Tell me the optimal cheap setup.

[barry9]

First off, if you're here to brag about your cool expensive setup, don't. I don't want to hear it. I'm a cheap guy on a cheap budget looking to maximize the amount of simultaneous incoming recordable audio tracks. I'm running a Dell 2.4Ghz w/1GB RAM, WinXP, Audiophile 24/96. Recording software is irrelevant, I can use free ProTools or pirated Cubase, or whatever (just read that whole poll about buying software - don't get me started). I'll most likely be mixing down to a finished master within the computer, so output beyond a single stereo out is unimportant (I think - correct me if I'm wrong). Obviously the Audiophile is the wrong choice for multitrack input, so I'm looking at the Delta 10/10 right now unless someone's got a better idea.

I saw another post on this page about recording for a band, and the general consensus was a 8-16 track mixer in front of say a delta 10/10 or equivalent. I saw yet another post talking about using 10 channels for drums alone. What is the rough maximum of simultaneous incoming audio tracks that can be recorded on a budget.

Let's just say I wanted to record a ska band - we've got main vocals, backing vocals for 3 other bandmates, a 3-piece horn section (trombone, bari sax, and trumpet), a guitar, a bass, a keyboard, and a drum set. Aside from needing a buttload of microphones to catch all the sound, is the only option to pre-mix say, all drums together, and then all horns together, and then all backing vocals together? That would still be 7 simultaneous tracks (which I guess would be covered by that 10/10 if they're all mono) - but you lose the ability to turn the hihat up, or worse yet, turn that overbearing trombone down.

I've also heard you can kind of round-robin it by having the band play the song several times and take just drums the first time, then tell the drummer to go smoke some pot with his girlfriend or whatever while you replay the recorded drums for the band and capture the guitar bass and keys, then lay down horns the same way while the now-finished guitarist and bassist are getting stoned with the drummer, then get the singers back in to lay down the vocals on top.

Is this standard practice? Or do studios let bands do a "one-shot" and collect all the individual sounds from all the parts to separate tracks at one time? IS there even a pc-based solution (PCI w/breakout box, firewire, rackmount, etc) that allows more than 10 simultaneous separate incoming audio tracks?

Now let's forget for a minute that I don't have a beautiful studio set up at home with full sound closets and professional instrument-specific microphones and monitor speakers, and I want to make a nice pro mixdown of all the artists playing at once, apart from each other, while listening to the full mix in headphones... can I do this? What kind of hardware does this take, or is this professional-studio-only territory? Do I run the monitor from the computer's normal audio out, and even if I do, how do I get it to headphones for each of the performers?

I guess I'm asking what's a really simple setup in terms of miking, mixing, recording, and monitoring which allows maximum simultaneous incoming audio streams for minimum budget? It's a tough question with many answers... but if anyone's up to the task it's got to be the fine readers of this fine board.

You're a really great audience... I mean it.
Thank you, thank you very much.
Shows at 10:00 and midnight - I'll be here all week.

thanx:barry

 

[Bulls Hit]

The delta1010LT is the card for you.
2 of them will cost you $440 and give you 16 track recording which it sounds like you'll need given the size of that ska band yo've got there.

A Yamaha MG16/4 would be a starting point for a mixer, though you may need to upsize that. They cost around $280.

That lot will get you 14 mic preamps, and you can probably DI your keyboard

 

[barry9]

Bitchin

That's the answer I was looking for. Do you need massive CPU or RAM to be able to utilize all 16 of those incoming lines in a single computer? Is this how it's done in a professional studio, or how do they go about recording all those distinct audio tracks at once?

(BTW - this is totally speculative, as a hobbyist who may one day want to grow his hobby - right now I'm dealing with a metal band that doesn't even have a bassist, so 3-4 mics on drums, 1 for each guitar, and a vocal track should all fit on the one card easily)

The 1010 has 2 of it's 10 as SPDIF, right? so really, it's only 8 rca-ins?

Also, who has ideas about soundproofing for guitar cabinets? Doesn't need to be perfect, but would like to build enclosures to at least mostly remove the sound from each other/drums.

