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Post by rocknrolla on Mar 30, 2012 17:17:22 GMT -5
Hi guys! My band has started "preproduction" on our first few songs and have decided to pool our money together and build a studio in my basement. I need help deciding on which route to take on the actual recording though. I am torn between buying a stand alone unit like the Zoom R16 or using a laptop with some kind of USB interface. Ultimately the tracks will end up on my desktop where we will do all the mixing and such. So what say ye? Zoom R16 pros, Portable: I can take it to gigs or to others' places to record song ideas. It has on board stereo mics for on the fly recording and recording rehearsals. It has on board amp models so I can plug my guitar straight in for late night recording (The Nitro WILL be properly mic'd for the real recordings  ) Laptop pros, I can record with any software I choose. That's about all I can think of right now.  What's the best route for the beginner home engineer? |
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Post by angusdeadking on Mar 31, 2012 4:20:01 GMT -5
Hey man, I am interested in studio-buildery as well! Currently, we have a Presonus firewire interface that allows 8 simultaneous tracks to be recorded. We have used this with Audition software for quite some time and have produced around 10 albums from different bands (most on our own "Mystery School Records") with the setup. Easy to use and pretty good sound for the money. The firewire seems to work fast and the built-in preamps are pretty decent. We used a large Behringer board before that and the quality just wasnt there. Also have a couple digital all-in-one recorders that also do ok but dont record as many tracks at once (the r16 does 8 at once i believe) so, they get used for demo purposes mostly. My new issue is what to get next to upgrade our studio. Do I go to outboard preamps/compressors? Or do I need an actual desk unit before I start messing with such things?? Good luck Rolla! May your tone-capture quest be fruitful!
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Post by rocknrolla on Mar 31, 2012 11:10:21 GMT -5
Thanks man! That's the same wall I'm hitting right now. Which direction to go and how far am I going. I can probably make good use of the R16 and invest the rest in good mics and room treatments. If I start buying external pre's and compressors I may never emerge from that rabbit hole. Haha.
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Post by angusdeadking on Mar 31, 2012 12:25:05 GMT -5
The last thing I want to do is pay a fortune...for anything! I see cool stuff on craigslist all the time or pretty reasonable prices. I just dont know if that stuff will work in conjunction with the presonus unit...I think some reading on my part is in order..
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Post by rocknrolla on Mar 31, 2012 14:29:16 GMT -5
Yes. Read everything you can. There are lots of really great sites that have good advice for the home studio noob. I could see how having one really good tube mic pre would be an advantage. Especially if you could find a two input stereo unit. I'm not good enough with compressors yet to be able to take advantage of a high quality stand alone unit. I normally just use the software's compression on the recorded tracks.
So far I have one semi treated room that is 12x10 for vox and guitar cab recording and a 14x18 open room for drums and bass cab recording. I'm going to be really cool and put a coupe of wall jacks in with XLR connectors so I can seal off the room when recording.
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Post by cecilbag on Apr 3, 2012 0:53:09 GMT -5
I was always a user of all in one studios (roland vs840, boss br16, etc.) but our bass player uses cubase and a computer and I've converted. Depending on software you go with they are close in price with a daw but the speed of the software and the ability to take tracks and run it through rented high end gear or just emailing it back and forth is just the tip of the iceberg. The flexibility of software recording is really the way to go with if you can swing it. Buy a year end closeout of the previous version and save huge.
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Post by snappinnecks on Apr 3, 2012 9:14:26 GMT -5
www.darkbluestudio.webs.com is the site for my studio. I went from a Boss BR1200 to a proficient Pro Tools operator/engineer/producer. After years of recording I have found that your interface/preamps and the computer is key. My current set up is an M-Audio Profire 26X26 into a Mac Pro desktop Quad core with 9 gigs of RAM and two OZ SSD drives. One for the Lion OS and the other I track to. The read write speed on a Mac with SSD drives is unreal. No latency even with inserts and plug ins on 24 tracks. No tracking error or buffer issues. Those will piss you off! I have outboard preamps etc I use also. I just depends on the band or artist I'm tracking. Mixing boards are great, but aside from spending 5k plus on one you are usually better off just using the interface mixer. You do all your equing/compression/gating etc post record anyway. To be honest keeping things simple makes tracking go a lot smoother with inexperienced musicians. Less bells and whistles and add the necessary magic during the mix-mastering session. Mix-mastering is where the real mojo is needed. Just remember you can polish a turd, but at the end of the day it is still crap. Crap in crap out. My motto is "right and tight". Everything else is just fluff and polish. ;D
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Post by rocknrolla on Apr 3, 2012 12:08:25 GMT -5
Thanks for the info. I think a hot rod desk top with Pro Tools and all the interface/preamp hardware is more than my budget will allow right now but it is what I will shoot for in the coming years. I still need a lot of basic stuff like a decent drum mic set and better instrument mics.
