WANTED: Portable Recording Recommendations

  • Thread starter Thread starter AussieGal
  • Start date Start date
while i thnk PC's are just fine, and for editing, are better, i love my standalone (Fostex VF160). It's stable, reliable, portable, makes great recordings, burns error free CD's, is very quiet, and is "pre-configured" to be a recorder. In a year and a half of constant use, I've NEVER lost data, ever. The Fostex VF's also make it easy to upgrade the HardDrives.

On any given occasion, my current PC has had problems with the burner, the power supply, and other issues like freezes... It's probably not well configured, but no one seems to be able to figure out why.

So, if I were going to go the PC route, I'd use it ONLY for music recording/burning, I'd have it sound isolated and insulated, and I'd be VERY careful as to what I loaded on as time passed. The beauty is that the reason why these choices are so difficult is because there's somany great options no matter what direction you choose.
 
billisa - if you list in detail your pc confign i'll take a stab at figuring out why your getting problems.
my day job for eons was as a puter engr and product mgr for
hi tech organisations.
ive helped many folks (thousands actually over the past few years alone).
i enjoy the challenge !!
 
manning1 said:
billisa - if you list in detail your pc confign i'll take a stab at figuring out why your getting problems.
my day job for eons was as a puter engr and product mgr for
hi tech organisations.
ive helped many folks (thousands actually over the past few years alone).
i enjoy the challenge !!
Click to expand...

Thanks! Let me give a few skeleton details, because I don't have all the particulars... How exactly can I get the precise info? (see how uniformed i am!)

Basically I'm running W98se on a Pentium II with 64mb of RAM and a 450mhz chip(i think). Here's a typical issue... When opening Outlook Express, if I request new mail while the old messages are opening, the program freezes. Dead. On my older, slower machine, with less RAM I can do this with no problems! In WORD, when I open a document, then close it and try to open another, the file search takes twice as long -- if i try this a third time, it takes even longer... Attempting a Find of a phrase or title in WORD takes forever, whereas again, on my slower Pentium it takes a matter of seconds... Just opening WORD takes five times as long on my "faster" machine than the one in my office.

My suspicion is that the computer has been set to do more than it needs to and thus it's memory and processing gets bogged down. Also, sometimes the PC will say access denied, or not ready for my A: and D: drives, then other times, no problems.

I'm convinced some settings are amiss, but that's a wild guess.
 
well firstly let me say these are old machines. only good for doing midi sequencing at best NOT modern high performance daw audio multitracking. on that p2 using outlook, why your confused that its slower could be several things.
1. the hard drive might be inferior for some reason.
i dont know even if you can enable dma on your hard drive on the p2.
maybe get a tech to look at that. in control panel click on system icon
then device mgr and click on drive PROPERTIES and see if you see a box called dma.
2. you might try a defrag.
3. look in your windows temp folder and see if theres a lot of junk .
in windows search for files enter *.tmp and see if you have a load of tmp files, over time these can build up and are junk files and left overs.
and windows has to keep track of all this junk. thus OVERHEAD.
OVERHEAD means SLOWER.
4. over time you can get a build up of cookies and junk surfing the net.
try deleting history and these cookie files in the browser.
i personally dont use outlook. i dont like it.
with respect no wonder you dont see the advantage of pc multitracking.
if you get a chance to see the difference try a modern athlon sometime at a dealers running powertracks that i use or n track or traktion. one BIG DIFFERENCE. whole new world.
 
also in outlook one other idea , and probably you might have done this
make sure you dont have a build up of OLD MAIL cluttering your hard drive, ie: either mail youve sent or received. clear your in box out for example.
a free email service i use instead of outlook is called canoemail.com.
thus i dont need outlook. also i dont seem to get spam etc with it.
also look for an alternative to word. there are loads pf free elegant
little word processors floating around the net. try googling for
"frree small word processing software".
what i do , if something is lengthy i compose my letter.
then copy it into my email i'm going to send from canoemail.com.
nice and easy.
just some ideas.
 
Thanks for getting back Manning. As it happens, I've never attempted to use my PC as a DAW. Though I have worked with pros who were using a PC when I was with them...

The thing is WORD runs like a charm on my PentiumI 166mhz laptop and even better on another office Pentium II. I believe the drive is a Maxtor, but in any event I'll probably be getting a new PC...