And to finish off my initial question tirade, what works good for monitoring? Simply pull the signal off the card, split it for as many headphones as desired, and go to town? Or is there a more standard way of doing this? It's got to come from the computer and not the up-front mixer in case you're doing punch-ins to pre-recorded pieces, right?

Any other musts or basics for setting up a home studio? I know I need to separate the miked sounds, and need a way for performers to monitor the full mix, and a way to get all the tracks in the machine separately for editing... Which sounds exactly like the setup described here and in that other post. Is there anything else I'm missing, or should be aware of? I kind of missed out on those several years of recording school I probably should have taken.

You guys are the best. No, really, I mean it.
Homerecording.com BBS audiences are the best audiences.

thanx:barry

 

[futurestar]

This is decent headphone amp for the money:
http://www.musiciansbuy.com/BEHRINGER_HA4700_HEADPHONE_AMP.html
That should cover you unless you plan to have more than four people tracking at the same time. You didn't mention moniters. The Wharfedale Diamonds are getting great reviews here. (About $275 or so a pair). Assuming you have mics already, you should be good to go with that, a mixer, and the Delta card. BTW, Protools Free isn't going to cut it + I believe it only works with Windows 98. Buy something like N-Tracks to start - I think it's less than $50.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

First off, if you're here to brag about your cool expensive setup, don't. I don't want to hear it.

I'm just going to leave this one alone.

I'm a cheap guy on a cheap budget looking to maximize the amount of simultaneous incoming recordable audio tracks.

GOOD LUCK!

I'll most likely be mixing down to a finished master within the computer, so output beyond a single stereo out is unimportant (I think - correct me if I'm wrong).

You don't even really need that.

What is the rough maximum of simultaneous incoming audio tracks that can be recorded on a budget.

Everyone has a budget. When you say the words "cheap" and "recording my band" and "multiple inputs" my approximation of cheap is about $2500 minimum... that's cheap for the specs you outlined.

I've also heard you can kind of round-robin it by having the band play the song several times and take just drums the first time... Is this standard practice?

Depends on how you want to do it. If you are unable to record very many simultaneous tracks this is a smart option IMHO.

Or do studios let bands do a "one-shot" and collect all the individual sounds from all the parts to separate tracks at one time? IS there even a pc-based solution (PCI w/breakout box, firewire, rackmount, etc) that allows more than 10 simultaneous separate incoming audio tracks?

You can do it that way too. Requires more inputs though. Let's take a look at my track count for the last project I did:

Drums: 13 tracks (kick x2 + trigger, snare x2 + trigger, high tom, mid tom, low tom, left overhead, right overhead, center overhead, high hat, room mics x2)
Bass: 2 tracks (DI + amp)
Distorted Guitar: 12 tracks (4 overdubs)
Clean Guitar: 9 tracks (3 overdubs)
Vocals: about 4-6 tracks (mains plus backing)
Synth: 2-4 tracks
Additional overdubs: 2-5 tracks

What I did was have the band record 'scratch tracks' of vocals, bass and guitar (1 track each) to go with the drums... 16 tracks simultaneous even though 3 were thrown away at various stages of the recording. Luckily I can do 24 simultaneous.

Now let's forget for a minute that I don't have a beautiful studio set up at home with full sound closets and professional instrument-specific microphones and monitor speakers, and I want to make a nice pro mixdown of all the artists playing at once, apart from each other, while listening to the full mix in headphones... can I do this?

Yeah, but by the time you are done you are going to realize that "cheap" in the recording world for getting 'nice pro mixdowns' equals the price of a 2 year old Saturn.

The most important question is: CAN YOU DO THIS? What degree of recording knowledge do you have? I'm guessing next to zero. Quite simply... you are probably outmatched. Go to a local studio.

Case in point: a 16x4 50' XLR cable snake will set you back about 450 bucks. A simple 8 channel TRS snake is 120 bucks. Headphone amplifiers are about 100 bucks for one that is iffy. Plus, if you want to run headphones that usually means a mixer is involved....

What kind of hardware does this take, or is this professional-studio-only territory? Do I run the monitor from the computer's normal audio out, and even if I do, how do I get it to headphones for each of the performers?

You smarten up and take about 500 bucks to a local studio and record there.

Ultimately that is the CHEAP WAY. That is, if you want something that doesn't suck butt.

