brn2bafactor said:
What's your budget?
Right now I have about 2,000.
What are your needs? I'll say at least 16 tracks, mixer section, mastering tools, vocal effects just to name a few.
Are you tracking a symphony, a rock band, a jazz trio or a solo vocalist?I'll be dealing primarily with solo artists majoring in rap/ hip-hop.
Is this your project or intended to be a commercial venture? This is a individual hobby/ venture initially, but on the same note I would like the finished product to be "commercially acceptable."
BRN2BAFACTOR
That's a tight budget but I think it's workable. You already have pretty decent monitors. Manning1 has some suggestions that are worth reading; he's given me some very good advice as I'm building a DAW myself.
It looks like you might be needing a simple front end with at this point a couple of channels, a good basic computer and a comprehensive software package. If you figure a thousand bucks for a computer along the lines manning1 has proposed, that leaves you with another thousand.
Firewire interfaces have come into their own and are great because they're fast, reliable and easily upgradeable. So maybe look for a computer that has firewire right on the motherboard - simple and direct.
Here is a cool entry level firewire front ends with basic but high quality features: M-Audio 410 interface - four channels in, ten out; $400.00
That leaves the choice of mics - again, a subject about which all kinds of stuff has been and can be written. A good general learning technique that many here subscribe to is doing a search on the term "gerst" and reading about anything Harvey Gerst has written.
It seems like a good place to begin with mics is a general purpose entry large diaphragm condenser mic. I found good results with a Studio Projects C3, particularly it is a multipattern mic and useful for different situations. I have found it to be effective with voices. The street price is around $400. Other brands to look for in this range are Audio Technica, AKG, RODE, MXL and probably a host of others. The mic forum can deliver the goods if you search on terms like "vocal" "rap" or "hop-hop." Beware of Gear Acquisition Syndrome here - the sky is the limit and you can as easily find mics for four thousand bucks as four hundred. You can start with a mic for a hundred bucks and go from there.
So that's fifteen hundred - getting tight and you'd compromise on the mic. But you still need software. Think about front ends that come bundled with software - such as the E-MU 1820M sampling system. That includes a very nice front end with two great preamps and a bunch of additional analog inputs, involves a couple of cards, accepts firewire if you need to expand, and comes with software that allows high quality sampling. That's about $600 and could replace the other front end. So that combination would be $1700 or $1800 depending on the mic.
Finally, you could round out the setup for very little money by getting
n-track tracking software; it's about $60 and you can learn about it on the
n-track forum here.
Hope that gives you some food for thought!