Here's a question... Why not get the latest PC and run Windows 98se on it? Why? For really intense speed. It seems to me that with newer hardware we get much more complicated software, thus no real increase in speed... No? It's as if we get a new truck with much bigger horsepower, but we load on an additional 4-tons of weight in the back...
 
billisa.... re your last para running 98 on fast machines.
a LOT of people are doing THAT.
in fact there is a debate about it here many many times...
 
No debate on Win 98SE from me...

...I finally converted 2 machines that constantly crashed (I mean several times an HOUR) running 98SE to XP and I won't go back. I LIKE stability.
 
lpdeluxe said:
...I finally converted 2 machines that constantly crashed (I mean several times an HOUR) running 98SE to XP and I won't go back. I LIKE stability.
Click to expand...

I've heard XP is very stable, but I've wondered if 98se on a superfast machine might be a possibility.
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
I had one bad experience with a G4/MOTU 2408 MKII system that up and died on me at the start of recording session when I first started doing recording for money. Needless to say I looked like a total moron in front of paying clients.

Never again. :)
Click to expand...


Similiar experience with a PC/MOTU 1224. I can accept embarassment If the error is on my part but in this case it was on the equipment. It takes months to aquire a client and only seconds to lose one.
 
Fostex Vf160 - my choice.

Here's another shout for the Fostex vf160.

A portable 16 track recorder which is solid as a rock. The only problem I've run into was my own fault - running out of disk space cos I never delete any songs (it holds up to 99 of them)!

You can record up to 8 tracks at once 'live', but if you wanted to record all 16 at once you'd need to buy an extra piece of kit I believe (not something I do).

You can 'do it all' on this machine from tracking right thruogh mixing to burning a finished audio CD without ever going near a PC (yes I know about mastering but that's a separate issue).

I'm not going to get into the multitracker vs PC debate as there are other threads for that. Aussiegal wanted our suggestions for a portable solution and the vf160 fits the bill perfectly IMO.
 
glynb said:
Here's another shout for the Fostex vf160.
Click to expand...

I used it's early relative the VF16 before and I thought that the converters made the machine almost unusable. Maybe with some decent converters it might be okay, but then you are getting to the point you could use a HD24XR.

I wish I didn't lose my FTP password so I could host the work I've done from live recording using my trusty HD24XR. I've had a few people call "BS" and insist that it wasn't live, but a studio recording dressed up to sound live (like Slayer's "Live Undead" was). But honest to god it was all live... of course I mixed the hell out of it but I didn't use any triggers, Drumagog, overdubs or anything. Just compression, EQ, a ton of reverb and a fat analog mixdown thru my A&H 248.
 
Enchilada said:
I picked up a Korg D16 cheap on eBay and I love it
Click to expand...

I also have a Korg D16. You can find them super cheap on E-Bay.
 
AussieGal and Ausrock in the same post.. going to have to change my name to Ausmistice perhaps....

I'm a big fan of Yamaha AW4416s AG - not sure what they're going for these days, but I'd head towards them instead of Boss/Roland/Zoom etc. Most of the digital units out now have lots of funky stuff on them, but the thing I like most about my AW4416 is the dual display - permanent meters on the right side and all the other stuff in a decent sized central display. Couldn't work with these smaller units with a single display. Too bloody hard...

Sure, it's not colour and not nearly as funky as what you get on a PC, but it works. Good luck!

Be down your way this weekend looking at the pretty flowers..
 
OMG.............YOU'RE GOING TO FLORIARD!!!

You should be coming my way to buy 1 of only 2 Gibsons left for sale.........a Desertburst LP Studio Plus.

BTW, AussieGal, Armi knows his shit on the Yamaha..........he produces some damned fine recordings.

:cool:
 
Why thank you Mr Rock.... speaking of which, am in mixing mode now. All toons recorded bar one which I decided I'd leave for a bit, serious mixing happening now. Will send you up a copy when it's as good as I think it's likely to get and see if you have any suggestions.

Alas now that I have the PRS, the Gibbo's a bit further down the track, but glad to hear you're offloading them at a reasonable rate. I actually bought the PRS as I figured there was a chance I could be redundant soon and if I didn't get it before that happened, then I probably never would, so what the hell... still paying it off! Still employed...

