people seem to know that much, i think.from your experience: would it be the real toy to produce radio-stuff with it, like reports, jingles...i like the d16 because it´s portable. what i doubt is: is the screen big enough for cut, copy, paste after I´ve recorded my voice?
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lash: My money went on the Korg D16 ..Its digital, 16 & 24 bit, 8 or 4 simultaneous ins for live or ???? It has everything you need to be a working studio.. including a wall of effects that can be stacked in almost any combination to a max. of 8 per channel.... If I had to say anything - about it it would be that it is so compact ...I'm not sure why one would want all of these great features in a laptop size computer. But hey I own one and other than that its like owning one of the studios I'm usualy recording in only I can do it all in my dining room....
I too have the D16 and I am very happy with the results. I am just a hobbiest/amateur, but it does a great job. I never used studio gear or a lot of other equipment to compare with, but it is so much cleaner than the 6 track multi track recorder I used years ago. I tried a layla and to my surprise, ran into significant conflicts on my computer (state of the art PC). I decided I wanted a stand alone recorder and purchased a Korg D8, which I was very happy for a while. I determined that more tracks and better FX were needed. I use roland keyboards so I did a "demo" of the VS recorders at GC. But, I came back to the ease of the Korg, touch screen and uncompressed sound. FX inserts, EQ, Gate, Compression and Limiter are outstanding and adjustable. Bouncing is clean, I say again, clean..... We are talking quality stuff here. No need to use my roland mixer anymore, it generates to much noise. I mic and mix directly to the Korg. It has one Aux send which I use for my digitech vocalist. I back up to a 250 zip drive and I Look forward to getting the direct CD burner soon. I can only imagine what this recorder could do in the hands of a real pro.
You doing the computer thang? That's where I am. My approach is to get the basic stuff and learn something, then move progressively to better stuff as soon as I can rationalize it. I'm at the soundblaster stage right now and haven't learned as much as I think... SB has been killed in the forums, but seems to me like the logical place to begin (helpful to remember the George Martin analogy - platinum product on a dictation machine; it's NOT the equipment).
I bought and sent back a Tascam TM D1000 mixer; a thing of beauty that happened to have a defective output. The vendor was very gracious. But I learned in the process that digital tricks are pretty demanding of the little grey cells. So now we're back to shopping for mixers, and the Mackie CFX 12 looks pretty good for the money. Analog feels good, or something like that.
Have you checked out the LynxOne card?
[This message has been edited by Treeline (edited 04-10-2000).]
