still need help with equipment picking...

[cmeisel]

Hi,



I asked this question before and received many answers but I want to give
some more details now to narrow it down.

I am in the process of buying a new Computer and before I order it I would
like to make sure it would work for recording too.

I am not listing the system here to show off or anything, it is what I need
for my work and I just want to know if it works with digital recording or if
more "power" is needed. Somebody else in this group picked out a similar
system and got accused of showing off. It is probably one of the lower end
systems these days...way below $2000 so nothing to show off.

I picked out a 866MHz Pentium III, 256MB 133 SDRAM, 30GB HD, CD Burner and
DVD, 32MB Graphics card and just a no name sound card for now, since I will
buy a good one with whatever recording hard and software I buy.

If people in this group tell me that this computer will be able to handle
recording (in other words, if it is enough machine) then I can finally go
ahead and buy it because I need it for other things too, desperate since the
old one gave up.

Now to the music part...

I own a tascam 38 8-track recorder that is in need of about $800 of repairs.
So rather than fixing it, I wanted to make the jump to digital recording,
furthermore 8-tracks really don't cut it anymore, 24 tracks

minimum would serve my purposes better. But maybe I am wrong, that is why I
ask...

When I put together a song on my tascam 38, I do one instrument at a time.
I usually don't use more than two inputs at a time(for stereo). Does this
mean that I really don't need for instance, a 24 track external mixer to do
24 track recording on a computer ? Can the play back be monitored and mixed
on the computer screen?(depending on the software I buy).

I also have a tascam m-30 recording mixer (8 tracks). My question is whether
or not I could use this mixer, and

all the other junk that I used (with my old set up minus the tascam 38) with
a PC? Also, do you have any suggestions what I should buy ? Any kind of
sound card

suggestions ? What other Hardware ?



Also, do you have any suggestions what I should buy ? Any kind of sound card

suggestions ? What other Hardware ?



Somebody mentioned CoolEdit before and also MOTU2408, which looks pretty
professional. Could I hook up my old mixer top the Motu 2408 ?



Thank you very much for all your help.



Claus

 

[brokenwindow]

The computer you have in mind would be more than enough for 24 tracks. I have a P2 400 mhz 128 meg ram and usually run 15-20 track easily. If you only do 1-2 tracks at a time, your only gonna need a small mixer with a couple of inputs. Your mixer would work fine. You can pick up a decent soundcard for 300-400 bucks that has at least 4 inputs. I would look at the Event cards or the MOTU2408(as you mentioned)their all good cards. As far as software goes, I would recommend Cool Edit Pro, it's reletively easy and gives you 64 tracks to work with. And it works just like anything else, playback what you recorded while you record another track. It's got everything you need for recording and mixing and effects. You wouldn't need any other software to get going. Hope this helps...

 

[gidman]

Pc recording equipment

C Meisel,
The pc you have chosen has plenty of everything that you will need for recording.Some get great results with less. My pc has 750 mhz processor, 128mb ram,& 30 gig h.d., 32mb graphics, a cd burner and cd rom. I specifically use it for recording. I use this old one for surfing.

I decided to buy from gadgetlabs for the soundcard and interface.I bought it as a package deal with Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.0 and Gadgetlabs Wave824 for $648.You can record 8 tracks while playing back 8 tracks.You will have to pre amp all analog you run into it.It does have a midi in and out too. I use a mackie 1604 vlz.I group into 4 main out puts and 4 auxillary outputs.I don't use all of them at one time on most applications. I primarilly use just 4 main outs and save the 4 aux's for monitoring.Good for live recording. The mix has to be perfect coming out of the board.
I believe that they still have the summer deal going on. Check it out.

http://www.gadgetlabs.com/main.php
http://www.cakewalk.com

Gidman

 

[Dragon]

Jealous!

...that's a lot faster than the dedicated machine I use for recording. You could easily use that for serious video production, not just audio!

And yes, you don't need any kind of massive mixer for the way you're working. Sonusman and I spent some of last weekend talking about mixers and an article is coming real soon on that...

 

[sonusman]

there are things to consider.....

In audio, you usually get what you pay for.