And yes, I am going to Floriade, and while I'd like to blame my girlfriend and say I'm just along to humour her, it was actually my idea. What is my life coming to!??? It's a sobering thing to see how important gardening has become in one's life.... never thought it would end like this.... more interested in snail bait than jailbait... not very rock 'n ' roll, is it!

Be on hols for a couple of weeks in about 3 weeks time, will probably visit my newly-rehabbed friend up in Forster, so may drop in and say hi, at last, on the way. I'll be in touch.

Sorry to hijack your thread AG - have fun in the search - next time I start up on a BBS like this I'm think I'm going to pretend to be a girl... you get a much better quality of advice!
 
Hey everyone,

Again, thank you all for your time in reply - you've all given me food for thought, and research!

Ausrock: Thanks for the recommendation about ebay - I have found that testing the ebay market before going into any store enables me to negotiate a significantly reduced price. I must confess I haven't bought many things from ebay but getting a good multi-track on there may be my best option.

Manning1: Thanks for your qualified advice re: the PC option. Unfortunately my budget is a limiting factor at the moment and a stand-alone option seems best for my purpose now. I must ask, does purchasing a 'stand-alone' unit prevent the use of a PC in conjunction with it? I am relatively clueless about this stuff (as you can probably tell) but I was under the impression that stand-alone units with USB output could be run to a PC and edited etc on the PC if you chose to. Is that possible? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

I do have an AMD (equivalent of P4) 1.7GHz 60GB PC running on XP. At the moment, I want to get something that does not require a PC though, and something that can do a lot of the "funky" stuff for when I can't get all the musos I need. i.e I would love to create great drum and bass lines without a drummer or bassist ;) Oh...and vocal effects... *daydreaming*...

Glynb, Cloneboy & Futurestar: I will check out the Fostex and Korg options. I've been seeing a few on ebay and will look into it. Thanks!

Armistice: Thanks for the info. I've seen a few Yamahas around - the AW16G is the one I'm crossing most regularly. Do you have any experience with that one? Would love to hear more - and hear some of your stuff after the rap from Ausrock. Oh and enjoy Floriade. Just keep telling yourself that every tulip is different and special in its own way. :D

*scrunching up my powerball ticket* :rolleyes:

AG :)
 
Alas I haven't played with AW16G - thing I like most about my 16 tracker is that you get 16 sliders - don't think this is the case with some others including the AW16G. Someone's written a program for the AW4416 (don't know if it works with the 2816 / AW16G) that allows you to extract the files from the proprietary format and edit them on your PC if you want to, but I've never used it.

Know how you feel re. drum and bass lines - I make do with a Boss Dr Rhythm and a bass I bought a long time ago. - would kill to have access to a "real" drummer with their own set of mics and the knowledge of what to stick where... must upgrade my PC and get some loopy type drum software - would be easier I'm sure...

Ausrock's on a retainer to say nice things about me, happy to send you some as-yet-unreleased-product-from-the-difficult-3rd-album-which-will-soon-be-released-and-disappear-just-as-quickly if you'd like to have a listen. It's instrumental guitar stuff. If you PM me a PO box or other contact address you feel safe disclosing I'll burn a few onto CD for you and wing it your way.

Will take your advice to heart re. tulips :D

Let me know if I can assist you in any way, always interested in co-operating /collaborating etc. be looking for a new challenge when I finish this CD.
 
I recorded this live last month with my Alesis HD24XR. After recording it I mixed it down on my A&H System 8 24/8 analog console, brought it into Wavelab and voila... it's done.



Personally the HD24 is IMHO the best recorder in its price class; however, it does require a fairly large external mixer to properly use (24 channel 4 buss is minimum I suspect).

However to record this I brought *ONLY* the HD24XR and patched into the direct outs on the sound guy's Soundcraft Spirit 32/8 mixer. The ability to just go to a show with the HD24 and some cables is great. I literally set up in less than five minutes using 2 TRS 8 channel cable snakes.
 
AussieGal said:
I would love to create great drum and bass lines without a drummer or bassist ;) Oh...and vocal effects... *daydreaming*...
Click to expand...

Drums are easy--get a drum machine like the Roland R8 MK II. When I need great basslines there are 2-3 people locally that I can call that blow me out of the water (I'm primarily a keyboardist/guitarist).
 
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