 

[barry9]

Thanks, thanks so much cloneboy.

You're exactly the person I did not need to reply to this post.

Yes, I have no recording education. No, I'm not taking the band to the studio, because the project is for me to learn how to make recordings with my computer. They'll go to the studio when they're ready - in the meantime it's super rockin fun to be able to record without paying the studio for the time. I'm already having more fun with my hobby recording multi track audio with my little audiophile 2496 than I can possibly express in words on a message board.

Cheap budget (for me) means less than $500-$600 to get started.

I asked questions here because I thought that *nice* people with more recording knowledge than me (which means any recording knowledge at all) might be able to point me in the right direction to get a little mini-studio set up at my house for the purpose of making mediocre recordings of myself and my friends playing music. Not to become lord god of all recording studio equipment and knowledge. I'd never want to take that title away from Cloneboy.

Lucky for me, I'm pretty smart, so I can probably take the knowledge I've gained from responses to this post and others and apply it in a way that satisfies my desire to record more than one source of audio at a time. Still have to figure out the best way to separate the sounds, which for the time being means long mic and monitor cords and separate rooms for the performers.

Speaking of knowledge gained, thanks for the tip on the headphone amp futurestar, that's exactly what I was asking (even if I didn't ask it right).

Oh, and thanks for the breakdown on your studio setup, you egocentric braggart cloneboy. Nice to know your motivation for posting was to 'tell off' a hobbyist rather than help him out as a first-timer looking for input on home recording (in my opinion, "go to the studio" is not valid advice for someone looking to learn how to make home recordings themselves). You really made a great show of it, what with all the quotes. I'm so glad you took the time to respond, because I learned so much from it.

Still looking for advice on soundproofing a little box for guitar amps (full size cabinet size would actually be best) - are there kits / designs for this kind of setup? A buddy of mine says that's how the studio he goes to does it - not separate rooms, just enclosures for the guitar / bass cabinets to isolate the sounds...

thanks again (for all the legitimate advice),
b

 

[AlfredB]

might want to look into ADAT (lightpipe) cards ... those can receive 8 digital inputs at once + whatever you get from the analogue side.

so an interesting setup could be : Behringer ADA8000 (pre-amp & D/A A/D converter) w/ any cheap ADAT card, 4 example the e-mu 1212m would do + you get free firewire and other goodies as well ...

the ADA8000 is around 200,- and the 1212 is 200,- as well - you can also get a terratec (?) bare-bones ADAT card for 150,-

good luck and just disregard the "not-so-helpful" posts

alfred

 

[barry9]

a/d before hitting the comp... what an idea

Thanks Alfred, that's something I hadn't thought of. The ADA8000 is a nice interface to plug everything into, then you get a nice simple single-cable ADAT interface to your digital audio card...

Also, what are people's experiences using multiple audio cards?

Am I right in thinking I could easily scale to 16 tracks by simply repeating the process? Another $350-$450 for another ADA8000 and Terratec EWS88D, plop them in line and *BAM* 8 more incoming tracks? Or is the option to upgrade to an ADAT-capable card with multiple ADAT ins?

I really like the idea of using the ADA8000 - would definitely slim down the wire-mess associated with using the crazy bundle of wires on the delta 1010LT, plus it looks like you get phantom power for mics and independent line out on all 8 channels. Awesome suggestion, for a price point not *too* much larger than just the Delta1010LT, with a lot of convenience built in to start.

Are there any benefits to doing the A/D conversion outside the computer (say, in the ADA8000 instead of inside a Delta card)?

thanks a million - this is exactly the kind of thinking man's answer / solution I was looking for. Anyone else with ideas?

 

[AlfredB]

the "benefit" of doing the AD-DA conversion outboard is that you leave the delicate analogue signals outside of "radiation-hell" (that would be your computer)... and you enter with a clean and clear light-pulse into your comp ... the light-pulses couldnt care less about radiation

downsides of the ADA8000 (as far as I have investigated it)

... what? no headphones out? ... how am i supposed to monitor (anybody any tips/tricks here??????) ... no midi (anybody has a workaround)?

thats why I am leaning towards the layla 3G at the moment (preferences change about every 8 hrs

bye
alfred


ps: as far as I can remember, there are PCI-ADAT cards w/ 2 ADAT ins (RME?), so you buy one card and then have the option of upgrading just your analogue-interface and voilá ... you got 16 tracks digital in

 

[barry9]

answer was in an earlier post?

