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I realise most home studio owners would recommend a Mac or PC solution, but i have been intrigued by retrofitting our bands practice area with a DAW to use for song writing/demo purposes - and where applicable, live mixing.
I realise there will be alot of opinions, but say i had a 2000 budget, what would be my best options? (preowned) Our band is an eclectic rock band with vocals, guitar, piano and cello - and we are fussy about recording and mixing quality.
Are there any giant killers out there?
Warmest regards.
G
Follow Ups:
One of the things I do for a living is to make and sell DAW computers. There are some inexpensive standalone digital recorders and they are quite affordable but they don't perform as well as a DAW and they are built cheaply. I can attest to that personally. If you use a modern computer, a stable piece of software (I use one called Sonar 7 from Cakewalk) and an interface with the inputs and features you need you should be set for about anything. I've owned some Portastudios in my day and I would never own another one. Honestly. Stick with the computer. Everybody else does and for good reason.
The latest MAC is a nice machine but not cheap.
A key question you need to answer first is what is the resolution or bit depth you plan on recording in?
If its CD quality only, then you are not going to task the hardware; Even an older P4 single procesor machine will work. There are tons of software packages out there for not a lot of money.
If you are going to be recording everything in ultra hi res, 24 bit 176.4 or 192 khz sampling, then you need a really powerful workstation, or high performance MAC. In either case, buy plenty of HD space, I'd say a pair of 500 gig drives as a minimum.
For PC based machines, the HP xw6400 with twin processors would be a nice fit.
If you are going to use an old machine, you had better make sure that a new software program and it's compatible plug ins are compatible. Most new programs are not backward compatible in every aspect. Some programs that are run slower for obvious reasons.
Recording 16/24 bit @ any of the various sample rates has little factor in what computer you should choose, especially since SAW and Reaper are written so efficiently.
Macs are no more expensive than comparable PCs. In fact, when you add what you get on the mac in function, they are often cheaper. They do many things out of the box that PCs will not do without adding software.
This guy wants an all in one solution. I don't see how he is going to get it to work for live mixing. But oh well.
The problem is that you are saying "DAW" A DAW IS a PC or Mac hosted solution. An all-in-one solution in your price range is typically called a "porta-studio". That term is derived from the original Tascam Porta-Studio machines, which used cassette and open reel tapes. Those evolved to hard drive recorders. Roland had probably the most popular versions, as they allowed for a CRT to be connected, simple editing, etc. There are some like this around now, but it is almost cheaper to buy a cheap PC, buy Reaper or some other share-ware program and go for it.
So, when you ask for cheap DAWs and you get comments about DAWs and hardware interfaces for DAWs, that is the reason why. You should be asking for Porta-Studios.
DAW=Digital Audio Workstation.
That is software as well as stand alone hardware.
Although bearing in mind that a lot of nicknames like porta-studio, HD-recorder, HD-mixer etc. are around when you search is a good idea.
"dolph"
I have recorded my bands using a Presonus FirePod plus various mics. This is connected via Firewire to a Dell laptop running WinXP and using Cubase to capture the tracks. This is an 8 analog channel input outboard audio interface to either a Mac or PC. I started with the 2-input version from M-audio. I could not get quality recordings of my bands using that approach. Of course, this meant that I had to purchase 8 mics, which is where much of the cost went.
This all involved single takes using all 8 of the mic inputs with the band in a rehearsal room - not a studio. I've also made live recordings with this setup as well, however. The resulting mixdown - again with Cubase - have been quite acceptable for demo and compilation CDs.
Almost all DAW concepts are the same and much as the old analog mixing boards. Various implementations such as ProTools, Cubase, Garage Band, etc, means you likely need to just pick one and hang with it to learn how it works and to get your work done.
Since Presonus requires a PC or a Mac, you will need to plan on spending some time learning how to get the audio interface fully integrated into the PC/Mac and know how to handle the system administration aspects to ensure there are no dropouts or clicks when laying down the tracks.
There are plenty of forums on the Internet for you to learn more about this hobby. I can tell you one thing, though: Do not attempt to run the recording while attempting to play with the band at the same time. You don't have enough time to do both well.
As for costing, I have about $2K or so, not counting mic stands or the Laptop, invested and I've been quite happy with the whole rig. BTW, just so you know my requirements, my band does 3-horn old-school jazz with piano, bass and drums. All analog and all live recordings - no overdubbing or tracking. No compression on any channel during recording, either. We play....the recorder records onto 8 tracks and then I mix down later.
Cheers,
David
Im researching the Tascam SX1 LE right now and it sounds fantastic. The only problem is i'm having troule locating any for sale. I reside in Canada, close to Toronto so if anybody knows someone selling this unit, i'd be happy for a referal.
G.
The SX1 was a turd to sell. When it was conceived, it seemed like a good deal. Then other manufacturers and technological advancements beat it to death when it finally came to market. There weren't that many that actually made it. Full Compass was blowing them out for 25% of the retail to get rid of them.
If you are going to use your DAW for live use, same computer, cards and all, there is only one option. SAWStudio and SAC. Bob has it down and it cannot be beaten for multi-purpose applications. www.sawstudio.com
There are many arguments about this, but THE most widely used in professional applications is Pro Tools. PT8 was just anounced. Check it out on Digidesign's site, www.digidesign.com. There are more PT systems sold and in use world wide than all others combined everal times over. But, PT isn't really set up to be a live mixer, although I have done several times while recording live. I have PT HD.
If I were starting out, and was used to hardware, and knew the basics of audio, I would start with SAW and SAC.
Thanks for this information. I perused this site, but i'm not entiredly sure that it's what i'm looking for? This appears to be a computer based DAW and what i was thinking about was a hardware based machine. My idea was to dump PC's.
I'm also not entirely sure what i need for this program. Is it a software mixer, recording package? What control surfaces and other devices do you need. I'm not an experienced Pc guy. I'm coming at this from the direction of a Roland digital four track. A roomate i used to live with had Cubase and a digital mixer - but i didn't gel with that setup. It was a bit to exhasting to configure and troubleshoot etc..
I was thinking more along the lines of some of the glut of discared DAW's from Roland or Yamaha/Korg that seem to have been abandoned by people replacing them with PC solutions.
However this software does look intriguing, especially with all the video tutorials. What all would i need to buy to run it?
Thanks..
You aren't going to find anything but PC and Mac based solutions. Those are the industry standard things. All of those all in one types of systems did not sell well because they were closed-ended, and used out of date technology by the time they hit the market, using repackaged PCs with trimmed down older versions of Windows or Linux OS's. They are not usually easily updated, because of their drivers, etc.There are systems made by Fairlight, which are all in one systems, but you are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars for those, and they would be WAY more than you could handle/use.
Edits: 10/04/08
I have been reading this post and can't help but jump into the fray.
IMHO you could do an admirable job ( 16bit 48k, 16 channels in, live 16 ch mixing,mixdown w/fx-compression-and 4band parametric eq )using a Yamaha AW4416 DAW with an 8 channel input card and an 8 ch mic preamp.
Unfortunately I just sold my AW to a friend. My business partner and I had used that system extensively on live recording FOH mixing jobs and I can't think of a single time it failed. I am NOT employed by Yamaha.
You should be able to find the AW used for sub-1k. The MY audio cards for sub-250.00, and Presonus makes a respectable 8 ch pre for $400-600.
Understand, I am not opposed to CPU based DAW systems, ( we use a Motu/Cubase rig currently). I am simply relaying my experience with a system that well handled the job/s you require.
Tone,
Our "other" rig sounds much better!!
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