Home Recording Devices Advices

[Paul Sommer]

Hi all,

Am thinking about buying a mixer for home recording. Have looked online for some products. I dont wanna spend more than $1000 Australian (Which equates to $685 US). The best option so far seems to be the ZOOM MRS802CD

http://www.venuemusic.com.au/Products.asp?ProdID=2323

For $1288 AUD ($882 USD), do you reckon that is good? I virtually have no idea about this kind of thing. I just want something I can plug my keyboard/guitar/mic into and record songs.... Something that can mix the songs together, and something that can burn high quality audio cd's of the songs.

For $1288, what is the advantage of that lil gizmo compared to buying a new computer and getting ProTools?

There is a whole heap of extra information on the MRS 802CD here:

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/englishie_index.html

Just gotta look at the products page and look for the MRS 802CD

[Axe2Grind]

For your money, you'd be better off with an MBox / Protools 6 LE setup, The Mbox rig has 32 Audio track and 128 Midi tracks (might be unlimited now with the new LE release), If i were recording key, guitar & Mic this would be my choice for the budget you have. Its portable, upgradable and more flexible with synth plug-ins, amp plugins etc and you get a cool software bundle thrown in. The Zoom is good but you may outgrow it and then you'll want to sell it, I doubt you'd outgrow the MBox rig in a hurry and if you do, you can always import your projects to full blown Protools rig's which a lot of studio's have. Just my thoughts... I would'nt mind getting the dgi 002 rack :)

[Tusker]

A friend (professional recording artist) of mine did most of his demo's with a Roland (VS880?) box for a long time. Additionally it could travel with him to gigs and allow him to record multi-track versions of each set. Effects were included, and the number of tracks was sufficient/appropriate for a 4 piece band. I remember being impressed with his home-made mixes. He has since upgraded to a speedy mac with pro tools. He does what Axe2Grind said and takes his mixes into studios. He now uses the studios primarily for drum tracking and mixing, and he saves a bundle. I haven't asked him how he handles remote recording.

But the trade-offs are clear:

Box Pros:
- Speed
- Portability
- All-in one package
- Less complexity

Pro tools on a Desktop PC Pros:
- Customizable
- The upgrade path is modular (you don't have to ditch it all at once)
- More likelihood of interfacing with a studio
- More choices (EFX)
- Sophistication of human interface (easier editing)

For most people most of the time, I would suggest software over the box.

Best,

Jerry

[Omega Monkey]

The new Boss 1600 (something like that, the new 16 track standalone they have) looks pretty nice. I did a lot of work on the BR-8 a couple years ago, and that thing was pretty good, with lots of nice effects (although I didnt really use them except for some reverb here and there sometimes). The new one is 16 tracks and has an internal HD instead of zip disks. Has lots of virtual tracks too.

Or theres the Korg D1600, dont have any experience with those though.

Personally I have a Fostex VF-16 (which has been superceded by a very similar model but with a cdr I think). Its pretty good overall, and does most of what I need it too. The effects section isnt great, adn the reverbs are almost unusable. Also I wish it had some aux sends, so I could run as many tracks as necessary through my effects rack. But the sound quality is great, its got digital i/o which is switchable between various formats such as sp/dif and adat lightpipe, MIDI in/outs for syncing to a sequencer or drum machine as well as full tempo and time sig mapping for doing click tracks (very handy for prog).

So the box is cool because its portable and simple, and has lots of inputs (although the VF-16 only has 2 xlr inputs, which kind of sucks, although at the moment i only have 3 real mikes anyway). Theoretically you could take the VF-16 to a gig and pretty easily have a nice 8 track live recording which you could mix down later (and overdub as well if you wanted), which I think is cool (hint: the same thing works for jams). The computer method you are usually hurting for inputs, but you can also do your drum tracks in a studio and then take the files home to work on everything else (I can do the same thing, it just requires a little extra effort.

In the end it really depends what your needs are and what your particular recording style is. For me, I like having a standalone, because to really get good quality out of a comp, you need to basically buy a standalone worth of outboard gear anyway. Just do as much research as possible into all the various options. Good luck.