best method of recording into mbox/protools etc

LarryB wrote:my main issue was not wanting to have to line things up by hearing/zooming in on it etc, when the mpc has it exactly how i want it to, even a milisecond would bother me, not because i could or couldnt hear it, but more so because i know it would potentially occur.. haha as stupid as that may sound.

Yes it is stupid.

What you need to realise is that the average DAW is a million times more powerful than any MPC in practically every department, whether it be chopping, sound design, arranging or effects processing and mastering. If you've got a reasonable grasp of the MPC then you should dedicate a bit of time to really study how Pro Tools works and what creative benefits it brings to your sound.

I'm not criticising Simon's working method one bit, but I get the impression that he's using his DAW as a glorified multitrack tape deck. That's cool, but I've had countless scenarios where I've had to dig in and start re-chopping up stems to alter the arrangement. If you don't have a firm grasp of how to bring your sounds into time then you're screwed. I'm talking simple hands-on practical know-how... not "I tried it and it doesn't really work". That's nonsense.

There's also a handful of plugins that still don't play that nicely with plugin delay compensation, so you've got the choice to either mix it down and realign it, or realign it while the plugin is active.

All essential skills my friend.

All Coz's point are dead on and worthy of consideration.

Every modern DAW has some method to affect/fix recorded audio's timing to millisecond level. Only the styles and implementations differ. And like he mentioned none of the necessary skills you'll need to learn in any DAW to use these tools/functions are particularly hard. Just takes some practice and committing it to memory so you develop a situational awareness to know what is the easiest way to fix any minor problems that arise using your DAW of choice.

I think a multiple input audio interface and some time spent learning PT or whatever DAW you choose and you'll be fine.

Metatron72 wrote:Just takes some practice and committing it to memory so you develop a situational awareness to know what is the easiest way to fix any minor problems that arise using your DAW of choice.

And there will ALWAYS be problems that arise with every damn track you work on!

Metatron72 wrote:I think a multiple input audio interface and some time spent learning PT or whatever DAW you choose and you'll be fine.

That's the one.

my ninjas.

i just skimmed through a couple pages of this, so i dont really know if you sorted all this stuff out yet, but alternatively, if you really are worried about your stuff lining up when recording ect. you can just do this:

you can just sample each track as a new .wav file (assuming your using a 1k or 2500) on your mpc in song mode.

so you make your beat like you always would, then go into song mode, and arrange your beat out. after you do this, go to all your different sequences, and solo each instrument, (ie solo each snare for every different sequence) then go to song mode and say "mixdown." just keep doing this for all the separate instruments and pretty soon youll have your whole song tracked out.
keep in mind its gonna store all this data in your ram though, so after you do an instrument or two, you might run out of recording time, so your gonna have to save each multitrack as a seprate .wav file in a folder and delte it from your project before you record the next instrument.
i organize my multitrack folders like this
<mpc multitracks>
(beat 1-tempo)
(beat 2-tempo)
(beat 3- tempo)
ect ect.

and within each beat folder, save each seprate multitrack for that beat.

essentially waht you'll be doing is saving a whole song, of 1 sound each, then at the end youll have all your instruments multitracked out, and you can drag and drop them right into your computer via usb.

i always save the tempo in the beat multitrack name, so when you go to drag that folder to your computer, you just open it up and you can set the tempo without having to load the beat up on your mpc again.

you can also cut the time off if you have a lot of repeating sections, but i like to just record the song strait through so i dont have to do any more arrangement in the daw after the fact. some people dont have the 128mb RAM upgrade and do it the other way though.

hope this helps.