How do you record your music at home? I am thinking of either buying a new lap top to record - or a digital multi track recorder. I have used both in the past. But find myself needing to upgrade. What does every one here use?

Hey,

I have recorded to DAT.. Cassette and Digital multitrackers.. I had a Boss BR-8 digital multitrack unit that was pretty nice at the time - it recorded to ZIP disks.. talk about a blast from the not so distant past. I think I am steering again towards Boss Multitrack products, based on past experience.

Tascam MF-P01 old school tape recorder for a riff idea.
Load it up into Cubase for a demo and mess with the mastering in there. I used to run directly into Kristal (freeware recording software) until I got ahold of Pro-Tools and Cubase.

Without question Cubase is the way to go... I want to check into the Peavey Revalver III software they have out that looks fun. I see Vox just came out with something similar, but you can use a line out that runs what looks like a Pre-Amp that you can run into either a monitor set-up or amplifier.

When we're at rehearsal we record with a Boss digital 4-track. Those lil handy field recorders. It works superb! Atleast for demo purposes. But for live recordings at practice.... not a bad way to go!!

For serious recordings we mic our amps or run a line out from the amp or pedal board directly into the mixer and record that way. And we use a digital 8 track Tascam that has a mixer and eq built in. Thats pretty nice but we havent quite mastered it yet. Then we can take the raw files right into Cubase or Pro Tools.

Knarle Tide

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When working alone - Garageband on the Apple Mac. I think it's the most musical and intuitive recording software there is. When I used PCs I used to use Sonar, which is also good and has more high level functions than Garageband - but I don't think it's as inspiring.

In my studio I have the Korg D888 Hard-Drive recorder and when I record a band, I record live onto that then transfer the tracks into Garageband for overdubs and mixing. It's all structured to be as straightforward as possible because I dislike engineering sessions when I am also playing - the last thing you want to be doing is going through multi parameter-menus when you have a whole band standing around and you also have a guitar round your neck.

To that end, the D888 is the most menu-free and no-nonsense hdd recorder ever made, being fundamentally a live mixer that records each channel onto its own track, which are then quickly transfered over USB2. I can hardly stress enough how glad I am that I chose it.

I have a more conventional Tascam hddr as well, but although it has great features, it's as fiddly as hell and is horrible to use it in a band situation in comparison to the Korg.

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Youth and enthusiasm are no match for age and treachery.

I use Cubase 4 for production and Wavelab 6 for mastering, on a PC with a Delta 1010 and Delta 66 soundcards, 2 UAD PCI cards, a bunch of great UAD plugins, and a variety of cheap mics (Oktava, Apex, etc) & preamps (DMP3, ART MPA, etc).

The biggest limitations are the room, which is an L-shaped, low-ceiling, partially finished basement, and my own abilities, which apart from what I gleaned from a few books & artilces, are largely based on trial & error.

Still, it's tons of fun, and I can get some decent results with a bit of care and perseverance.

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cubase SX with a delta44 soundcard (24bit) and some shure sm57

I do the mastering directly on cubase with Waves C4 in (almost) full overload ... it rocks !!!

Docteur Legume Et Les Surfwerks

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"We're gonna draw a little bit of everybody's blood 'cause we're gonna find out who's THE THING"

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The TakeOffs
"Kauai's Only All-Instrumental Surf Band"
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-TakeOffs/312866840587

I'm a GarageBand user also.

>

Garageband is great!
I use it to record demos of new songs. It's so easy to use it's sick!

Paul
Atomic Mosquitos
Bug music for bug people is here!
Killers from Space

I use the original Mbox. A "friend" gave it to me with the Pro Tools LE version 5.2 which didn't work with my Mac so i had to get an upgrade to version 7 in order to use it. It cost me $100 for the upgrade and just when i was starting to get it wired...the guy came and said he wanted it back!! I gave it back to him and used the input on the Mac which is not such a good idea because it's not really made to use like that...i mean it's just a cheap input mini plug. I started using my Mackie mixer for input and just left it hooked up to the mini input on the Mac figuring that if i just left it hooked up i wouldn't be using it all that much and it might last longer. Well, a year goes by and i call the guy back up...."well, are you using the Mbox?" Turns out he wasn't so i offered him $100 for it and he sold it to me!! Now i leave the Mbox hooked up to the input of my Mac. The output is routed thru the Mackie to my monitor speakers. So my mixer and amp have to be on in order to record music or hear music but i'm OK with that.

The TakeOffs
"Kauai's Only All-Instrumental Surf Band"
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-TakeOffs/312866840587