What gear?

[yashaswi]

Hi, I'm a design student, currently developing a product that requires a lot of high quality audio tracks to be recorded (human voices..)
It would include hundreds of hours of audio recording.(100s of hours of the final product.) At different locations, (indoors) - So, the setup needs to be portable too.
Could someone point out how to go about choosing the right gear, DAW, setup? (I have a budget of around 800$ - 1400$)
Based on what I've read till now, I'm considering a blue spark, a zoom h6, and am deciding between pro tools and audition.
(- the recording is only voices, no mixing of music. But could include extreme pitch corrections, playing around with the voices..)
Also, what cladding/treatment should be done to the walls?

If there are any threads earlier, on similar topics, it'd be helpful if someone points me out to those.

PS: (I'll be buying 10 of these setups.. for recording at different locations, few could be permanent locations.)
Btw, I wont be the one recording and editing all the tracks, a person will learn protools/audition from scratch, for this project. (duration of the project is 1-2 yrs.)
It'd be really helpful if you could suggest the suitable gear for a fixed location setup, and a portable one. (around 800-1400$ for each)
Quality is THE MAIN concern, budget is extendable, for considerable change in quality.

 

[mjbphotos]

You're going to need a decent computer with plenty of RAM for the mixing of that many tracks.

a person will learn protools/audition from scratch, for this project. (duration of the project is 1-2 yrs.)

After 1-2 years a person with some mixing experience already may start to get a handle on Protools ... Really - without giving us more details, I'd say you are setting yourself up for failure.

 

[yashaswi]

I was asking for gear advice apart from the computer. (I will have a PC powerful enough.)

a person will learn protools/audition from scratch, for this project. (duration of the project is 1-2 yrs.)

We can't hire a professional to record and edit the audio, as its a full time gig for about an year and half. So, I'll have someone from my team do that.

 

[ecc83]

"Quality" is a difficult term to quantify.

If you mean technical quality, i.e. low distortion, low noise a sensibly flat frequency response then almost any sub $100 capacitor mic and approx $150 audio interface could do the job and return better TECHNICAL quality than you get from TV or radio speech anywhere in the world including our dear BBC.

If quality means something rather more arty-farty to you then I cannot help you further!

If, as I suspect this is a series of 2 track* "vox pops" then the computer could be very low spec indeed. To give an example bordering on the ridiculous I have done this at 24bits, 44.1kHz on an HP 0 decimal! 850G laptop with 1/2 G ram and XP pro. So you see that almost anything you can buy today will do that job...And I would go> AI>computer rather than a handheld recorder if for no other reason than you would have to dump the HH's data to a PC anyway.

The problems of location recording could be many but a good start might be a deal on a pair of Reflection Filters for each setup?

Protools? Surely that will bust your budget from the outset? Audacity would be fine for the initial "track grab" but Reaper is probably the best all rounder. However if costs get sticky you could investigate Samplitude ProX for the main production DAW and use the totally free Sam Silver in the field?

* My instinct would be a pair of SDCs permanently fixed as a co-I pair and grab everything as stereo.

Dave.

 

[mjbphotos]

What's the track length limit on most DAWs? This guy is talking hundreds of HOURS of tracks, I was thinking hundreds of tracks.

Is this talking, or singing, multiple voices or 1 at a time? What are the recording locations like? Is your budget number PER RECORDING LOCATION or total?

 

[ecc83]

What's the track length limit on most DAWs? This guy is talking hundreds of HOURS of tracks, I was thinking hundreds of tracks.

Is this talking, or singing, multiple voices or 1 at a time? What are the recording locations like? Is your budget number PER RECORDING LOCATION or total?

If you are talking continuous recording then I think this is limited by ram? So for 32 bits, however long 3 and bit gigs takes you*. But of course the maximum amount of data you can record is just a function of the hard drive capacity.

*I am by no means sure about this and various DAWs might be different.
Dave.

 

[yashaswi]

The '100's of hours' comprises of tiny 1 minute bits.. So, no.. not continuous recording in a single file.
Its all talking. Not multiple speakers. Single person, narration.
Recording locations are indoors (bedrooms/houses in different cities) .
Budget is 800$ - 1400$ per location. (that totals to around 12000$)

I was hoping for more advice on which mics, mixer,field recorder, headphones,monitors, daw, to buy..

Also, which daw has better a learning curve? And which is better for an 'only vocals' production? reaper/audition or protools?

 

[ecc83]

The '100's of hours' comprises of tiny 1 minute bits.. So, no.. not continuous recording in a single file.
Its all talking. Not multiple speakers. Single person, narration.
Recording locations are indoors (bedrooms/houses in different cities) .
Budget is 800$ - 1400$ per location. (that totals to around 12000$)

I was hoping for more advice on which mics, mixer,field recorder, headphones,monitors, daw, to buy..

Also, which daw has better a learning curve? And which is better for an 'only vocals' production? reaper/audition or protools?

Right, let's nail flags to mast!
Why buy a DAW at all? Here is an equipment list suggestion:.
Steinberg UR22 AI (comes with cubase lite 6)
2x AKG Perception 170 SDC mics since I still like the stereo idea and you always have a backup.
2 sets of Sennheiser HD202s per rig. Two because they are cheap but good enough, but again backup, wires can get broken.
2 mic stands, one with a stereo bar.
2 Reflection filters (which is why 2 mic stands!) .

Having 10 of the same equipments means all the recordings will have the same basic sound quality but mostly because you could go to a dealer with that list, plus other odds and sods such as cables, usb leads etc and get a VERY good deal I should think.

But I am still not sure if all this "field" equipment is going to just "track grab" and the results be fed back to a central studio point for further work? If so then that place can have some more sophisticated DAW software in it.
Dave.

 

[yashaswi]

Yes, all the tracks, once recorded, will be fed to a central studio for editing and mixing.
So, which daw is most suitable i.e, has the most convenient interface for speech recordings? (budget isn't an issue as I'll be buying only 1-2 licenses of these.)
And btw, aren't at-2050, blue spark, rode nt1-a etc. better than akg 170? (when I can afford them.)

 

[ecc83]

Yes, all the tracks, once recorded, will be fed to a central studio for editing and mixing.
So, which daw is most suitable i.e, has the most convenient interface for speech recordings? (budget isn't an issue as I'll be buying only 1-2 licenses of these.)
And btw, aren't at-2050, blue spark, rode nt1-a etc. better than akg 170? (when I can afford them.)

If the tracks are just being grabbed as it were then the DAW and its learning curve becomes irrelevant since in the free Cubase say you would, I guess, just set up a template? Setting the inputs and sample rate and word length? The operator would only need to know enough to title and save things properly. Mind you, the learning curve for location recording in myriad venues is going to be a steep one!

And the venues is why I say go for an SDC* (ok, pay more than for the AKGs if you like, you won't tell the difference...Well! Other than the extra colouration that the big jobbies produce!)
IMHO the LAST thing you need in what might be an horrendous acoustic is a big sexy, side address microphone! K.I.S.Sir! Put the cash saved into as much portable sound absorbing kit as you can reasonably carry. Working on the assumption that there will not be infinite set up time(?) the best course of action would be to blanket out as much as possible of the room's acoustic and record as "dry" as possible. Back at base you can then add a bit of "house verb" if you want to.

*an alternative MIGHT be a really good dynamic? Shure SM7b or one of the Electrovoice models?

Dave.