What recording unit to buy

L

leadplayer

New member
Currently I am in a family based rock band with my father and uncle. The band seems to possibly coming to an end. We a good musicians that produce a good sound, and I want good memories of creating music with my father and uncle.. Me and my father did some decent sounding recordings long ago on a Roland vs-1680 "when the 1680 just came out". But now with the quality of vst's and vst'i's, pc recording is the way to go. Money is tight atm so our price range is very low. We have a tascam us-1641, I was never a huge fan of the tone myself and after reading up on it I heard when you push the gain on the preamps they get noisy so that's out, as we really do want a good sounding recording. So with just sound quality in mind, which of the 3 would you recommend. The Tascam fx-1884, Yamaha 01x or the M-Audio ProJect Mix I/O (also if anyone knows of a better unit in this price range $200 or under I am all ears). I am experienced with cubase so ease of use or how well they interface with cubase is not a huge deal. I am just interested with the unit that will have decent gain stages and will produce the quietest, highest quality tracks. I know these are all in the low range and I will not get a top of the line product, just am wondering which one is the best. Just a quick edit, when I say good preamps I mean quite, good gain and transparent, looking the least amount of color being added as we have good mics, keyboards and guitar effects.Thankyou very much for your time



John Dullebawn
 
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First off let me say I seen that the Yamaha 01x does not work with win 7 so that one is out. For this recording really only 1 mic pre's ( only one person will sing at a time) and 2 high impedance for recording guitar and keys in stereo. I play the drums on a electronic kit, record midi only and use superior drummer as my vsti so no need for multi pre's for drums. However it would be nice to have 8 pre's to record this band if it does not come to an end soon, or my next band. A new question, I seen that Presonus actually has an 8 pre in this price range the FireStudio. It seems to have the same xmax solid state pres that their high priced mixer boards have. Would the Presonus be the way to go. My main concern is the tonality of course, however if the presonus would not out perfrom the Project IO or the fw-1884 by alot in tonality tbh the controller part of the 2 desktop units would be kinda nice to have easier and faster access to cubase commands. But as I said tonality is my main concern. TYVM for your time.
 
I don't know that you're comparing apples with apples. I don't think all those devices are "recording units"...

There is also no particular reason why one of the world's largest musical equipment manufacturers would build a machine that didn't work with the world's largest operating system, so I'd be sceptical about that...
 
well not sure exactly what you mean, all the units are computer based ,have preamps and send an audio signal to a computer to record. As I said all I am really interested in, is do any of these have a better preamp that will not color the audio. As far as the 2 desktop units with all the faders, encoders and buttons I can take or leave
 
You called them "recording units" - they seem like control surfaces/interfaces to me. They don't record anything, just interface with the computer / DAW, which does the recording. Probably just a confusion of terminology.

I'm not quite understanding what you're trying to do, but it seems like your standard 2 channel interface with 2 preamps and combo XLR/line inputs + MIDI would cover it.

You want clean and uncoloured, try what I have... RME Fireface UCX - you're just not going to get that for $200 - if that's your budget, then the standard 2 chan interfaces that everyone recommends round here (Focusrite / Presonus / Tascam) will all be just fine - quality of preamps for basic home recording is generally not a particular issue - they'll all do the job just fine.
 
The 3 units that you mentioned are all discontinued, and like Armistice mentioned they're more control surfaces with interface/digital conversion tacked on. Shop around more and look specifically for audio interfaces. There are tons around that do an admirable job for the same $400-$700 as the control surfaces that you mentioned.

Like Mike told you above, first figure out how many simultaneous channels you want to record. If it's just you on MIDI drums and a couple of other guys, 2 channels will get you off the ground. 4 channels would be nice for expanding a bit. If you plan on recording a full band (including acoustic drums), 8 channels becomes the accepted bare minimum. None of the aforementioned Focusrite (18i20), Presonus (Audiobox/Firestudio), or Tascam (US800, US1800) 8-channel interfaces leave much to be desired. Good clean preamps, solid drivers, high sample rate capabilities. In the last decade in home recording, it's rarely the preamp quality that's the weakest link in the chain.
 
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