Green horns here, saying Hi.

[06oceanliner]

Hey people, my name is Brian.
I goggled for some studio info. I found you guys, and this forum is GREAT!
Flooded with information for a blind guy like me.

Well, I'm gonna start off real "GREEN". I'm takin baby steps this is what I have so far, an electric guitar, and acoustic, and one guitar (not bass) amp as yet.
I'm slowly continuing my quest for more instruments.

Hears where the "GREEN" questions start, I have a feeling from what I've seen your gonna tell me acoustic, but in regards to drums, are electronic drums acceptable to record with. I'll give you a quick briefing as to why I ask. My daughter is marrying and leaving the house soon, witch of course opens a good size upstairs bedroom, guess where "I'M" goin. Now heres the twist, I have a very large home and my wife has a home based business where we take in elderly residents that stay with us. That's the dilemma, but the good side is that I tried a test today, with my daughter being a slob actually helped, there is carpet down and her clothes were everywhere all over the floor. I borrowed a snare from my nephew and had my daughter pound on it with the door shut and pillows on the door for an attempt to dampen it. I was walking around down stairs in all different rooms, would you believe it actually wasn't "that" bad. But I don't know if I can stop it altogether. Whudy Guys Think?

 

[mshilarious]

Hi, how are ya? Wonderful weather we're having.

Contrarian view: girls can't hit and it was a snare, not a kick. But with any luck, your elderly clients won't be able to hear very well

Clothes might seal air gaps in a limited way; an exterior door with weatherstripping is better. But you'll have structural transmission through the floor. Tough to avoid that without construction.

So e-drums work quite well, especially these days with sample replacement.

 

[06oceanliner]

Hi ms,

I think you rise a good point. she weighs like 100#'s, but I told her to hit hard.

Do you have any experience w/e-drums or new anyone that used them and heard for yourself the sound quality or lack of.

If I decide acoustic, what do you think about 4x8 sheets of 1/2" sound board on the floor under the carpet. We used it at my job under the sheet rock to divide duplex units. Good stuff.

 

[Chili]

So much can be done "in the box" or DI'd these days. The only thing I record acoustically are vocals and acoustic guitar. I use a guitar amp modeler directly inputted into my interface. I plug the bass and keyboard directly into the interface also. Drums are samples called ezdrummer; best fake drums on the market. They are not e-drums, but samples that run from midi files. They work within your DAW software. Check out some of my tunes to hear how they sound.

For a while, we were renting a house and I couldn't build a studio. So I set up shop in the guest room, right next to my daughter's room. I do all my stuff at night and I never woke her up. I had to hold off until the weekends to do mixdowns because the monitors could get loud at times.

 

[06oceanliner]

Chili,

I only listened to the first two songs and thought DAMN I gotta write back.
I don't think there's any thing to fear with e-drums. Those two songs alone sounded AWESOME, they honestly sounded fantastic. Lookin forward to hear the rest.

So let me get this straight, you pieced the drums w/clips, bass direct, electric guitar, and keyboard direct, mic acoustic guitar and vocals of coarse. WOW, very straight forward, and sounded great.

Now when you say direct, I think you said to the interface? will this same set up work with a multitrack recorder that I'm lookin to buy. here it is.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-AW1600-Audio-Workstation-103373262-i1126248.gc

 

[Chili]

Right. When I say Direct, I mean plugging the guitar/bass/keys straight in to the interface. No amps are harmed in my recordings. Well, the guitar goes through a modeler first. I use a mic only for acoustic guitar and vocals. However, and a big however, you won't be able to use something like ezdrummer with the multitrack recorder you listed. If you're thinking of using e-drums, then you can do that, but ezdrummer isn't e-drums (though it can work with e-drums, nuther story) and it has to run within a DAW, like Cubase, Sonar, Pro-tools, etc.

Whenever I can, I try to steer people away from those all in one Studio In A Box units. I had one before (still have it sitting right here collecting dust!!) and got so frustrated because I couldn't use it the way I wanted. I eventually switched to a computer based DAW with Cubase and never looked back. That's when my recording quality took a leap forward. That and I started hanging out here.

For the $1000 you're looking to spend on that unit, you can set yourself up nicely with a computer based recording system.

The best advice is to do a TON of reading before spending a dime on equipment. the better informed you are the better your money will be spent. Go through the newbies section and read some of the threads from people starting out. Do some searches, check out the links people have put up. There's so much information to read and learn. It will be a little overwhelming at first and you'll probably just want to jump right and start recording, but learn what your options are make informed purchases so you don't waste your money.

good luck, have fun and thanks for the kind words about my tunes!!

