old school new school recording

Whats up mpc world i would like to know what is everybody recording into these days and what is least expensive but sounds good? I want to buy some recording gear and i dont know if i should go desktop or laptop or forget pc all together and go for a 16trk recorder i would love some feed back from more experience music makers to help me out in my decision

Hey!
It all depends what YOU want. The size of room your dealing with...the type of gear you already have...How exp you are with recording already... How much power you need for plug-ins etc....And first and foremost...how much you want to $pend!!

There's a millionx10 options for recording these days as I'm sure your aware of. I know people that use both hardware recorders and Computer systems(although hardware D.a.w's ARE COMPUTERS TOO!)lol...just slower older ones with less ram....

If you use PC, I'd recommend my own set up to you. I use a custom built pc W/ 3.2 GHZ iNTEL CORE2DUO Processor w/4 gigs of ram. 1333 frontside Bus etc with over 2 TB of hard drive space split bettween external and onboard drives(ALWAYS HAVE BACKUPS OF YOUR BACKUPS!)...The machine is built for either heavy gaming(minus the fancy videocard)or for music...In my case it was built as my Studio PC. All it is used for is Music. No Internet, Porn, downloading..none of that.

For the Recording software I use the Digidesign 003 Rackmount version of Pro tools. I started with pro tools 6LE and still use 7.4LE(software) although its already at 8.4 or something. I haven't upgraded yet, but if you buy Pro tools now it will come with 8 or newer. Other than that i use a Dbx386 vacuum tube Pre-amp and a focusrite Octepre for outboard pre's witch everything runs through before hitting the 003 via S-DIF....I'm not knocking the 003 pre-amps as their decent, but the sound of real tubes Vs digital is a lot different if your picky about sound as i am.

You Don't have to go all out and get Pro tools HD either, you don't even need the 003 i have(LE) You can get a Basic Pro tools rig these days for $300? maybe $400? with the M-box family of mini hardware...You will just have less ins and less knobs and buttons to worry about. I started with the original m-box and it worked fine but got annoying when trying to record bigger projects cause you have to record everything in step...So not so fun for recording a band or something like that. But if your just recording beats and a rapper for example...that's the way to go IMO anyway.... for Pc you can also use Cubase, Cool Edit, Sonar, man theres lots of different recording software...

If your on a Mac, Id say try Logic out. Its a great program and some days makes me want to buy a mac. But I'm happy with my rig the way it is and changing Os's isn't one of my favorite things to do. Although you have the Protools option with Mac as well....

If your gonna go hardware just look around for something with sufficent ram...Like the Vs-2480 is dope. I started out using the Roland Vs-880(16 bit digital) and then the VS890(24 bit digital) and honestly i would never go back to those dinosaur machines after living in pro tools land..haha. But yea bigger more expensive digital recorders like the 2480 are sturdy and great peices of equipment...and you can hook a computer screen up to them so you dont have to go blind staring at the little lcd screen..lol...the r16 by zoom(i think) is a pretty cool digital recorder as well..its newer and i haven't actually used it but ive heard good things about it...

Anyway just hit up your local gear shop and tell them what you want to do and check some stuff out. Theres something for everyone in every price range and obviously the more you spend and the better the pre-amps, mics etc the better your sound will be. For mic's, Id recommend anything by neuman (TLM102 or 103)...Akg C214, C414, c1000, etc. Audio techniqua 4050... Rhode Ntk, Nt1a...Mics are a big thing in getting a good sound as well...those are all around the $500- $1500 range, you can get way better but these will all do the job...and do it well with the right Pre-amp paired...

I could type another 15 paragraphs about this topic but ill stop here...if you start looking and have any other questions feel to drop em here and ill answer anything the best I can...

you can check out my new album here... http://ariesmusic.bandcamp.com/ <--90% of this material was recorded and mixed in my studio i typed about at the start of this post. Then Mastered by Deeskee in Los Angeles California. Check it out...

Good luck in your search and shopping.

Hey thanks so much for all the information you dropped more knowledge then Chuck d lol wow you really know a lot about gear. Really appreciate it and man i still don't know witch route to take but leaning more towards the pro tools just to keep up with technology but wondering is the sound better coming out of the hardware because i am like you big on sound. I have used cubase and i do like the work flow on that program i may look into that. Im going to tell you all i have right now is my blue mcd mpc2000xl and my music on flashcards no 8 outs so let me ask you is it possible at all to link your mp to a laptop with out getting these 8 outs to record your beats?

richieb wrote: is it possible at all to link your mp to a laptop with out getting these 8 outs to record your beats?

