Not wanting to use computer recording, what else do I need to use these models?

I've use Alesis HD24 recorders for years and if you can find a used one, I'd highly recommend the machine. It just works.
 
I completely understand the benefits of a standalone. They were often cheaper and could get by with using less powerful yet purpose built risc processors and simpler operating software that could avoid the necessary layer of abstraction a general purpose cpu in a computer running a general purpose OS would have to use in order to do the same thing...........about 10 years ago.

Today, however, with the myriad of cheap interfaces and even cheaper PC components they simply cannot compete. We still have general purpose cpu's and abstraction layers to deal with, but modern cpu's have gotten so fast that none of it matters now. It's a platform that is here and readily available and infinitely upgradable and expandable. Go ahead and use your standalone units if you like. That is what you bought it for, after all. And I'm sure those who have used them from their introduction on the market have much invested and have been able to milk great results from them. But, for a newcomer to the game who has never owned so much as a 4-track cassette machine to avidly and deliberately avoid "computer recording" is idiotic.

And if you are having problems with your PC shitting itself and eating all of your work...you should be doing backups anyway...EVEN on a standalone unit. A well engineered computer that is in healthy shape should never give you the types of problems some people claim they do. It reminds me of the hundreds of "Windows sucks, use Linux" flame wars. The Linux crowd always had those few assholes that claimed Linux was superior citing problems with stability in Windows............

...............Windows 95 that is. You look at the calendar and realize it's over a decade and many revisions later and no one is getting any real work done.

To sum it up, If you are using an Alesis HD24 then good for you. If you are a noob that hasn't even bought a microphone yet, don't waste your money.
 
Murdersgalore said:
Or just get a PC and an interface. I don't understand this shunning of computer based DAWs that we occasionally see here. I'm not saying it's the future, because I first have to say it's the PRESENT. :)
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I prefer a stand alone unit myself and I have plenty of actual reasons and valid ones as to why.
I'm not shunning anything but I prefer hardware to plug ins and I prefer to not have to consider things like latency and I prefer ot have unlimited flexibility in hooking up all the tons of hardware stuff that I already own.
 
Murdersgalore said:
I completely understand the benefits of a standalone.
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Hmmmm, I wonder if you really do. Benefit schmenefit ! :D I don't really rationalize it in terms of benefit. If there is any.
Murdersgalore said:
They were often cheaper and could get by with using less powerful yet purpose built risc processors and simpler operating software that could avoid the necessary layer of abstraction a general purpose cpu in a computer running a general purpose OS would have to use in order to do the same thing
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None of that has ever once entered my mind.
Murdersgalore said:
Today, however, with the myriad of cheap interfaces and even cheaper PC components they simply cannot compete.
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Yet, here we are discussing them and you're doing your level best to change peoples' minds about them. Hmmmmm. They can't compete.......Market wise, you're right. But as I've observed elsewhere, life is simply not as cut and dried as that. Some people still cook on fires. Some on kerosene and parafin stoves. And they're happy to do so. Why buy them a fan assissted oven and combination gas/electric hob ?
Murdersgalore said:
And I'm sure those who have used them from their introduction on the market have much invested and have been able to milk great results from them. But, for a newcomer to the game who has never owned so much as a 4-track cassette machine to avidly and deliberately avoid "computer recording" is idiotic.
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Why is excercizing a choice to not do what you deem to be best idiotic ? Different people have different reasons for the paths they choose to take. People are attracted by different things. Some people may not want to record on computers for a whole myriad of reasons. Simplicity, cheapness and convenience are not absolute arbiters for everyone in the decision making process. Especially when regardless of what you use, the result is the same. That's the joy of choice.
I remember Sting once commenting on how you can't fathom what it is about a particular sequence of notes that makes you like them {there again, it might've been Pete Townshend :D}. And the same sequence of notes could end up in a song that you hate. Point being, who knows why a nO0b might be attracted to a four track cassette portastudio or a digital standalone or a computer or a clunky reel to reel ? Only God knows, if God honestly thinks it's that important to fathom ! To say, "I like that but not that" may be many things, even illogical, but idiotic ? That's harsh.
Murdersgalore said:
A well engineered computer that is in healthy shape should never give you the types of problems some people claim they do.
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Few manufacturers deliberately make faulty goods. Most mechanical and electrical devices are "well engineered". But things still go wrong because however well made something is, nothing made by human minds and hands is infallible. Just like us.

Murdersgalore said:
To sum it up, If you are using an Alesis HD24 then good for you. If you are a noob that hasn't even bought a microphone yet, don't waste your money.
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I know alot of cats on the forum speak alot about budgets and costings and stuff, but in much the same way that blood is thicker than water, experience trumps money.
Many of the people that don't want to record on computer initially may well reach the opposite side of the river one day. But it won't be because they wake up one day lamenting their idiocy or constant poverty.
Murdersgalore said:
It can save processing power. If you have a slow cpu and 10 simultaneous tracks with plugins are bogging down the system and you need more tracks, you can make sure they are mixed how you want them and bounce them down (mixdown) to a stereo track with all effects applied. It's similar to the "exporting" you describe except it automagically puts the mixdown into it's own track for you and (in most cases) allows you to undo if you messed up. It's better practice to group your bounces (guitar tracks to one track, drums to another, etc.) instead of the simplified way I just described. If you aren't hitting this kind of CPU wall in your projects it is something you will rarely use.
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I just saw this answer in another thread. Some people might look at that, in combination with other factors and think "Computers aren't for me". I'm not knocking you by the way, I think it was a good reply to the question posed but people think differently.
 
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well said grim.

'puters are amazing and it's hardly a matter of "I can't understand it" for me after over 40 years of doing this more than you can relate to.
If I choose a stand alone I have my reasons based on that amount of experience and it's NOT because I'm an idiot.

lol ........ I'm sure that wasn't murders intent and he has valid points.
Having said that ..... this just gets back to that thing where some people want there to be hard and fast rules about what's 'better' and how to do things.
There are none ....... whatever works for you is what works for you.
 
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