Spartan Recording -- Cabin in the woods.

  • Thread starter Thread starter ColinFerguson
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ColinFerguson

ColinFerguson

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Hi,

I've got quite a bit of free time presently and a decent amount of money saved, and I'd like to record an EP that's been bouncing around in my head for a while.

The songs are written and ready to go, but I've nothing to record them with. Normally this wouldn't be a big issue, but I'm currently living in a cabin on the side of the Alaska Highway. My laptop is a chromebook and therefore not fit for recording, so that's out. There is a small music shop in town where I can buy equipment (or more likely order things in) but it will be expensive.

I've been looking at something like a Tascam DP-004 or DP-008 and a good pair of headphones, but I'm not sure if that's going to work for me. It would be ideal if the built-in microphones in those units would suffice for my purposes, but I'm not optimistic about that.

So I guess my question is what would you do if you had to record a 5 song EP in the middle of nowhere on a budget of say $500. :)
 
That looks good.

Will the built-in microphones be sufficient or will I need something external?
 
They will be much better than the type of mic built into the recorder like the Tascam or Boss recorders. I've heard some pretty good acoustic guitar recordings made with the Zoom and the 'XY' mics.
 
ColinFerguson said:
Perfect, thanks.

I'll see if I can order one in.
Click to expand...

I would have a bit of a re think on that Chromebook. I Google for it and got various responses but all seem to be a fairly low spec' laptop?

One was an HP Pavillion with a 1.1G processor...MORE than good enough to record two tracks using a usb AI.
In case the PC Power Mad here doubt that I have a V old HP laptop with an 850 MEGA Hertz processor. 1/2G of ram and a 20G hard drive but that will record 2 tracks at 24bits 44.1kH for as long as there is space on the hard drive (and with XP Pro and Samplitude SE8 there isn't much!). I used an M-Audio Fast track pro but I dare say a Tascam 122/144 would work just as well. If you can find an Emu-0404usb they are really excellent.

Dave.
 
Yeah I realize the chromebook isn't ideal, that's why I was looking for an external unit to do my recording on.

I bought the chromebook so I'd have something to browse the internet with while I'm up north, it's perfect for that but practically useless otherwise.
 
ColinFerguson said:
Yeah I realize the chromebook isn't ideal, that's why I was looking for an external unit to do my recording on.

I bought the chromebook so I'd have something to browse the internet with while I'm up north, it's perfect for that but practically useless otherwise.
Click to expand...
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I think you have misunderstood me Colin? My point was that you need very little computing power to grab two tracks at 24bits/44.1kHz and, so long as you don't want to score the next "Pirates", the Chromebook should cope with a bit of editing.
A usb mouse and decent keyboard would be a boon.

Dave.
 
I have a studio. But I also use the Zoom the older model for writing and capturing takes of co-write. events. The sound is great . I am sure even better with the H4n. Also you can use mine and I assume the H4n as a USB interface for your laptop before after and during. Pretty cool actually. The mics are real good for the price though, you should be happy. I have even brought things into the studio and kept some takes. At least for demo purposes.

Lou Ferguson
 
ecc83 said:
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I think you have misunderstood me Colin? My point was that you need very little computing power to grab two tracks at 24bits/44.1kHz and, so long as you don't want to score the next "Pirates", the Chromebook should cope with a bit of editing.
A usb mouse and decent keyboard would be a boon.

Dave.
Click to expand...
I'm not really sure, but it seems Chromebook has it's own operating system. Not sure how many audio editors will work on this.
 
Seidy said:
I'm not really sure, but it seems Chromebook has it's own operating system. Not sure how many audio editors will work on this.
Click to expand...
Ah! Understand. Reaper would probably run, especially the "portable" version on a usb stick but I get your drift.

Dave.
 
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