Alfred - funny, I was looking at the PRO-XL HA4700 mentioned earlier in the page... set your monitor output from the computer to the main in for the full mix, and the outputs from the individual lines in the ADA8000 into the aux ins in the HA4700 (or separate busses from your recording machine, for say, drums, if your card/box supports multi line-out), then use the balance on the HA4700 channels to tune the monitor mix for each listener (bumping their respecive instrument, since they always want that anyway).

Am I getting warm with a tactic here, or am I missing something vital?

Plus, who has the steep gouge discount on XLR and 1/4" cabling (I have a feeling I'm going to be in the market for a buttload of cables in the next month or two)? And can you patch between the two easily (looks like XLR outs on the ADA8000 and 1/4" ins on the HA4700)? In fact, what cabling is compatable/incompatable or easily converted/lossfully converted, etc? If I'm barking up the wrong tree - please point me in the right direction...

Any of this make sense or am I off in la-la land (no need to reply cloneboy, thanks)?

 

[dustyhoffsky]

Barry9, I know less than you, thanks for your post!

As this Discussion is subtitled, "Which card, which computer, how to set it up...find out!" it does sound like a discussion for, perhaps, beginners, which I am one. Good for you and your reaction to the arrogant "Cloneboy". Hey, everyone starts out small, unless you have a lot of $$ to begin with. Your post has already aided me, by realizing just how ignorant I am. A Reggae friend of mine wants me to build him a computer he could record on at home. He knows nothing of computers, which I do somewhat and I know nothing of music recording, whereas he has been a promoter of live Reggae acts and festivals. I found this site by googling "PC music recording". First I just want to know how much CPU, how much RAM, how big a hard drive, the best affordable sound card, (I don't know what an "Audiophile 24/96" is) what software, (I guess free ProTools or pirated Cubase) that I might need.
Barrry9, you may be a novice to the others on this sight, but I am a novice to you. Any help you could provide I would appreciate.
Right now the PC we will probably start with is an AMD XP 2500 333MHZ FSB, 512 DDR RAM, 120GB HD.

 

[manning1]

dusty , i'm a puter engineer with my own daw.
that amd is a nice start. but two drives is better - one for windows (a small drive) as well as that 120.
ive made hundreds of suggestions on set ups for daw including
computer configs, mics, mixers,software, monitors etc over the past couple of years. just search under my name.
you might also want to read the arch_jedi thread in the newbies section, and many other posts of mine resulting from the search.

 

[barry9]

Hoffsky, ignorance is only a temporary ailment for the motivated

Well, I promise you I'm something slightly less than an 'expert' on the subject, but the general consensus seems to be that your proposed system specs are *more* than enough to handle most recording tasks. I guarantee that upgrading that RAM to a full GB won't hurt you at all, but otherwise you sound pretty stacked, computer-wise.

As a fellow novice (and one who makes a living working with computers), I'm finding out the hard way that the computer is actually the LEAST of your concerns for home recording. I mean, aside from the fact that you can use it as a software mixer and effects processor, it's not so very far removed from using it as a tape deck. Besides, if you want to use it as more than a tape deck, now you're getting into some pretty specialized hardware and some moderate-to-obscenely expensive software.

From what I've learned so far, for the beginner, you are going to want a semi-professional sound card to get all your irie reggae into the machine. The featherweight champ seems to be a card called the M-Audio Delta1010LT, M-Audio being the manufacturer, Delta the make, 1010 the model, and LT the trim. This is a soundcard which supports 10 mono inputs (1 mic preamp, 8 rca's, and an spdif, or something like that) coupled with an identical array of outputs, all growing like tentacles out of the back of a PCI audio card.

Once you've got this bad boy installed in your machine, you will be able to isolate the sound signals from each of the individual inputs in your recording program. The featherweight champ in that sport seems to be a program called "N-Tracks Studio", which retails for $49-$75 dollars on the website (google it). The alternatives include Cakewalk, Cubase, ProTools, and other softwares you may or may not have heard of, costing between a hundred and a few thousand dollars, depending on which versions of which softwares. Of course, there are plenty of demo and cracked versions of the softwares out there for the slightly less morally inhibited members of society who just wish to try the software first.

