Starting my $500 studio: Classic question, no answer found.

If it helps you can add firewire to your pc for a few quid. There are pci cards that give you 4 firewire ports.

Take a look at the presonus firestudio mobile. It can be had for £160 used on ebay. Two preamps built in, and 6 separate line ins if you need to expand.
 
From what I am reading there are only a few TexasInstruments fw cards that will work for OSX and core-audio. Some nonsense, idk didn't look like it was worth the trouble. I saw that people were needing help with it, so i was just like screw it, move on.

So it's PCIe+mixer vs USB 2.0 this time.

And no, my studio doesn't move, no laptop.
 
the tascam us800 was the stupid deal of the day a couple weeks ago for $100 but I passed after reading how it clogged up people's ram whenever they listened to iTunes (didn't dump the buffer properly?) and whenever they closed their DAW and reopened it they'd either have to restart the unit (no power switch and no bus power) or sometimes restart their computer.

Other than that, 6 pres at $100 with usb 2.0 sounded like a steal.

I assume other tascam units have similar stupidity about them, but only looked into that one because it was on sale so cheap.

i got a 144mkII last year and returned it right away because it was not 64 bit compatible or somesuch nonsense. Seems they just aren't the brand to go with except for portable studios (and I hear the zoom are better for handhelds...)
 
I can find three instances of one guy complaining about this.

Tascam documentation says
"When using Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 64bit operating systems, using YouTube or another video site or running Skype or other video display software continuously for 2–3 hours can cause memory consumption to increase and could cause the computer to freeze.
In order to avoid freezing, close and restart your web browser or video software once before you plan to use it for a long time."

I guess he didn't RTFM.

I'll admit, that seems like a pretty stupid fault to openly accept, but you're running osx so it's irrelevant.
 
I found more than one guy (at least it was different months and usernames but on dif. forums. Maybe he was spreading fud) but yeah I realize now that on OSX it might not be an issue, I'm just not sure I can shell out 200 for something I could have had for 100. I would feel ripped off. That and it's not bus powered. What's up with that? lol

But why a tascam (us800, 122, whatever) over a Focusrite USB or fast track pro?

Does anyone other than EMU make PCIe interfaces (for less than $500 anyway)?
 
Personally, I don't like focusrite pres in that price range, and the fast tracks get a lot of bad rep for having low gain. (Although again, it's in the manual)

If you feel ripped off spending $200 for 6 mic pres, recording isn't for you! :p
 
Yeah, yeah, I know, you know what I meant though! Something about the research i did on that product put a bad taste in my mouth, I don't know why...

But really, PCIe has been out for years now... why are all the cards still PCI?

Anyone have experience with the EMU cards? If i'm going to upgrade my converters, I'd rather get something that I won't need to upgrade again in 2 years... If I get a usb interface and I need to upgrade my pres or whatever, then I need to get new A/D as well... That's my logic, anyway...
 
Yeah, i do know what you mean. It's a shame to miss a bargain.

No offense though, but I think I'm out. You seem to know what you want already.

Maybe someone on here has used the emu and can advise in favour.

Give 100 consumers the choice between plugging in a cable or opening their case and fitting a pci/pcie card and you'll have your answer.

I can't understand why anyone would want to use pcie unless it was like a 48 channel interface or something that needed mental transfer speeds.
 
LmnLm3 said:
I understand the sentiment, but for arguments sake, isn't that like saying that I would sound better on an american standard strat than jeff buckley would on a starcaster or whatever the cheapest "toy" is these days. 2 variables can be too much. Take my tone deaf mother into a pro studio for some judy garland covers and she won't sound better than a random musical theater major student recorded on an iPhone.

Other than that, I think the point is to get quality gear bit by bit instead of a mass quantity of entry level gear. I've been doing music for almost 20 years now so I know that nothing comes easy or cheap.

I guess the most important thing is to jump in. I'm spending so much thought into what I'm going to do that I'm not actually doing it, and a crappy studio is better than no studio.

I think I'm going to see what's on sale, what's popular, what's reliable and consistent, and go with that. A mixer is never a bad thing to have, and standalone pres are never bad to have. So I'm going to get probably one of those and skip the interface for now. Don't want to skimp on a mic, but the AT2020 isn't really that low end, is it? Might look in the mic forum for something with more warmth... If I end up hating myself for using the onboard audio I'll get an interface like the DJ ones with 1/4 or rca jacks and use the mixer with that.

I don't know why I made such a fuss.

I guess i knew that "onboard=bad" and wanted someone to, not confirm, but explain this to me. I think because I have OSX but not normal apple hardware I'm in a unique spot... I get to use CoreAudio drivers which are the only Apple drivers (there is no asio vs directx or whatever windows has). CoreAudio is what is used for onboard on macs, and apogee ensembles. Same drivers. Only dif in converters. And I'm not really understanding why my converters are so bad. I get that they're cheap and not meant for what I'm doing, but my motherboard was cheap and wasn't meant for running OSX but it's rock solid and performs great... see what I'm getting at?

