Jack Posted August 27, 2017 Share Posted August 27, 2017 (edited) Hey guys, please take it easy on me, I'm new to recording. I've been using a Behringer XR18 as my main mixer for ages and I would like to start using the recording function. As I understand it, the mixer has the capability to take a pre-everything feed directly from the inputs and route that down a USB cable to a pc. Great, I'm fine with that and that makes sense to me. The problem is, what do I have on the other end? I presumably need a pc (a laptop as this will be on a gig) that is recording that USB input? Some questions that I have: I'm a massive pc nerd, so at home I have a nice i7 6 core/12 thread machine with 32gb of ram. That's what I'll use to edit, process, mix and master these tracks. My laptops, however, are crap. I have a tiny netbook (no power at all but at least it's got an ssd) and an ancient core 2 duo Dell with 2gb of ram and a slow hard drive. Will either of these be suitable for simply capturing the tracks on the gig? The Dell would be the preferred option as it runs Windows (so software recommendations should be easier) and it's so totally unstealable that I'd feel safe with it at a gig. Secondlly, what kind software do I use to capture the recording live and then process it later? My main desktop is linux and I imagine that there are lots of possible options for many operating systems (and you'll all have your own favourites), but what's the name for the [i]type[/i] of software that I need? Once I know where to start I'll go off and better educate myself rather than bother you folks with inane beginner questions. Thanks, Jack Edited August 27, 2017 by Jack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted August 27, 2017 Share Posted August 27, 2017 (edited) Hey Jack, as far as I am aware - and I am happy to be corrected, Linux isn't so good for DAW capabilities, certainly in comparison to Windows or Mac machines. So, my first suggestion for recording software that will run on both Windows and Mac is [url="https://www.reaper.fm"]Cockos REAPER[/url] Which is a blinding application for the money. I have used it for years including some pro-release material. It's a great application that doesn't suck all of your machine resources so will be good for lower power machines - I would however at least suggest a minimum of 8Gb RAM and say an i5 processor (quad core for a Mac). That's pretty much all you'll need, but you will have to install the drivers for the XR18 of course, plug in VIA USB and set up the inputs in the application so that each channel records on to a separate track. Funnily enough that's exactly what we were doing last week with our own XR18, but our laptop this time was running Logic Pro instead. Had I have had the XR here, I would have created you a template to mail over to play with but it's at a different location. Edited August 27, 2017 by dood Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted August 27, 2017 Share Posted August 27, 2017 [quote][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Secondlly, what kind software do I use to capture the recording live and then process it later?[/font][/color][/quote] Sorry, yes DAW: Digital Audio Workstation. (Cubase, Reaper, Pro Tools, Logic Pro and many others are DAWS) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted August 27, 2017 Share Posted August 27, 2017 P.s. - Reaper is available as a free download to try out, but I bought the license within hours as I liked it so much. Many years later, still going strong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Posted August 27, 2017 Author Share Posted August 27, 2017 [quote name='dood' timestamp='1503862400' post='3361227'] Hey Jack, as far as I am aware - and I am happy to be corrected, Linux isn't so good for DAW capabilities, certainly in comparison to Windows or Mac machines. So, my first suggestion for recording software that will run on both Windows and Mac is [url="https://www.reaper.fm"]Cockos REAPER[/url] Which is a blinding application for the money. I have used it for years including some pro-release material. It's a great application that doesn't suck all of your machine resources so will be good for lower power machines - I would however at least suggest a minimum of 8Gb RAM and say an i5 processor (quad core for a Mac). That's pretty much all you'll need, but you will have to install the drivers for the XR18 of course, plug in VIA USB and set up the inputs in the application so that each channel records on to a separate track. Funnily enough that's exactly what we were doing last week with our own XR18, but our laptop this time was running Logic Pro instead. Had I have had the XR here, I would have created you a template to mail over to play with but it's at a different location. [/quote] Thanks Dood, I take it the DAW is what I'm using to edit the tracks after recording, is that also what I need to record in the first place? Sucks that Linux support isn't great, I'm not doing Windows ever again, I wonder if any of the rest of the band have decent pcs..