new to recording

F

fatoni

Inspired
since its tax time ive decided to look into recording with the axe. i know next to nothing about recording and would be starting from the ground up. i was just wondering about the opinions on this forum since i would hate to make expensive mistakes. all i would need is something to record one or two tracks at a time. im torn between logic and pro tools so that makes me torn between a mac and a pc. another huge factor is that i hear good things about the apogee duet or one since i dont need anything fancy, just quality. it seems like many of the pro tools options are cheesy and then super expensive without much middle ground.

what kind of solutions are out there for a bedroom guitarist with $2000-$4000 who already has the axe fx ultra, guitars and a qsc k12? i dont want to spend it all becuase if im diligent there might be room for a suhr to add to the collection. thanks in advance guys
 
I'm a huge fan of Metric Halo interfaces. I much prefer them to Apogee. The ULN-2 is a two channel box. It has top of the line plugins, monitoring, a built in Record Panel, Mixing board and sounds sweet. Great converters and great clock.
 
Id there anything that makes that worth the price tag for someone who never plans to have his music leave his room? That would take up most if my budget
 
OK, you're going to want:

1 - The ability to record your guitar
2 - the ability to create some sort of backing track.
3 - The ability to create a decent mixdown.

There's a lot of guff about there being "differences" in the audio interfaces but unless you have really high quality monitors, high quality preamps etc, the money you spend on your interface won't make a scrap of difference. For what it sounds like you want to do, the cheaper interfaces are perfectly fine.

At the studio I run a $20,000 Pro Tools HD3 rig with multiple 192 I/O interfaces. The studio also has Rogers monitors, Neve, API and Fearn preamps, Purple, Fearn and UA compressors and a vintage Auditronics console, along with an arsenal of stupidly expensive mics and DIs.

At home I run a Focusrite 8i6 which cost me $200. It's got six inputs, phantom power and a headphone jack.

If you don't want to waste money, then spend up on the things that won't rapidly lose value (headphones, monitors, a microphone and a preamp if you think you'll ever be recording vocals or acoustic instruments).

Spend carefully on the stuff that is going to plummet in value (or even be worthless) the minute you open the package, like your software and an audio interface. (And especially a Pro Tools rig... go check on eBay for how much my $20,000 HD3 rig is currently worth).

If you don't have a computer, then I'd recommend a PC (for cost reasons) and then Cubase or Sonar (they both come with decent instrument libraries for creating backing tracks). If you really want a Mac then definitely get Logic, at $199 it has a killer instrument library.

For an interface, my personal choice would be a Focusrite as it is low cost and comes with a VERY decent mic preamp (which you will greatly appreciate the minute you want to use a microphone... which you eventually will, no matter what you currently think).
 
If you're never leaving your bedroom? It depends what you want to do. None of this is for going in the road. You MAY need mic preamps to boost the signal. You want pretty good ones or the guitar/ Axe may end up sounding tiny or thin. You may want a monitoring system so you can monitor through the interface, mix the other tracks and avoid any perceived latency. I admit the Metric Halo is expensive. But it collects all those, and more , qualities into one box, much like the Axe Fx collects amps, effects and stomp boxes into one. An initial investment that saves much money overtime.
 
Though I am quite happy with my UFX and subsequently didn't look too much into it, the Universal Audio Apollo was getting a lot of buzz and NAMM this year. Might be worth looking into. It too is a pricey unit BTW.
 
Anything good os going to be pricey. Again it all depends on what you want/need. I'm going to disagree with manning just a little. You can get by with a $200 interface but it will sound like it. At least my experience has taught me. But then again maybe cheaper interfaces and convertors have come a long way in the 2 years since I played through a couple of them.

For inexpensive I'd check out the M-Audio line. There are actually a lot of inexpensive interfaces. I can only tell you what I've used and what works best for me.
 
henryrobinett said:
An initial investment that saves much money overtime.
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this this this!!! You can 'get by' with something cheap, and that's good, if you aren't serious about it, or have absolutely no plans in the future to expand/go deeper. For eg, I have a cheap fone - all I need to make is calls, so it works for me. On the other hand, I take audio VERY seriously, and get the most applicable stuff for me that I can. This usually tends to be quite expensive tho :lol

I've learned the hard way - you buy 'the 2nd best thing' and then realize that it doesn't do what the best thing for you would have done, so you go and get the best thing - only now, that is the '2nd best thing' to the newer 'best thing' that came out at namm this year. How many times I've upgraded gear before I just said 'ok f*ck it, I'm getting the real deal' and got it, and was then completely satisfied - because instead of running in circles, I went straight out and got what was best/most suitable for ME.