 

[06oceanliner]

chili,

Very well said, and I will do just that. A ton of reading, and smart choices.
Thanks.

 

[Dogbreath]

OceanDude!

MSHDude and ChiliDude are pretty savvy guys with good info.
Me? I'm just a hack.
Just wanted to welcome ya to the land of the perpetually broke.

 

[06oceanliner]

DB,

LOL! Thanks guy. I'm a hack also, I played guitar in a band in high school and a couple yrs after that, now 25yrs. or so later I'm dusting it off. Pretty pathetic Hu.

Later.

 

[Armistice]

The thing about the Yamaha units (I have an AW4416) is that everything works - they do what they're supposed to do and are pretty solid - and you won't get into endless discussions about latency and what to do about it, whether you need more RAM, and how to get your Fantabulator 23R microphone preamp to talk to your Thunderbuster sound card, and is, in fact, the Thunderbuster sound card really the correct one anyway and perhaps you should upgrade to the SuperThunderbuster or even the SuperDuperThunderbuster, but there aren't any drivers for the SuperDuperThunderbuster on Windows 7 yet and there's a rumour that they (The SuperDuperThunderbuster that is) doesn't work that well with AMD chipsets and also the Intel Celeron with model numbers greater than 2.56645154877 so perhaps that's not a good idea...

.... and on... and on... and on....

So what you get with the Yammie is simplicity and the ability to get up and running quickly and get recording, which is why we're here, right?

What you don't get is the list of superior advantages of computer-based DAW over all-in-one workstation that my co-boardies are about to pile into me for cursing the PC approach and list conveniently for you in posts that follow...

I'm not ruling out my next recording beast being a PC-based one, but if it is, I'll pay someone to build it for me and it'll do nothing but record. I just want things to work...

In the meantime it's nice to have 16 automated faders and a real permanent levels display, and knobs and buttons to play with. Suits me, but I do miss not having some of the things these guys talk about, that's for sure..

Good luck!

 

[06oceanliner]

Arm,

You scared the livin hell outa me in the beginning of your post. Made want to stop pursuing this. But you know what, your right in the sense of just wanting things to just work. That's how I am, I try to buy thing in good quality, yet affordable. You but crap, you get crap results. I have limited funds, most do, but I really want 1-reliability 2-dependability 4-quality stuff 5-only want to buy eqmt. once, and 6-most important simplicity.

You have a Yam, is the final product(recorded songs) respectable and of good quality? I'm sure it is. I've done alot of reading about the Yamm. and the only conclusion I can come up with is "Top Notch" from professional reviews and from owners.

Quick question, have you ever used E-drums thru the Yamm? If so hows it sound?

 

[moresound]

OceanDude!

MSHDude and ChiliDude are pretty savvy guys with good info.
Me? I'm just a hack.
Just wanted to welcome ya to the land of the perpetually broke.

Hello Brian and welcome also.
As stated so dashingly by Dogbreath "the land of the perpetually broke"
Now that your getting back into it you already know how expensive this addiction can be!!!
Good luck and talk to you soon...I'm sure along the lines of sound dampening your room, but maybe you can attack it from the other end.
By providing soft adult contemporary music in the lower floor area for your in house guest, not so loud to hamper you, but loud enough to help mask most of what your doing. especially when your listening to your mixes through your monitors.

 

[06oceanliner]

Ms,

Now that's an excellent thought. See, now thats what I love about the power of #'s. Now if we had internet forums back when I got out of high school, I would be a doctor right now. Ha.

 

[Armistice]

Hi Brian

Now don't let me put you off the PC route... there are advantages and if I was getting in NOW, I'd seriously consider it... but depending what your ambitions are, you might want a workstation rather than a PC...

It's a fundamental question, and there are good arguments both ways... let a few of the PC guys talk to you a bit more before you decide.

Now the quality of a recording has everything to do with the quality of the instruments, microphones, preamps, room and the people playing them and driving the machinery and not so much to do with whether you record it on a Yamaha or a PC-DAW - so, yes, they sound good -good enough for what most of us are after anyway...

Here, have a free sample - Tears and Mascara. Recorded on the Yamaha AW4416 - not a final mix, but sounds pretty good, I reckon. Not me singing, BTW... but me doing everything else... actually that's not quite true, I'm also on doowops in the background..

