two newbies getting started

  • Thread starter Thread starter hoopyfrood
  • Start date Start date
H

hoopyfrood

New member
My friend and I have been talking about putting together a recording studio. I have started researching a little on what we might need, but because there is so much info I could use some help on narrowing things down. I will explain basically what we want to be able to do and hopefully someone can tell me the sort of equipment we should be looking at. We want to be able to record up to 8 tracks at the SAME time. We want to record live style performances, where everyone can hear everything that is going on. We would like a small PA that we could us to play at parties that will intigrate with our recording system. We want to be able to transfer our recordings onto a computer for further editing and burning on to CDs. Also we don't want to spend thousands of dollars, so we are looking for simple, sturdy, and economical equipment. If we were to get a digital hard drive sytem with a built in mixer could we use the mixer in our PA system? I am still confused about different types of tape and digital recorders and how they could be used to hook up to a PA and a computer. Any ideas would be helpful.

Rock On,

hoopyfrood
 
Please, don't get discouraged by this post, but considering all of the different tasks you are trying to accomplish, it doesn't seem possible/feasible for you to spend less than $2K on some equipment. :(

Even if you go the used route, you are still going to have to drop some cash.

stand-alone HD recorder
computer
CD burner
monitors
cables/adapters
programs
soundcard

I would suggest to take your time anddo some research on this BBS, before purchasing some equipment.

peace... :)

spin
 
:D Word up! :D

No problem.

Actually, I got the link from Wide Awake.
 
I'm not an expert by any means, but I'll give you some stuff to think about:

It does seem that if you want to go to the computer for editing, you should just do all of the recording on the computer. I know nothing about this kind of equipment, but if you do a search for it you will find plenty of information. A large expense will also be the microphones that you need to cover all 8 inputs and the monitors.

Or you could go the non-computer route: the Roland VS series hard disk recorders are very popular, unfortunately the 16-track machine (with 8 inputs) will cost you almost $2000, but you can do everything from there and will not really need a computer. You probably could also use it as a mixer, get a power amp to share fr both your monitor speakers and your PA speakers. You will need to get both sets of speakers!

If you give more details about the quality of recordings you expect and what you wish to do with the final product, I could give you better suggestions
 
Get good powered monitors and use them for the pa.
Use A tascam 428us for recording
The real expence will be all of the sm57s you will have to buy to record 8 tracks at once.
 
If you are considering using the Tascam 428 USB, you should wait.

I heard that there are still some bugs in it.

spin
 
There's no way to do this inexpensively.

If you don't spend thousands, you'll never get enough inputs.

a us-428 doesn't work and won't let you do 8 tracks at a time. (most home recording folks don't to 8 at a time anyway).

You could get a good deal of flexibility if you used an unpowered mixer as your base (maybe like a mackie 1604). With that, you could hook it up to an amp/speaker combo for a PA (some folks make powered PA speakers now), and hook it up to a good sound card (like a delta 1010) for recording.

But by the time you get all the crap:
Mackie (600 used)
PA (1200 or more)
Sound card (600)
Recording monitors (600)
8 SM57's (not even optimal, but mics are a subject in itself, and the best ones for the studio are too delicate for stage use) (500)
Software (200)
Plugins (300)
Cables (200)
Stands (200)


That's 4 grand and I'm sure I forgot something. Oh yeah, the computer.


2 sources at a time can be done fairly cheaply, but the number of inputs and tracks makes your's an expensive proposition.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top