My Recording Method...

[avieth]

Tell me if I'm crazy here: I'm planning on putting together a studio in my basement. I have 2 rooms I will use. One large room with all the instruments and some couches to just chill on when not recording.. and another smaller room next to it which will house my computer, monitors, recording interfaces... my bed all that stuff.

So the cables from the microphones, 1/4"ers from direct inputs, they'll all go through a small hole I'll create in the wall. Of course I'll throw some pillows around it just to muffle any sound that comes through. These cables will go into my recording interface. I plan on getting a firepod for it's many inputs, and upcoming linux support. That will then go out to my computer, running gentoo linux. My sequencer, ardour, will do the rest of the work.

Now, midi, I barely understand it. I'm going out to buy a kerboard as soon as I cash my next paycheck. I'll probably get decent a 76-key for under $400 canadian. I want to use it not just for controlling midi, but for performing aswell. So I'll hook that up to the firepod's midi input. ardour will support midi by the time I can afford all the stuff I need, but what really gets me is soft synths and plugins. I don't want to have too much external gear, I was planning on having my computer do most everything, but midi plugins and softsynths can be purchased as external boxes that I'd plug in to the midi thru on my keyboard right? I'd want some soft synths on my computer aswell.. but that's more of a linux question so I'll leave it out.

So, now, midi and audio are hooked up, it's all up to my sequencer. My speakers will probably be hooked up to my computer, not my firepod. What I'm really unsure about is if I need a mixier. I thought my sequencer would be able to do all the mixing, can it? My computer is loaded with linux audio programs, ladspa plugins, and of course the jack-audio-connection-kit for low latency audio. So that stuff could add to my recordings and I have a good grasp on how everything works, software-wise.

So my question... Would this setup 'work'? Do I need a mixer?

 

[Bulls Hit]

The firepod has preamps built inso you don't need a mixer.

I don't understand about the softsynths being in 'external boxes'. Soft synths are soft because they're made of software. You don't need any hardware to house them (apart from your PC).

Also consider getting a midi controller instead of just a keyboard. Something like the Novation Remote will let you map the softsynths' knobs & buttons so you can control them remotely instead of fiddling with a mouse on the screen

 

[avieth]

The firepod has preamps built inso you don't need a mixer.

I don't understand about the softsynths being in 'external boxes'. Soft synths are soft because they're made of software. You don't need any hardware to house them (apart from your PC).

Also consider getting a midi controller instead of just a keyboard. Something like the Novation Remote will let you map the softsynths' knobs & buttons so you can control them remotely instead of fiddling with a mouse on the screen

hah, right, softsynth. How much do midi controllers go for? Maybe I could get both.

 

[minofifa]

if you want to get semi-classy, you can get sockets to mount to your wall insted of using a hole with pillows stuffed in it. The sockets look like a plugin socket expect they take xlr inputs or trs inputs. There are lots of different models and they are cheap.

not sure why you wouldn't want your speakers hooked up to your firepd either.

 

[avieth]

not sure why you wouldn't want your speakers hooked up to your firepd either.

What's the difference? Wouldn't hooking them up to my amplifier which is connected to my soundcard do just as good a job? Maybe I'll just use my amplifier for the 4 speaker setup in my room and use it when not recording. Then hookup 2 of my best monitors to the firepid for recording.

What really bothers me is all these hardware-effects. Harmonizers, reverbs, delays, distortions, flangers... I can do most of those on my computer, but it would be nice to have some rack gear because it probably sounds a lot better. But when I think of recording a track through some effects boxes I just don't get it. I'd rather send in a raw, unaltered track to the sequencer, and then add/remove effects from there, so I'm not stuck with anything. So is there any way to use hardware effects at the sequencer level? If you know what I mean...

 

[Bulls Hit]

The firepod has 8 outputs that you can hook up to external gear, then patch them back to the inputs and rerecord that.

However it sounds to me like you're getting ahead of yourself. Start off real simple and learn what your equipent is capable of. There's not much that can't be done in software these days.

 

[minofifa]

what is your soundcard? The firepod itself is a soundcard so i just wondered why you would want to cpmolicate things by having a different soundcard for output, rather that use the firepod for everything. Is your other soundcard better for output (does it ahve better D/A converters or EAX or something that you need)? If you used the firepod for output as well, you could use its ASIO drivers for input and output which would be a highly stable setup i would think.

As for outboard effects, that stuff can is overkill unless you know what you need. Software plugins are more than adequate for home and professional recording in most cases (check out the sonitus package that comes with cakewalk products, they are my most used plugins). If you wanted to get fancey, you could get an outboard reverb and compressor for live input monitoring, but again that is somewhat unnecessary.

 

[avieth]

I've got a soundblaster live card. Creatives line of soundblaster and audigy cards are my favorite because they're so well supported in linux. They're one of the few cards that support hardware mixing. I just think it'd be a better idea to not have to turn on my firepod every time I just want to listen to some music when I'm not recording or mixing.