25 Jul
2003
25 Jul
'03
12:25 p.m.
On Fri July 25 2003 5:54 am, Chris wrote:
Hello.
<snip>
My friend recently purchased an "all-in-one"
unit from Roland, a 24
track 24 bit digital recorder, that cost him about $2,500 I think
(excluding cabling, mics etc). He says he goes direct -- and not only
direct but totally clean. All effects, including distortion are added
after the fact. He goes from his guitar into his recorder! This sure
seems strange to me, although I can understand the logic there. Is this
what you guys do?
I would love to hear how you all handle this. :0)
Well, for a couple years I was able to do recording with my old Soundblaster
but that was very limiting, one channel in, not much luck with full-duplex
(recording while playing a previously recorded track). I bit the bullet and
bought an M-Audio Delta 44 (about $250 last year I believe) and a Behringer
project mixer.
Since I can't really even turn my guitar amp on in my apartment (Mesa/Boogie
has 2 volumes - off and *LOUD*) I do most of my project recording plugged
through an effects pedal, such as:
guitar --> fx pedal --> mixer --> Delta44 --> PC
I've also done a fair amount of live tracking (mic'd amps) with this same rig.
It sounds great. For the neophyte PC recorder I suggest Audacity
(audacity.sourceforge.net) as it has a very lightweight learning curve. I've
done a great deal of multi-track recording with it. There are quite a few
Linux apps for multitrack recording (notably Ardour) but Audacity was the
easiest one to get started with. A drum machine helps too. It allows me to
write songs, record the skeletons, mail them (on CD) to people I play with
who are 2 hours away, meet up with them and play, then do proper mix-down of
all the live tracked material afterwards. All with Slackware, ALSA and
Audacity.
Several of my friends have the all-in-one recording rigs (like the Roland you
mention above) but I like the PC solution - it's much more flexible. YMMV.
HTH - JB