Recording Devices

[M4L666]

I am currently using Audacity for recording on my home mac, but what I'm doing just doesn't cut it: LOADS of noise, latency and bad quality audio. I was looking at one of these:
[url="http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails.php?ProductId=718&ParentId=110"]http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails....mp;ParentId=110[/url]
and thought "that'll be perfect!". But it's about £480 new... anything out there, like this, that is much cheaper? I would rather be able to burn CDs, but it's not a total need. I need 8 tracks, but would like more to play with. It needs to be fairly all-in-one, not too much buggering about with cables. Any suggestions? Or is this one for my birthday?

Edited May 19, 2009 by M4L666

[BigRedX]

What Mac have you got and what version of Mac OS are you running? For the kind of money your talking there you can get Logic Studio (which includes Waveburner app for making CDs) a decent audio interface, and probably still have change left over.

[bumfrog]

[quote name='M4L666' post='492632' date='May 19 2009, 07:54 PM']I am currently using Audacity for recording on my home mac, but what I'm doing just doesn't cut it: LOADS of noise, latency and bad quality audio. I was looking at one of these:
[url="http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails.php?ProductId=718&ParentId=110"]http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails....mp;ParentId=110[/url]
and thought "that'll be perfect!". But it's about £480 new... anything out there, like this, that is much cheaper? I would rather be able to burn CDs, but it's not a total need. I need 8 tracks, but would like more to play with. It needs to be fairly all-in-one, not too much buggering about with cables. Any suggestions? Or is this one for my birthday?[/quote]

basically if you want to do recording on your mac or pc you need a dedicated soundcard. Without this you will experience latency and all of the other things.

You could do a lot worse then than here [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=49503"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=49503[/url]

[maxrossell]

Yeah, if you have a good mac then software is the way to go. Logic is a good app, or you could look at one of the cut-down versions of Protools with a breakout box that will reduce your latency and noise issues to zero.

[stingrayfan]

[quote name='M4L666' post='492632' date='May 19 2009, 07:54 PM']I am currently using Audacity for recording on my home mac, but what I'm doing just doesn't cut it: LOADS of noise, latency and bad quality audio.[/quote]
You tried using Garageband? Should be included on your Mac and it's great.

Latency sounds more like a interface issue - are you using a USB interface or plugging straight into the Mac? Try a Line 6 UX1 Toneport. I use the UX2 and it works a treat.

[[al]]

[quote name='M4L666' post='492632' date='May 19 2009, 07:54 PM']I am currently using Audacity for recording on my home mac, but what I'm doing just doesn't cut it: LOADS of noise, latency and bad quality audio. I was looking at one of these:
[url="http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails.php?ProductId=718&ParentId=110"]http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails....mp;ParentId=110[/url]
and thought "that'll be perfect!". But it's about £480 new... anything out there, like this, that is much cheaper? I would rather be able to burn CDs, but it's not a total need. I need 8 tracks, but would like more to play with. It needs to be fairly all-in-one, not too much buggering about with cables. Any suggestions? Or is this one for my birthday?[/quote]

I would stay away from all in ones personally, they had a reason for existing back when home computers and laptops were never going to be able to keep up with the data rates and processing required, but these days you'd just end up crippling yourself with some obscure user interface and losing a whole bunch of flexibility, much better to go for an external audio interface and use your mac.

On the software side, have a look at Reaper: [url="http://www.reaper.fm/"]http://www.reaper.fm/[/url]
It has an indefinite trial period, and if you like it the non-commercial license is only $50 (~£30).

Also, I just picked up an Alesis MultiMix 12 Firewire ( [url="http://www.alesis.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1172/tt/5"]http://www.alesis.com/contentmgr/showdetai...hp/id/1172/tt/5[/url] ) for £120 2nd hand (they go for about £200 new I think) - it sends all 12 inputs (as well as the 2 mixdown channels) independently to the mac over firewire as 24bit @ 44.1/48KHz and seems decent enough to me.
[b]Watch out for the USB version - the old MultiMix USB will ONLY send the stereo mixdown channel to the machine[/b], but there's a newer MultiMix USB2.0 version which sends all channels like the Firewire version does.

£150 all told and I have a pretty powerful setup with 12 simultaneous recording channels.

[dr.funk]

[quote name='maxrossell' post='492981' date='May 20 2009, 09:24 AM']Yeah, if you have a good mac then software is the way to go. Logic is a good app, or you could look at one of the cut-down versions of Protools with a breakout box that will reduce your latency and noise issues to zero.[/quote]

I am not sure anything will reduce your latency and noise to zero. I think that Focusrite firewire card in the classifieds and Logic would make a pretty nice setup, I haven't used logic myself (I use a pc) but lots of friends swear by it.

For a 'free' version Reaper is well worth trying out. Also have a look at Energy XT if your on a budget.

[Pkomor]

[quote name='[al]' post='493120' date='May 20 2009, 11:29 AM']

[b]Watch out for the USB version - the old MultiMix USB will ONLY send the stereo mixdown channel to the machine[/b],[/quote]


mine only does the mix! Its soo annoying!

[skankdelvar]

Reaper (free unlimited trial / cheap to buy) + a USB audio interface (£50-150 new). Some free plug ins and maybe use your audacity to master.

Spend the rest of your budget on beer.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Garageband & an old tascam US-122 on my MacBook beats my stand-alone Boss BR-1180 HDD recorder hands down for ease of use & flexibility. Since getting into Garageband I'm more likely to fire it up than Cubase Studio 4 (& I've been using Cubase since 1990 on the Atari and pro24 before that)

[PauBass]

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='497666' date='May 25 2009, 11:29 PM']Garageband & an old tascam US-122 on my MacBook beats my stand-alone Boss BR-1180 HDD recorder hands down for ease of use & flexibility.[/quote]

+1... Exactly. Simple, easy and chap, what's else can you ask for?

If it's of any interest to you:

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=38159&hl="]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=38159&hl=[/url]

Edited May 26, 2009 by PauBass

[teej]

Curiously I can't get my head round Garageband, but use Logic Express which makes more sense to me. I'll get Logic Studio soon, it's now almost half price compared to a couple of years ago, isn't it?

I've used a Tascam US144 to record the whole band live in stereo ('room' recording with 2 mics - a pair of matched Rode NT5s), or a Presonus Firepod (gives me 8 xlr inputs, and feeds them to my Powerbook as separate channels) for close-mic'ing.

The Firepod has better mic preamps and has given us some great results, but the live tracks recorded on the cheaper, lower quality Tascam have come out superbly too: we took some time positioning the band relative to the mics to create the stereo image and get the correct levels, and just went for the take.

We released the result as a CD (Walking After Midnight) which we sell for £10: 'Blues Matters' magazine just reviewed it, saying that it '...opens with a sublime version of Mississippi Fred McDowell's A Few Short Lines.' And that was one of the Tascam recordings.