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted August 27, 2017 Share Posted August 27, 2017 [quote name='Jack' timestamp='1503869908' post='3361286'] Thanks Dood, I take it the DAW is what I'm using to edit the tracks after recording, is that also what I need to record in the first place? Sucks that Linux support isn't great, I'm not doing Windows ever again, I wonder if any of the rest of the band have decent pcs..... [/quote] That is indeed correct. A good DAW will allow you to easily record and then manipulate your recorded audio including editing and mixing. You will also hear people talk of applets called audio 'plug ins' too. Some DAW applications come with quite an array of plug ins, others not so. These plug ins are very useful and you can buy and install third party offerings to do a whole host of things! A few examples would include effects such as adding echo, reverb or effects to each track individually- you might like some effects on your bass sound. There are plenty of plug ins that can do that including amplifier modelling. Wanna sound like you are plugged in to an SVT? Plug ins also come in the form of Virtual Instruments too that can either be programmed to play sounds for you, such as drums, piano, synth etc, or you can plug in a MIDI controller such as a keyboard and play/record those sounds manually in to your DAW. The list goes on and I've tried to give you a few thoughts in laymans terms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atsampson Posted August 27, 2017 Share Posted August 27, 2017 There are several decent open source DAWs available for Linux - I prefer [url="http://ardour.org"]Ardour[/url], which you might know in its commercial guise as Harrison Mixbus, but MusE and Qtractor are also popular choices. There's also a wide variety of audio plugins for Linux, following the LADSPA and (newer) LV2 standards - the open-source [url="http://calf-studio-gear.org/"]Calf plugins[/url] are particularly useful for processing live recordings, and I find myself using the Calf multiband compressor and EQ on pretty much all the projects I do. You [i]can[/i] use a DAW like Ardour to do multitrack recording at a gig, but I normally like to use something simpler to record to a multichannel WAV file, then edit it with Ardour afterwards. [url="http://nosignal.fi/ecasound/"]Ecasound[/url] works nicely for these kinds of recording jobs. [url="http://libremusicproduction.com/"]LMP[/url] is a pretty good starting place to get an overview of music production on Linux. You'll find lots of advice about configuring your machine for minimal audio processing latency. This is important if you're using things like software synthesisers, but irrelevant if you're just recording incoming audio to disk or editing the recording, so you don't need to worry about it for your purposes (e.g. you can use a large JACK period size which'll give you less CPU overhead). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mcgiver69 Posted August 28, 2017 Share Posted August 28, 2017 I would like to add that if you decide to go with Linux, you can always install WINE and use Reaper, it works perfectly through WINE. BTW Linux works very well and Ardour is a complete and very good DAW that can compete with any other commercially available DAW. There are lots of people posting music they have made using Linux (Ardour, QTractor even Reaper) on Youtube. Here's a channel of a guy who makes music for advertisements plus his own songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q0PyzzDjUY&list=PLBvCHJWi9SXzxIvlkjBtRGTqQ9yyihyrz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronny D'Hoore Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 (edited) On 28/08/2017 at 15:16, Mcgiver69 said: I would like to add that if you decide to go with Linux, you can always install WINE and use Reaper, it works perfectly through WINE. Nowadays Reaper "has experimental native support for Linux", there is a pc version and an ARM (Raspberry Pi etc.) version. They are labeled as experimental, but work very beautifully, at least the 64-bit pc version which I have been using for quite a while now. Edited January 19, 2020 by Ronny D'Hoore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mcgiver69 Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 Yeah I got Reaper and Tracktion Waveform installed on Linux and I can perfectly record and mix without issues. There are some good available plugins and you can use some Windows plugins using LinVST. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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