After that, it's all about "Wait, was that the bass cord or the rhythm guitar cord..." and lots of radio shack converters until you've got everyone plugged in. This can be through a mixer's individual channel outputs, or directly into the soundcard from each instrument/mic. Of course, your personal level of music hardware and knowledge will dictate whether you're doing direct signal processing or miking amps (if you got mics and studio space, use 'em - if not, don't).

From there, it's all about tweaking the settings on your recording program and monitoring the output through the computer speakers until the mix sounds right... make sure everyone's channels are set to record, and hit the big red record button and that should pretty much do the job...

As a last note, direct signal processing is great for sound separation (so you don't get guitars on your drum tracks or drums in your vocals, etc) because at least you get the powered instruments out of the potential bleed-zone immediately (still gotta keep your drummer and singer separated though, or record tracks separately), but this takes some crafty monitoring work and a bit of money on the headphone amp/distribution side of things, so everyone can hear what is being played through the monitors (since they wont be hearing the actual instruments). Otherwise, you'd want to keep all the instruments separate and mic all the outputs and record those separately - which, actually, still gives the same monitoring problems... something I gotta do more thinking about...

And if you just want to record the whole shebang at once into the computer (like, say, in a garage), you might as well just buy a tape deck and hook it up to the rca outs on your mixer, because that's all your computer will really be doing unless you're recording things on isolated tracks. Well, that's not true, you can still record to your hard drive, but it will be a 'one-shot', 'live performance' kind of thing (imagine bringing a mini-tape dictation recorder to a concert, and you're getting warmer), and not a studio recording.

But then, I don't really know what I'm doing at all either, so I could be totally off track here. But I like talking about it almost as much as I like playing with it, and I love getting feedback. Am I on the right track here, or what am I missing from my mental model? (answer, or else I'll write another eight-hundred-thousand-million word essay to delight and bore you senselessly into senselessness)

-b

 

[Bulls Hit]

And if you just want to record the whole shebang at once into the computer (like, say, in a garage), you might as well just buy a tape deck and hook it up to the rca outs on your mixer, because that's all your computer will really be doing unless you're recording things on isolated tracks. Well, that's not true, you can still record to your hard drive, but it will be a 'one-shot', 'live performance' kind of thing (imagine bringing a mini-tape dictation recorder to a concert, and you're getting warmer), and not a studio recording.

Not quite, you can still record the whole band at once, onto 8 seperate tracks with the LT.

You will get some bleed, but if you're close micing the guitar amps and maybe put some screens around the drummer, the bleed shouldn't be an issue. Of greater importance is to ensure there's no phasing between the mics.

You really do need a mixer though for preamps, The LT only has 2 preamps, the other 6 inputs are line level so the mics need to be boosted either by standalone pres, or the ones in the mixer.

Also, imo recording guitars direct sounds like ass. You wanna crank the amps, make the air move, let the music breathe

 

[AlfredB]

@ barry ....

while we are on the subject ... check out the Steinberg VSL2020 card ... might be intersting to you ...



@ dusty ....

check out www.pcmuse.com for good buying tips on computer related stuff ... its not just the "hard facts" but also important to know which motherboards and chipsets to buy or to steer clear of ...

best of luck
alfred

 

[barry9]

Screening...

BullsHit -

Most guitarists would agree - they love the sound of their cabinets, and sacrificing that for some canned effects in software is not their idea of a good time.

As for screening the performers away from each other, what kind of stuff do you use to separate them? Just plywood with some soundproof foam and kind of half-ass (or three-quarters-ass, or ass-close-ass-you-can-get) box them in or divide them with little divider walls?

I had always thought that you would get insufferable bleed trying to record the band in a garage like that, no matter what mics you use to catch everything... most guitarists like their speaker cabinets earth-shaking, zombie-waking loud, and I had thought that this would really screw you for trying to mic the other parts. Especially if the band decides that loud whiny guitar solo has got to go and be replaced by a minimalist drum solo instead, after you've already recorded it... wouldn't you still be hearing bits of the original drums through the guitar and vocal mic recordings and bits of that whiny guitar solo in the bass and vocal tracks? The vocal track especially seems like it would be in trouble of bleed...

