New to this recording lark- need advice

Cookiemonster

I need to buy a laptop, audio interface, and other things you may suggest (speakers)

I dont want to have to buy a mac, but will if its the best option, what can I get on a budget that will be ok for home use and maybe to record the band live.

ecc83

Probably easiest to tell you what I use?

This is an HP Pavillion G6 which is an Intel i3, 2 core 2.4G machine and it has served my modest needs very well. It started off with 4G of ram and I upped that to 8G but I am not sure I needed to! It will run about 20 tracks from Cubase no sweat, I have not tried any more but the limit for computers is hit when you have a lot of tracks and a lot of CPU hungry plug ins so much depends upon your intended use (in any case I have a MUCH more powerful home build 6 core desktop) .

For an interface...Phew! Where to start? I have a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 and I have used that, with the lappy on a band at son's jam club with two AKG as a co-I pair with fair results. The KA6 has two mic inputs and two more line ins and had I had the time I would have taken a feed from the vocal mixer into those and got a 4 track recording then balanced that better at home.

If you have to cash and THINK you have the time to set up all the mics you can get an 8 mic plus more line inputs from Tascam. Their US 1800 is a bit of a legend and they have a new one out now. Do note however that attractive tho' "multitrack" recording seems it is NOT easy and you need a fekkin lot of mics, stands and cables!

Last point on a laptop. Many things that are advertised as such no longer have a CD burner in them. Might that be an inconvenience?

This is a BIG subject, PM me if you like.

Dave.

Cirrus

Well, pretty much any laptop, PC or Mac, will be able to run a DAW. My computer 10 years ago could happily record 12 tracks at once through a USB interface, so that's not going to be your limiting factor. The old wisdom was that Macs are more stable platforms hence better to use in a professional capacity but honestly I don't think it matters too much.

Danny1969

For recording a band live you need an interface with a lot of simultaneous record able  inputs as just recording a basic band would need 

2 for drum overheads

1 for kick 

1 for snare

1 for rack tom

1 for floor tome

1 for bass

1 for guitar

1 for another guitar or keys

1 or more for vocals

So that's 10 for a basic ish setup ... you can squeeze a live band into 8 if you absolutely have to ... I have done a few times but the results will have their limitations 

Cheap interfaces are things like the Tascam US and it's replacment. But I would actually recommend something like a Presonus Studiolive desk as you can use that as your Live desk as well as recording every show. When we record live shows we always just use a digital desk with multitracking capabilities rather than splitting every mic...   it's a lot quicker and easier. 

In terms of power actually recording audio doesn't need hardly any power. The laptops we use for recording 32 simultaneous audio streams at 24 \  48 are Dell Latitude XT's .... which only have gutless low current processors and 1Gb ram. People always think recording audio needs a quad core and 6Gb ram and they forget we were recording live shows when the fastest computers on sale were only P3's with 256Gb of ram

Processing audio in terms of EQ and compression doesn't need much power but time based plugins like reverb and delay are more power hungry. As these are generally used on aux bus's though you can still do a lot with a very basic machine. 

Processing Virtual intruments to be triggered via Midi is more power hungry but again, been doing since the days when high powered machines weren't available so even modest machines today will cope well. 

The Macbook or Macbook Pro is the best machine for audio but it does cost more money. It all depends on how much money you have budget wise ? 

spark240

I use a Mac min 2.3G with presonus SL 16.4.2 Good setup, and some presonus stuff is getting cheap now as they have just bought out some new lines

sweepy

As you are only in Leicester and I'm an hour away in Banbury, I'd be more than up for it giving you a run through of Logic and what  you need to do to get started if you decide the Mac route .Don't dismiss older technology, as there are some cracking bargains to be had with careful ebay-ing, both in Mac and other hardware, you'd also be amazed what you can do with plugins these days.

Cookiemonster

Lovely offer thank you. I shall have a look on ebay

spark240

The Mac mini's are cool, if you go for a late 2012 they can be tweaked easier, although I got mine fully loaded with 16G ram  and the i7 chip, Im sure a much lesser spec would be fine.

I went laptop route first but personally found I needed a bigger screen.    

digitalscream

Beware of buying new laptops on a budget these days - the hard drives are almost universally shit, and incredibly slow to the point where you'd wonder if it wasn't just a laptop from 10 years ago. If you do buy a sub-£400 laptop, budget another £140 or so for buying a 512GB SSD.

If you're not dead-set on a laptop and aren't scared of building yourself a machine, I've got everything you need except a case (and an audio interface) going here for £90.

For audio interfaces...the ones @Danny1969 was talking about are the Tascam US-1641 (excellent bare-bones interface), Tascam US-1800 (its replacement - identical gubbins, just more solidly built) and the Tascam 16x08 (much more advanced, with built-in DSP and better routing capabilities).

If you don't want to go down the lots-of-tracks route for live stuff, I've just acquired a Behringer UMC404HD for £107 - just 4 inputs, 4 outputs and no fancy stuff. Works really, really well; excellent value for money.