For a soundcard, since you don't need more then 2 inputs at a time, I would suggest the Lynx One card, or the CardDeluxe. Both are 24 bit cards with very high quality A/D/A chipsets in them. I use the Lynx One card myself, and appreciate some of the other features of the card, such as word clock I/O, two seperate midi I/O's, and a selectable AES/EBU or S/PDIF I/O. The driver for this card is multi thread, so if you were to run it on a dual processor system, you would gain performance from that. Also, the driver is very simple to install, and rock solid reliable. Recently, the driver added dithering on recording or playback, something I don't need, but a cool idea for some applications. This is really a high quality pro card. If you find that you need a couple more inputs down the road, you can add another card and have them sync'ed together flawlessly. All this for $450!

As far as software mixing. I don't like it. The fact that you will be causing quantinization errors if you even pan or turn down the volume of any track from it's unity level is not such a hot idea. If you are going to record and mix at 24 bits, you somewhat minimize this effect, but you should be aware that software mixing will degrade the audio somewhat, and detract from the original wholesomeness of the sound you recorded if you do any mixer functions to it.

Also, mixing with a mouse is plain ass slow. It is also hard to compare channels that may be 10 channels apart. On a external mixer, you have the benefit of everything being right there in front of you, which means you spend more time being able to adjust stuff, instead of having to scroll through things, or adjusting the view, or selecting a channel with a mouse you that you can make an adjustment. For simple projects where you don't have that many channels going at once, this may not be as much of an issue, but if you are going to be running 24 track mixes, and doing it a lot, the mouse mixing can get very tiresome, and actually cut down on creativity while mixing. Also, I think that analog eq's, even cheaper ones, tend to sound more like what you want to do with the sound then digital eq's do. And if we are going to talk about analog compression compared to digital compression, and which actually sounds better, and provides the type of sound that you are used to hearing from professionally produced CD's, well, again, I think the analog compressors sound more right to my ears then digital ones do. Also, with analog mixing, you just don't run into issues of CPU usage at all!

Really, you just don't get into high quality digital mixing until you have a Sonic Solutions, or ProTools, or Sadie system. These usually work at at least 48 bits internal processing, which produces much more real life sounding mixing and processing sounds then lower bit resolution DSP does. Something to consider.

If you are not really looking or caring about having realistic sounding tools for music production, then PC based mixing software is going to be the best bang for the buck. But if you do care to keep your audio sounding good, you should consider putting together analog mixing stuff.

Good luck.

Ed

 

[Tim Brown]

Re: there are things to consider.....

Also, mixing with a mouse is plain ass slow. It is also hard to compare channels that may be 10 channels apart. On a external mixer, you have the benefit of everything being right there in front of you, which means you spend more time being able to adjust stuff, instead of having to scroll through things, or adjusting the view, or selecting a channel with a mouse you that you can make an adjustment. For simple projects where you don't have that many channels going at once, this may not be as much of an issue, but if you are going to be running 24 track mixes, and doing it a lot, the mouse mixing can get very tiresome, and actually cut down on creativity while mixing. Also, I think that analog eq's, even cheaper ones, tend to sound more like what you want to do with the sound then digital eq's do. And if we are going to talk about analog compression compared to digital compression, and which actually sounds better, and provides the type of sound that you are used to hearing from professionally produced CD's, well, again, I think the analog compressors sound more right to my ears then digital ones do. Also, with analog mixing, you just don't run into issues of CPU usage at all!

Really, you just don't get into high quality digital mixing until you have a Sonic Solutions, or ProTools, or Sadie system. These usually work at at least 48 bits internal processing, which produces much more real life sounding mixing and processing sounds then lower bit resolution DSP does. Something to consider.

If you are not really looking or caring about having realistic sounding tools for music production, then PC based mixing software is going to be the best bang for the buck. But if you do care to keep your audio sounding good, you should consider putting together analog mixing stuff.

Good luck.

Ed

AMEN! Ed! AMEN!

This has beeen my complaint about PC recording the whole time.
I can see using the PC as a recorder-but I'm just not a fan of Plug-ins and mixing on the thing.
WHOOO! Gives me a chill just thinking about it.
Give me a mixing board and Outboard gear any day of the week!

Tim