Home recording setup for acoustic player

[da5id2]

Sorry if this posted in the wrong forum, but here goes..

My dad is a pretty serious acoustic player. He has a regular gig on the weekends and also plays with friends fairly often. He owns like 15 acoustic guitars and has a PA setup that he takes with him to gigs.

Recently, he expressed that he would like to be able to record some of his stuff to CD. Now, my dad knows how to use his equipment, but I'm much more technically oriented then he is and I think he would have a hard time picking equipment to start a recording rig. I'm not very well versed with actual recording and mastering terminology, and to be honest I'm not exactly sure what a setup like this would consist of. But that's why I'm posting here, hopefully I'll be able to learn a thing or two. Needless to say, with his birthday and Christmas coming up in the near future, I thought it would be cool if I could get him started with a small recording setup (home setup, not live recording).

Just to give some more background, for his portable rig he has the JBL eon setup with the mixer and four powered speakers (2 large speakers, 2 smaller monitor type speakers). He also uses an alesis drum machine and several effects pedals. I should note that he rarely takes the large speakers to gigs and just uses the smaller speakers as mains, which works well for most venues.

Just from reading up on this a little, it seems like a home recording setup should include the following:

Some sort of mastering device
Speakers
Mixer
Inputs (guitar, mic, drum machine, effects, etc.)

For the mastering device, I came across the Alesis Masterlink ML-9600. Seems like an impressive piece of equipment. As I said above, my dad already owns the alesis SR-16 drum machine for his portable rig and he loves it. So to him, the alesis name means quality, which is important.

For the speakers, it would be great if we could just use the large speakers that he never takes to gigs. They might be too big, but that would save some money if we didn't have to buy speakers. I think these are the speakers:
www2.jblpro.com/catalog/General/Product.aspx?PId=93&MId=3

For the mixer, I am completely in the dark. The large speakers he already has are powered, so the mixer does not need to have an amp if we use those speakers. For number of channels, I think 4 would be enough, but more would always be nice. Other than that I have no idea what to look for.

Let me know if I am completely off the mark with any of this. As I said, I really don't know much about this stuff, I'm really just here to learn. For budget, it would be nice to keep all of this under $1000 but it would be awesome if it was less than that. Used equipment is fine and might even be required to stay under the budget.

All in all, this rig doesn't need to be anything special. Just need something to put his music on a CD. Sorry for the long and involved post and thanks for the help.

EDIT: I would rather not use a computer for any part of this, the alesis masterlink unit should take care of that, right?

 

[Pahtcub]

Computer is so much more easily upradeable, hardware multitrack recorders are something you're stuck with. Get you a firewire audio interface some monitors and some decent software for recording and mastering and you're all set, you can start with a smal 4ch I/O card and buy something nicer when you need it, instead of having to throw away your multitrack recorder and start anew.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

da5id2,

I think it's great that you're thinking of your dad in this way .

I think, however, you're looking at the entire process backwards. Don't worry mastering until the very end. If you don't have a decent recording chain and mixing capability, there won't be anything worth mastering. The Masterlink Is a very nice machine, for sure, but you're expecting it to do too much of the job. Feed it garbage and it will give you garbage back.

Based upon cost/performance and veratility, it really is difficult to beat a computer-based solution these days. You can do the whole process in one box, recording, mixing and mastering, and multitrack interfaces for it are not that expensive.

Start with microphones and work your way forward from there. Especially with acoustic guitars, and your dad sounds like he's really into it. If you don't get a good, clean, fidelity capture of those guitars, the rest just will not cut it. And yur typical satge/live mics along the lines of an SM57 or 58 may be fine for sound reinforcement, but for the nuances desired for recording acoustic guitar, they will have a limiting effect on the sound.

I'm not going to get into specific models just yet, a lot depends upon your budget, but I'd recommend two fairly high quality mics and an external two-channel interface for your computer. The interface will come with all the software you'll need to record and mix, and you can get Mastering software that will do everything the Masterlink does for less than 1/10th the price.

As far as monitor selection, read the all three three installments of this article series, including the importance of your room setup and acoustic treatment.

G.