Snap

Recording a band, or just you?

If its just you, then (and I know this is obvious) but get the best spec of laptop you can afford. I'd go for a 17 inch screen as well, and make sure its got at least 1920x1080 resolution. Any lower and it will grate on you.

Why a laptop btw? If not for portabiliyt then I would get a desktop with a 27" monitor. Just replaced mine, and the extra screen space is brilliant.

Interface-  the Focusrite range is supposed to be good, starting at the 2i2. At the moment, I am using my POD HD but I am starting to run into some latency issues as tracks get more complex. That could be down to how I am managing my soft synths though.

Monitors - I use Yamaha HS5s which were about £240 for the pair I think, and they are superb.

Cookiemonster

Want to record the band

BlazeHelm

Bear in mind that if start running loads of plugins / VSTs on multiple tracks, you run the risk of running out of horsepower really quickly with a low powered laptop. As others have said, recording audio shouldn't be an issue, but as soon as you start to tweak it the need for a decent processor will become painfully evident. Regarding the interface, the Focusrite hardware is good, but their drivers are, IMO, pretty poor, and managing latency to acceptable levels will need the beta drivers, or Asio4all.

ecc83

I have also read before of Focusrite drivers not giving the lowest latency but it has to be said that the interfaces ARE very popular (especially the 2i2 in the bog end beginners dpt' of Home Recording and I can never see why!) .

If  you think you might need very low latency there is one AI that is head and shoulder (jacks ands XLRS?) above everything up to and past £250 and that is the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. £160ish.

Yes, laptop screens are a PITA but most now have an HDMI port and we all have an A HD TELLY? Or you can run VGA into most FST TVs. A 22" FST will cost about £99 at Tescos or you can get 32" second hand. OK they don't quite have the resolution of a 27" actual monitor but are vastly cheaper and I find them easily good enough.

Dave.

digitalscream

ecc83 said:

I have also read before of Focusrite drivers not giving the lowest latency but it has to be said that the interfaces ARE very popular (especially the 2i2 in the bog end beginners dpt' of Home Recording and I can never see why!) .

If  you think you might need very low latency there is one AI that is head and shoulder (jacks ands XLRS?) above everything up to and past £250 and that is the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. £160ish.

Yes, laptop screens are a PITA but most now have an HDMI port and we all have an A HD TELLY? Or you can run VGA into most FST TVs. A 22" FST will cost about £99 at Tescos or you can get 32" second hand. OK they don't quite have the resolution of a 27" actual monitor but are vastly cheaper and I find them easily good enough.

Dave.

I think it's a shame that TC aren't taking their Impact interfaces further; they're absolutely excellent, but the current line only support Firewire.

For what it's worth, the Behringer has 4.6ms latency at full stream quality (which nobody will really use).

As for the extra screen...be wary when using HD TVs with a VGA port. A lot of them (particularly the cheap ones) only support 800x600 via the VGA port; 720p and 1080p are usually only available on the HDMI port.

Snap

ecc83 said:

If  you think you might need very low latency there is one AI that is head and shoulder (jacks ands XLRS?) above everything up to and past £250 and that is the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. £160ish.

Dave.

nice one Dave, I'm acutally after a new interface, so will ahve a look at that. Since getting Komplete ULtimate, I also have realised I need a bigger controller. I'm going to go for a full 88 key one rather than the 49 I have now. For things like Damage and Evolve, the extra 3 octaves are very handy.

Snap

I have double GAS'd:

M Audio Keystation 88 - very impressed, good action and weight to the keys. Nice action on the modwheels too. Happy

NI Komplete Audio 6, arriving anytime. Will post review.

PolarityMan

ecc83 said:

I have also read before of Focusrite drivers not giving the lowest latency but it has to be said that the interfaces ARE very popular (especially the 2i2 in the bog end beginners dpt' of Home Recording and I can never see why!) .

If  you think you might need very low latency there is one AI that is head and shoulder (jacks ands XLRS?) above everything up to and past £250 and that is the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. £160ish.

Yes, laptop screens are a PITA but most now have an HDMI port and we all have an A HD TELLY? Or you can run VGA into most FST TVs. A 22" FST will cost about £99 at Tescos or you can get 32" second hand. OK they don't quite have the resolution of a 27" actual monitor but are vastly cheaper and I find them easily good enough.

Dave.

I recorded our last album entirely on a focusrite saffire pro 40. Latency is fine.

Having said that for tracking vst grunt and latency arent actually generally the most important things. What I did find handy was being able to do several different headphone mixes, having phantom power on more than 2 inputs and being able to expand to an additional 8 tracks (16 total) via a behringer ADA8000.

blobb

NI KA6 user here. Brilliant device. Only limitation is that you can't direct monitor inputs 3/4. You can monitor 1/2 direct and the legend on the front makes it appear that you can monitor 3/4 but you can't. DAW monitoring only. Other than that it's fantastic.