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Post by snappinnecks on Apr 3, 2012 14:05:17 GMT -5
Thanks for the info. I think a hot rod desk top with Pro Tools and all the interface/preamp hardware is more than my budget will allow right now but it is what I will shoot for in the coming years. I still need a lot of basic stuff like a decent drum mic set and better instrument mics. For drum mics I use all Audix. I've used mixes of Shure, AKG, Senheiser, and Rhode. The Audix set has the best overall sound to my ears. The kick mic is incredible. For guitars a combo of a E609 and SM57 double tracked and placed in the sweet spots on the speaker cone sounds huge. Pointing the mics toward the center of the batter heads on toms and snares will give you good snap and tone as long as the drums are tuned pretty dry and not boomy. |
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Post by rocknrolla on Apr 3, 2012 15:20:06 GMT -5
Thanks. That's funny man. I've actually decided on that exact guitar mic combo also.
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Post by cecilbag on Apr 4, 2012 0:31:55 GMT -5
The Audix kick mic is insane. Our other guitarist installs church systems, high end home sound, etc. and he brought it out for our gig. The drummer ordered one monday morning lol.
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Post by snappinnecks on Apr 4, 2012 7:36:41 GMT -5
Thanks. That's funny man. I've actually decided on that exact guitar mic combo also. If you check my blog on the site I will periodically post some tips and tricks to get good sounds and tone. Love the 57-609 combo just watch out for phasing issues depending on your interface or preamp. Double track the combo meaning 4 tracks total for one guitar rhythm take, pan two 64-65 ticks left two 64-65 ticks right then expand two tracks and nudge them a fraction of a milisecond. Do two different Eq settings to taste for each different mic. Then gather the track back up into readable form and boom. Super fat chewy Splawn tone with heavy weight sack. |
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Post by snappinnecks on Apr 4, 2012 8:03:18 GMT -5
The Audix kick mic is insane. Our other guitarist installs church systems, high end home sound, etc. and he brought it out for our gig. The drummer ordered one monday morning lol. Yep it is a diamond in the rough. I tested the AKG D112, Shure Beta 52 and PG 52, and the Audix D6. All on the same song with the same drummer (Me). The Audix had that tight snappy tone you want when mixing. Dont get me wrong though. All of the mics performed awesome, but the Audix stood above them just a tad. I actually use the Audix DP7 complete set and get awesome results. |
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Post by speedemon on Apr 4, 2012 19:06:51 GMT -5
Good tips from snappinnecks!
How new are you to recording? I am still on training wheels and get a lot of use out of my Line 6 stuff eg. city apt. night recording. Pro Tools is industry standard = lots of room to grow, but is picky about the computer. An MBox kit is not expensive if you have an ace computer already. You can get an SM57 and 58 out of the classifieds for cheap easily, they will take you a long way. There are some pretty good audio editors out there for free that work fine with Windows, they are just not super powerful.
Have fun and good luck!
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Post by rocknrolla on Apr 5, 2012 9:44:00 GMT -5
I'm pretty new. I have recorded some guitar stuff both direct and mic'd and I'm trying my hand at vox now. I started out with Audacity. It's a free recording software that is actually really good (considering that it's free) and some crappy no name mic that I had lying around. I figured out that trick with the time shift accidentally a while ago when I was cut and pasting some riff ideas. Haha
My computer isn't anything special and I don't have the $ for Pro Tools yet so I was thinking about buying the consumer license for Reaper to get me going on the mixing/mastering and I'm still leaning towards the R16 as an economic solution for a do all interface, field recorder, etc.
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