Yea man, its simple. Depending on your laptop..but most will have the 1/8 headphone/mic jack. just go out of your stereo outs on the mp into the mic/line input on the laptop you'll need the dual 1/4 to 1/8 cord...or dual 1/4 to 1/4 with the 1/4 to 1/8 adapter.... obviously you have to have some sort of software to record the sound tho on your laptop...(cool edit is easy to use and free) or if you have cubase use that....set tha program to run off your on board sound card...and then it should work. Its tedious tho tracking everything track by track. Ive been doing it for years. I bought the 8 outs card for my 2kxl an have never been able to figure out how to use it properly..LOL. Also remember when your tracking off the mp to track in mono into the program, you don't want to end up with a bunch of stereo tracks to mix....mix the mono tracks thru a stereo bus or "master fader"...I do everything in L Mono on the mpc so i never have to worry about this....

As for sound quality...I'd stick with a computer hardware interface over the digital recorder's just based on efx and aftermarket plugins that can be used with the softwares. But the sound that comes out of anything is only gonna be as good as the sound going in...the most important part of recording is getting that good signal from the get go....

Hey thanks again for the replies and that sounds good because i am really trying to avoid the eight outs i already put in the ram myself and just afraid to damage the machine. So i don't need a scis cable i guess i didn't hear you mention that. Well thanx again your mix sounds real nice.

richieb wrote:Hey thanks again for the replies and that sounds good because i am really trying to avoid the eight outs i already put in the ram myself and just afraid to damage the machine. So i don't need a scis cable i guess i didn't hear you mention that. Well thanx again your mix sounds real nice.

At the same time you don't wanna be recording and making music with your laptop sound card unless you buy a proper sound card to use for music with your laptop. those exist too, but id highly recommend getting one of the small versions of pro tools if your gonna keep it simple like that. the m-box would be perfect. And WOW...i just went to grab this link for you to check out and found that they just released the new style of m-box as well? their weird looking now...lol. but here's the link.. check it out...prolly your best option for a semi pro sound.

Cool again but i didn't get the link on that new mbox and what brand of sound card do you recommend and do you think a 3g laptop would be fine?

richieb wrote:Cool again but i didn't get the link on that new mbox and what brand of sound card do you recommend and do you think a 3g laptop would be fine?

what is a 3g laptop?


that is some sound advice aries... I agree with him about going the computer/interface route over the hard disk recorders...

hey guys sorry that was a typo what i meant 3gb memory laptop enough to run a decent software program and say 250hd gb

richieb wrote:hey guys sorry that was a typo what i meant 3gb memory laptop enough to run a decent software program and say 250hd gb

what processor do you have?

HAHAHA..sorry i forgot to post the link...lol..

these are the new m-box's... http://www.avid.com/US/products/family/ ... box-Family

But I'm sure if you go to your local music store they will prolly still have the original m-box's for sale as well. or you could prolly find one online for cheap...just make sure you buyng the hardware and the software cause pro tools cant be hacked or pirated really...it needs the hardware to operate. You basically use it as your soundcard(by connecting it to your laptop via usb) then go into your sound options and switch it to "m-box" from whutever its set to...it should show up in your sound options once its plugged in and drivers are installed...

As for laptop speed, as long you got a 2 ghz processor or better you should be fine..with at least 2 gigs of ram....And that's still not even close to a really good laptop. But it will work for basic recording's and will allow you to use some plugins without problems...anything slower than that wouldn't be a good idea. As for harddrive space..I kinda live by the saying "you can never have enough"...its always a good idea to buy a external harddrive to keep backups of your stuff...In my studio i have 1 tb (1000 gigs) in my computer. Then a external 1tb as well as a 500 gig external. I mean i record for people and go through hundreds of wav files a week so i need lots of space...you can run pro tools and whatever else with a 80 gig harddrive tho...the hard drive size doesn't matter really but id recommend using your 250 in your laptop wisely and getting an external as well at least 250 gigs just to back everything up. Ive lost whole computer systems in the past and its not funny. That's my reason for having over 2TB of space. I bought my 1Tb external from walmart of all places...its made by seagate....I basically backup my whole studio system on it all at once 5 times a week or after every session is complete...that way if my system ever crashes i still have everything and only have to re install my O.s then reload everything.

Nice i will mos def look into that in the near future to back up everything. Thanks for that link again checked them out black and gray nice but expensive if the old ones are cheaper will just go with the older ones