Suggestions on new gear

[Valiance7]

First let me just say that the wealth of information at this site is staggering. I truly appreciate everybody's time and energy that is put into helping people like me out. Now on to my question.

I need suggestions on what gear to purchase to restart my home recording habit. Here is some info-

What will I record?- Darn near everything. I would like to be able to record both live instruments (including drums) as well as be able to create electronic music that is of fairly high quality. I like to create music ranging from nirvana to enya to techno.

Gear I already have- I used to record in high school years ago and I have collected this gear: An original Roland Vs 880, an ART single channel tube mic preamp, an AT 4033 condensor mic, sm 58 and sm57, a drum machine, an alesis compressor, and some multi-affects processor that I can't remember the brand of. Oh yeah and a couple computers which could easily be upgraded to music recording quality (I believe). 1.8ghz pentium 3, 256 ram, 40 gig harddrive I think?

Budget- Here's I hope the good part. I could probably afford to spend anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 on trying to get my stuff back up to date.

Things I know I'll need but don't know what type- audio card, recording software, other computer software.

I really want to get into using my computer to be the focal point of my system as it seems very powerful and flexible. Any advice you guys can give me will be very appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bass Master "K"]

I think your going to want to do a lot of research on this site to get your answers. Don't let people just spoonfeed you a setup, you may end up spending your money and then realize there was a better option for you that would have made your system more complete for what you want to do. There are loads of threads here about soundcards, computers, mics, programs and the like that you can do a search on.

That said, here are a few things for you to keep in mind:

Your computer will be workable, but you will want to make sure you have two hard drives installed on it. One to hold the operating system and your programs, the other to record the audio onto. This is very important. If you can bump that RAM up that would be good for you as well.

Your soundcard is going to be very important. If you want to record live drums you are going to want to have a soundcard that can record at least 8 inputs simultaniously I would guess. There are several good options for you on this.

You will want to expand your mic collection a bit, again for the live drums, but strive to get workhorse mics where they are usable on several different sources and not just "one trick" ponies. There is a HUGE amount of great info in the mic section on this site.

Recording programs: depends on your need. You can spend as little as $100, or over $1000. You will need to check the specs of the programs and see how they hold up to what you are looking for. I think there is a thread in the computer recording area called something like "what program do you use to record on" and that will give you a good list of products to check out.

Keys/synths/samplers/plugin's: Again, more research will give you an idea of what is out there and you can compare it to need.

You have what appears to be a lot of research to do, but if you can be patient and take the time to read and research, you will be much happier and much more educated to what is out there and in the end, will have the setup that is perfect for you. The worst thing you can do is to just go into it and blow money in an uneducated way. I've read many a thread where the poster says "the guy at the audio store said that this is all I needed" only to find out he didn't get anything close to what he needed.

Good luck.

 

[Massive Master]

Don't ignore monitors - The best gear in the world doesn't mean anything if you can't hear it accurately.

 

[Bass Master "K"]

Don't ignore monitors - The best gear in the world doesn't mean anything if you can't hear it accurately.

A great suggestion I overlooked. One of the most critical pieces in the studio.