So I'm gonna do some more looking into the Soundcraft notepad 102 or 124 and see about a warm LDC or MAYBE ribbon (depending on how much gain I can get clean in my budget...) and one of those $30 SM57 clones!
Click to expand...

I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying... yes, get it piece by piece, but avoid the really cheap stuff as you'll be upgrading real soon.

And it's not whether you'll sound better playing the $5000 cello over the $500 cello, clearly you will - it's that I'm saying you would record better with a cheaper instrument in the hands of professionals with professional gear in a professional studio, than an expensive instrument and cheap tools in the hands of someone who's new to recording...

What you sound like live, and the sound you're able to capture are different things...

You're right... jump in... get involved... learn. It's the way we all do it and there's no silver bullet or shortcut. See your round...
 
Yeah, thanks all for participating in this thread - I've learned a lot already and at the very least I know which questions to ask next!

I'm sure I'll be around, and hopefully I'll get to the point where I can help some folks out as well :P
 
LmnLm3 said:
Yeah, thanks all for participating in this thread - I've learned a lot already and at the very least I know which questions to ask next!

I'm sure I'll be around, and hopefully I'll get to the point where I can help some folks out as well :P
Click to expand...

That is a key point. We all have our own opinions, based on what we have experience with. We may seem 'hard headed' in our opinions, but we have experience with the gear we have used. This 'is' only opinion. My point I suppose is, if you don't have your own experience, that forms your own opinion, then you can only go by what you hear. When you know for yourself, then you really know. Take advice as a stepping stone to find your own opinion. Then you will be able to advise others.

If I missed the chance, welcome to the forum man. :D
 
Words are the first step on the road to deeds :-)

And thanks, I think you're the first one to welcome me :-D
 
"Get a 2 channel interface like a mackie blackjack, and a condenser mic"

That was my exact recommendation.


" like an AKG perception 420 or a dynamic mic like shure SM7B.......and youre over budget."

Get a pair of Nady SCM900 instead, and you still have $250 to get more stuff. You can't get better quality than that for under $500 with a matched pair of mics and killer preamps designed exactly for his applications. Plus if you want better mics, you have options to mod the Nadys or easily sell them for close to what you paid for them (if you get them at $50, which is possible if you look carefully, try Amazon).
 
I'll consider to get a Zoom R16, it would cover your audio interface, midi control surface needs, and it also has 8 pres and 2 mics on board.
Zoom R16, a couple monitors, alesis has some on budget pairs which are good for a start and a SM 57, one of the most versatile and economic mics, that way you'll get a great starting point that you can expand:

With this setup you can record almost any instrument, maybe with the exception of a multi channel drum set, but hey you already got 8 pres, so when you get a couple more mics (if you havent got them already) you can get into it, 3 or 4 dynamic mics will do the job.
The audio interface of the R16 is 16 bits / 44.1 which is ok, but if you later decide to upgrade, you can still use the R16 as a control surface only for the faders and transport buttons, and for on location sessions, even without a computer.

Let me know what you think, in my opinion is a good way to start and with a good expandability
 
cobaltaudio said:
Don't bother with the behringer mixer, it's quite noisy and not very versatile as a mixer. And there's no point at all waiting for a USB 3.0 interface when you're only recording a couple of channels. If you wanted a WAY bigger channel count then maybe but in short, a 2 channel USB interface will be more than adequate. (Cheapest decent one is the Lexicon Alpha at about $75)
Click to expand...

The Lexicon Alpha does do a great job but I have to warn you that it doesn't have phantom power for condenser mics. A better choice at a reasonable price is the Focusrite Saffire 6 USB
 
Thanks for the suggestions - I incidentally found the zoom R16 and loved that it has all those options... Might pick one up in the future - for now I have no external interface or discreet sound card.

So far I have:

M-Audio BX5a Deluxe ($150) (hate the separate power supply thing, but a surge protector is only like 10 bucks)
Soundcraft 124fx ($100)
EV-PL84 vocal condenser ($40) (I'll also use it as a "pencil" for small things like uke or hand percussion)
AT2020 ($60 - shopping around ftw)
GLS ES-57 ($30)
Patch cables ($30)
Tape In/Out to PC cables ($10 for Belkin, not bad)
Extra Boom stand ($20)

Found an "restock" Mobile Pre MkII for $60 (I would use the soundcraft pres), but not sure at that point if I should rather return the Soundcraft and go for a $200 interface like a Focusrite or use the soundcraft with an EMU-0404 or splurge and get the EMU-1212m and a Behr ADA800.

All I need are a couple more mic cables which I might make myself.

Golden, right? (for now...?)
 
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