home studio recording?

[Chaiyz]

Could someone point me to a good reference to explain how people create music on home studios? I know that you can now use a computer but I'm considering delving into analog recording to get started, once I understand that, I'd be better suited to jump directly into digital. So, anyone know of a good reference site or can anyone explain say recording on a simple 4 track?

Chaiyz

[zappatude]

I use an old, all tube, two channel four track reel to reel. I can only record two tracks simultaniously but I can do four tracks total. I have another reel to reel that runs the same speeds, so I can bounce tracks from one machine to the other. If your interested I could go into details about these machines and how I use them. I really wouldn't recommend hunting down a couple of reel to reel machines. If I was just starting I would check out a Tascam multi track cassette recorder. I would think that Tascam has a web site with plenty of info. I would also add that if you get into using Cakewalk on your computer(I use pro audio 9) get a copy of the book Cakewalk Power by Scott R. Garrigus.

[JerBear]

It's just my opinion but after spending several months in a studio and have some modest stuff here at home to record with I have been looking a lot about some gear to do most of the stuff myself in the near future. I think for the money and with the quality of some of the software and hardware available today your best bet would be to go digital righ up front. I have sound forge and Acid software for the computer but I am about to buy Qbase and pick up one of those 12 track hard disk recorders. With the software and this rig you can amost get the sound as good as any of the medium priced studios. Then you could do a heck of a lot that you would normally pay for. Just take som cut disk to a studio when you have other stuff to put on. If you already have a good computer for a few thousand dollars yoiu could have a decent way to make quality recordings. Then you could slowly build on the extra effects and patches and stuff like that.

[Chaiyz]

I really appreciate this input. The reason I'm trying to learn analog is because I'd imagine that it's baby steps compared to digital. I'm not the quickest to pick up new things and just thought with recording that I'd start with a cheap 4 track and learn from there. I own Mac's so cakewalk is not possible (as far as I know) and protools is quite an investment with hardware and software.
I'm assuming that recording requires technique and that's why I'm thinking analog, to get used to recording. If anyone knows of a decent setup for a Mac, that would also help me out. I've got a pretty nice set of mac's.
Thanks for the input though and if you'd want to explain how you record on those reel to reel's, I'm sure it'd help me out later on.

Chaiyz

[StoneDragon]

Check out homerecording.com (http://www.homerecording.com/).

[Chaiyz]

That's so funny Stone, I just found that site an hour ago. It's great. I've got alot to learn.

Chaiyz

[Retro]

I think a digital setup might be easier to work with. Editing is much easier (and more powerful) than with analog, which translates to being able to piece together a good final product much easier. From my experience, piecing together (punch ins, cut and paste, sound with sound, etc.) is a big part of getting the results you want.

[dacster]

digital, especially if you can't afford a whole lot. If you have a pc with a decent sound card N track or guitar tracks will get you running for less than 100.00 not studio quality but still clean and good and easy to use.

[Martin Man]

I was in the same boat a couple of months ago, so I decided to go the cheap way to figure it out. I bought a Tascam MF-P01 for $99 (at any good Music store like Mars Music or http://www.musiciansfriend.com).

Anyway, its a 4 track analog cassette tape recorder with balance control, fade in/out, Master Input control. Its a simple and effective way to get into recording cheap. I have had a blast with it...recording my rhythm tracks, then adding a fingerstyle track, then adding one or two lead tracks and/or a vocal track. It really works great, but here are the drawbacks:

1- only one input at a time. You can't, for example, play and sing at the same time or have you and a pal play at the same time because there is only one mic/line input.

2- you have to mix down the four tracks to 2 tracks if you want to play your recording on a car or home cassette player, and when you mix down, you create a second generation recording and the quality goes way down. However, you can listen to the 4 track output using headphones or computer type speakers (w/ 1/8" connections)plugged directly into the recorder or you can connect the output to the input of a stereo system. You cannot take out the cassette that you recorded on and put it in a cassette player and listen to all four tracks. The reason for this is that a normal cassette player only plays two tracks in one direction and two tracks in the other direction. The 4 track recorder records on all 4 tracks (one at a time, obviously) but you can't play all 4 tracks back on a normal cassette player.

I find this to be a problem because I eventually want to record to CD so I can listen on my car CD or convert to MP3 files or other digital files. I a thinking about purchasing a CD burner ($200 is the cheapest I've found) and burn a CD from the analog tape. The CD will have the same quality as the original tape (without loosing quality of recording analog from analog.

The next step up that I've found is the Boss BR-532 $399) http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/en/BR-532/index.html . Its a nice unit but the only problem I see with this one is it records on smart card and you still have to burn a CD. If you buy a unit that burns it's own CD, you get into the thousands of dollars.

I haven't educated myself about computer based recording systems, but I think there are some pretty good systems out there that you can use your home computer to do some recording, but I'm not sure.

Hope this helps. email me if you'd like some additional info.

Thom (Martin Man)

[Pendito]

Get a small 4 or 6 channel mixer, and an analoque recorder (like the tascam above). Then you can do up to 6 line/mic inputs per track. You can play later with digital when you have your style down.

Home recording, like studio recording, is mostly about technique. Become a Producer first before you become a Sound Engineer. Learn first to get your sound right, learn first to get your mixes sounding pro, before you delve into the technicalities of sound engineering.

Use you PC/Mac with a decent 16 bit soundcard to record/copy tracks from your analogue recorder. Then use something like N-Track or SoundForge to hammer those waves.