home recording multi-track gear for non-techy?

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funsongs
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home recording multi-track gear for non-techy?

Post by funsongs » Wed Mar 18, 2015 11:47 am

Okay... time to deal with reality.
It's not likely that I'm ever gonna have a home-studio computerized studio set up.
So: going on the cheap, to at least be able to make my own rough demos, I'd appreciate recommendations for something that will allow me to put scratch tracks into mp3 format, for the sake of getting on with co-writes and collaborations.
Probably not more than 8 tracks will be needed.

In advance, thanks.
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Re: home recording multi-track gear for non-techy?

Post by andygabrys » Wed Mar 18, 2015 2:11 pm

if you could get away with 4 tracks max something like this:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ ... aQodACoAJQ

which has an SD card, that you can put in a card reader on your computer, transfer the tracks, and make an mp3 to send to your collabs.

Or if you have an iPhone there are a variety of applications which are 4 track recorders.

for me, on the iPhone there was a cheap app called retro-recorder by McDSP and it works well for just laying down scratch stuff.

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Re: home recording multi-track gear for non-techy?

Post by Len911 » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:35 pm

Hey Peter what about something like this:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/LR16

http://www.sweetwater.com/c125--USB_Ana ... LCI2Il19fQ

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 21|&Sort=4

Download wav or mp3, place on flash thumb drive, flash thumb drive to usb mixer, mix with live parts, audio from mixer to recorder, save to external hard drive, plugin external hard drive to usb port of computer, select audio file(s) to upload. (for 16 bit you can use a thumb drive in place of a hard drive)

recorder= $400 + usb mixer $179-? + external hard drive= $80-$320?

$700-$800 total. $580 without the hard drive

if you wanted to forego the usb mixer, you could use something like this http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Alpha

$450 total. that allows 2 channels of audio file(usb) from computer to recorder to be mixed with your input.

a lot of flexibility to later add hardware effects or preamp compressors eq's ...
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Re: home recording multi-track gear for non-techy?

Post by kclements » Thu Mar 19, 2015 5:12 am

There is a lot of great audio software for the iPad like https://www.propellerheads.se/take

Get an iPad and something like the IK Multimedia iRig and you could be all set. And as an added bonus, you have an iPad for other things like internet, finances, email, games.......


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Re: home recording multi-track gear for non-techy?

Post by mojobone » Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:00 pm

If you're like me, you have computers piling up around your ears and these days, just about any of them can rip WAVs to MP3, BUT...sometimes they can take a dump on you when you need 'em the most. Why not look into a solid-state machine, like a Zoom R8, H6 or H4N? The handheld recorders even include decent stereo mics onboard and the newer one accepts add-on modules. They all have decent preamps with phantom power (though not a full 48V, in all cases) and record to inexpensive high capacity SD cards.
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