And I've recorded a whole, released album of instrumental music on it as well.

Have I used E-drums? No - I've recorded a drum machine onto i, but not used E-drums. I suspect if I use them in the future (and I do intend to check out EZ Drummer) I'll have to do it in a PC and export several tracks to the Yammie, but haven't really worked out how.

Cheers

 

[Armistice]

I read posts like these and think... 'what are they talking about?'... and go back to recording... the only questions I ask here are about recording, not about set up and operating the equipment...

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=295777

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=296092

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=295977

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=295754

But like I said... don't let me talk you into/out of anything... talk to the PC guys a bit first... big fan of this new smiley -

 

[Chili]

Hey Armistice, glad you bring another perspective to the conversation. I knew someone would step up pro-SIAB. I like the point you made about the SIAB working right out of the box. Plug everything in and go. For sure, there's a lot of computer tweaking and set up with a computer based studio. The learning curve is steep, but once you're over it and get into a comfortable workflow, the options open up.

Something like ezdrummer is a great example. Before I bought that I was using the drum patches on my keyboard. Horrible stuff, but there weren't a lot of options. What do you do in a SIAB? Live drums?? too loud with family sleeping at night. E-Drums?? too expensive, plus I do't play drums anyways. Drum Machine?? horrible sounds.

Then, I found I could buy UAD plugs which simulate vintage gear fairly well. Took my recording quality up another notch. Can't expand a SIAB like that.

For me, the biggest seller for a computer based DAW is editing the different parts in a song. Little corrections here and there, fixing flubs and mistakes, rearranging entire sections, etc etc. I had a roland VS-840 before and never could figure out how to edit. On the computer, it's all right in front of you. I use my DAW as part of teh songwriting process, so things are bound to change. Just can't see doing it that easily with an SIAB.

But still, everyone's situation is different and what might work for me won't work for the next person. Hopefully, Brian can sift through all the threads and find enough info to make a solid decision. I don't envy him.

 

[Richard Monroe]

Yo oceanliner! I've done a lot of recording with a standalone recorder, and actually, I can do very complex editing in the thing, because it's the devil I know. It also has the advantage that it doesn't make any noise, unlike a computer. Here's what I think about V-drums. They are a technology that is just starting to emerge from its infancy, not unlike amp modeling or electric pianos. The early ones really, really sucked. Then they didn't suck quite as much. Now the most expensive ones hardly suck at all, and even cheap ones don't suck as much as they used to. The use of sampling and triggers has also vastly improved the recorded end product. Lots of guys now are putting triggers on real drums because they can get better sound from samples than their real drums in less-than-perfect rooms
I would say- if you want to use electronic drums, buy the best set you can possibly afford. Also, if I were going that way, I'd probably go the computer recording route, because it will give you access to a broader selection of samples. Read up on MIDI.-Richie

 

[06oceanliner]

I read posts like these and think... 'what are they talking about?'... and go back to recording... the only questions I ask here are about recording, not about set up and operating the equipment...

Arm,
I fully and completely understand. The thing is, is you know much more of what you're doing and think "what are they talking about", that's the last thing I want to be faced with starting out, I'm a simple kinda guy.

You know I cant help to not bring this up, but it's burned in my head. I'm using a Dell XPS 400 to BS right now, and let me tell you what, if it were to be the brains of my home studio, I would have beaten it with baseball bat by now. Now we're talkin top DOG at the time of purchase $2,500, QVC's Tremendous package (not that long ago-2-1/2-3yrs.). Gigantic HD, Tons of mem. we ask nothing special of it, my daughters and wife on facebook and myspace, watch a few funny videos, look up some chords and lyrics to songs print them out, and what I'm doing now. WOW alot Hu. IT BARELY DOES THAT!
It gives you a bad taste in your mouth!

 

[06oceanliner]

Arm,

That song sounds AWSOME!. Now to me, not having a trained but average ear. I say it sounds equevelent to Chili. GREAT JOB! cant wait to get to that point.
Brian.

 

[Armistice]

Thanks for your comments Brian.

Like I said, that's more about the equipment used to get the sounds into the beast, than the beast itself.

And like Richard above, I can do most editing I need to in my Yamaha... some things are harder than they should be but I'm used to it.

If I was going the PC / Mac route to set up a new system, I'd make sure that I bought a dedicated machine for the studio and didn't use it for anything else, and shut down all the extraneous applications and services that modern operating systems run... but possibly that's an over-reaction...

Let us know which way you go...