However - I can agree with manning a little - most people can't hear the difference in $200 interfaces and $2000. With technology these days, the difference is becoming less and less apparent as well. However, my issue is with artifacts, jitter, alaising etc. Those things are present on lower end stuff, and it drives me NUTS!!! The quality might be quite good, but if you get into it deep, you realize that there's a REASON the good interfaces are $2000.

Look at a good eg - I've recorded stuff with a zoom H4n that at first listen - my producer buddies can't tell the difference. When they listen closely on the 2nd time, they can tell then. The quality is there with technology today, but to achieve a HIGH level of quality, you have to spend the $$$$, just like henry said.
 
jon said:
Look at a good eg - I've recorded stuff with a zoom H4n that at first listen - my producer buddies can't tell the difference. When they listen closely on the 2nd time, they can tell then. The quality is there with technology today, but to achieve a HIGH level of quality, you have to spend the $$$$, just like henry said.
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I agree completely. My point was really that there is no point spending big on an audio converter if you don't spend big on the monitoring, etc. If you don't have quality studio monitors, you'll probably not be able to tell the difference between a WAV and an MP3, let alone the interface.

For what this guy is setting out to do, spending money on the things he will hang on to long term seems like a better choice. Also to Jon's comment, in my experience audio jitter is far more likely to come from a slow hard drive than from an audio device.
 
Is there a reason you don't want to buy the Duet 2?

It does lack digital I/O, but apart from that it is probably everything you need.


Edit: Of course, Mac only... You can use it with both Logic and PT though.
 
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Lots of good advice on this thread already.

You have a lot of choices. I love my RME UFX, but that's way more than you need. I think the Metric Halo is as well, though I've heard nothing but good things about them. If you go Mac, you could get a Mac mini or the smallest Macbook Pro and a Duet 2. There are so many choices about DAW depending on what you want to do. Do a search on recording software and you'll see a ton of discussion here.

One of the things I think is to stay under budget and plan on spending some more $ in a while once you have your head around what you're really doing. DAW software is kind of like the Axe Fx. Anybody with the $ can buy one, but having bought one, figuring out what to do with them is a whole other can of worms if you don't truly know what you're doing. Any of the major DAWs are among the most complex pieces of software you'll encounter. Presonus Studio One is one of the easier DAW programs to use. Logic is amazing value in terms of what's included.

You'll probably want some form of keyboard controller if you're going to use the virtual instruments that come with almost every DAW. There are a trillion options and my $ saving advice there is buy used. There are tons of controllers on the used market and you can save a bit of $ there. Novation makes some good ones. Akai as well among others. I got a Novation SL25 for $100 and it's a great controller. Most controllers can also act as midi controllers for your DAW, so that's a good thing to. You can get away with a mouse, but physical controls are nice.

An Ipad 1 used would make a great wireless controller for your DAW which is really convenient, particular when you're operating everything yourself and playing.
 
Trazan said:
Is there a reason you don't want to buy the Duet 2?

It does lack digital I/O, but apart from that it is probably everything you need.


Edit: Of course, Mac only... You can use it with both Logic and PT though.
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the only reason i would shy away from it is that im not sure going with a mac is the most cost effective option for me. aside from that i dont know anything about any interface. well i dont know enough to make me want to shy away from anything anyways.
 
I don't think you could go wrong with

A Mac Mini > Apogee Duet2>JBL LSR 2325P 5" monitors>Reaper software. Go with Logic if you want software instruments for production. With even a decent dynamic mic (sm57) and those tools you can make recordings that will sound fantastic. Yes real pros will be able to hear the difference but to 99% of the listeners it won't make one bit of difference if it's a big budget pro tools rig or a very modest bedroom set up. What will be the most important element to your great recordings will be first and foremost song performance and arrangements, then a basic rudimentary understanding of recording principles. Great gear will do far less for you than modest gear with proper execution. Browse the internet for recording tips and tricks and most of all just experiment. Just keep experimenting and tweaking until your ears are happy. Like anything, with time and practice it's not hard.
 
in my opinion the rme ufx or the smaller ucx if you don´t need that much i/o´s are one of the best you can get for your money - they are for both platforms and they have firewire and usb - the supplied software totalmix and digicheck is very good - lots of features - really good support - last but not least you can use it as stand allone mixer - with the ufx you can make recordings on usb stick

off course they are not cheap but when you are looking at the features. . . . . . .
 
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