I mean, sure - just have the band play the damn song again, and do it right this time, jerkos! But... but.. but... maybe I'm trying too hard here to have a perfect world setup, but it seems like you really would get some nasty bleed that way. But I don't have a clue (that's why I'm here asking questions).

Is this something that is doable and works out okay? If so, I'm closer to getting a mini-studio set up than I thought... Can someone give examples of their (simple) home studio setup in regards to separating out multiple live signals for recording? Right now I was thinking, vocals from the bathroom, guitars from the bedrooms, drums in the living room, control from the office, with lots of cables going to and fro for monitor headphones and input signal. But if I can do the whole shebang in the GARAGE... that's a lot fewer rooms for my wife to be pissed about me occupying with loud, crass musicians.

food for thought never fills you up, just makes you hungrier

 

[manning1]

actually creative leakage can work quite well sometimes. years ago big selling songs were done the way i'm going to describe.
1. use a good sounding room. churches and loading docks or halls are another way.
2. take the kik out of the equation. replace with a kik trigger triggering kiks in a sampler. put two mics ohd the drums. put a trigger on the snare as well
triggering a snare sample.
3. think of a triangle. drums at one point and two guuitar cabs in front of drums spaced apart. mic each guitar amp close. (but also note that the mics pick up the drum set leakage - this is purposefull). run the bass direct.
4. mix the preceeding to stereo and record to a stereo track on the daw. this is called a bed track. you could record the ohds, the buitar mics, and the bass to seperate tracks if you wish as long as you have a multi input sound card.
this called a bed track. now you proceed to do your overdubs and build up the song. it takes some experimentation but if you work at it, and you have a nice sounding area to record in. it can sound great.

 

[barry9]

Creative leakage...

So the point in that case is to maximize the use of the accoustics of the recording space? This way it sounds like you're letting things bleed mainly to pull some more life out of your area accoustics from every angle... that or because the best sounding rooms would be crappy sounding rooms if you subdivided them. And the point of the triggers is because that's just a little too much bleed with the highly resonant drum sounds in the mix... is this right, or are there other reasons?

If you were to lay a bed track, that's pretty much final once it's laid - right? All you're doing after that is overdubs with new tracks. You can't go back and fix/change a part of the bed track, because it's a single intact stereo track by itself. Do you ever end up laying in a bunch of overdubs and then go back and try to repair/replace the bed track? And when you lay another guitar track on it, do you do something to the bed track to make it not sound like there's a whole new guitar in the mix, or do you just layer it on (since that's part of the gestalt)? Even more interestingly, what about vocals? Leave them out of the bed track to be added later, or add a second vocal track, or tweak the bed track somehow to remove the original vocals? Or is the point to eventually remove the bed track entirely, after layering on the individual tracks over it? Or am I overthinking and the idea is that in one take, your bed track is laid, and that's like 80% of your song already?

Sounds like an interesting way of doing things, especially if you're in a church or a big tiled bathroom or someplace with nice capturable accoustics.

To bring my question back to it's most probable application, I've got a buddy who has a little death metal band (not exactly my thing, but hey - to each their own, right?) that wants me to record them since I'm getting so obsessively into the idea of recording. Not as a big deal demo or distributable work, but just because they can provide me with a real band which is a real situation to work with, and they get some free recordings out of the deal. We're splitting costs on some studio equipment for the task, which opens my budget a little (figure about a grand for all the input/output/monitoring needs is what we got). I've got the DAW minus the multi-inputs, looking at the ADAT solution Alfred mentioned above, plus need a headphone amp, the cables, the headphones for monitoring, and a couple more input mics if it fits in the budget. What I need to know now is where should we set up (in the house, in the garage, just don't say 'in the studio') and what efforts should I take to isolate the sounds (if any). What kind of soundproofing is effective for 'screening' as mentioned above, and is it harder/easier/better/worse to go separate rooms or same room or what?

And moderators, if this thread is beginning to belong in the recording practices board, feel free to move it.

Thanks for all your input everyone (yes.. even you, cloneboy), you're really fueling my fire - it's a very good feeling.