Home recording

[niceguyhomer]

I'm pretty disenchanted with bands and at the moment and I'm weighing up my options for the best way forward to pursue / sustain my musical interests. I still love playing my bass but don't know if I can be arsed with playing live any more.

Anyway, I've just been to a friend's house and he demo'd his Apple Mac (white laptop) with the recordings he'd done using Logic and Garage Band and I was really really impressed.

It really got my juices flowing again - cos, as well as playing bass, I'm a competent guitarist and with a decent drum machine I could have some real fun making my own music.

I don't know if I will go down this route but if I do, what's the options? Mac / Logic / Garage Band or is there an alternative I should consider?

I should say that it needs to be fairly straightforward to use - I'm thick and lazy

[BigRedX]

Buy a Mac. Garageband come free with it, and is a great way to get started with home recording. If, as you develop, you find it becomes too limiting then Logic is a sensible upgrade and a complete steal at around £300.

[MythSte]

I did this Al, when the band went tits up bought a load of home studio gear to keep me entertained - and it did! Incidently, Im now selling all of that on again to fund the new band, but it really is great fun!

[MythSte]

Oh, and if you have a decent spec PC just download and give reaper a whirl before you spend too much on a mac, might quench your thirst without draining your wallet

[chardbass]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='520040' date='Jun 21 2009, 04:36 PM']Buy a Mac. Garageband come free with it, and is a great way to get started with home recording. If, as you develop, you find it becomes too limiting then Logic is a sensible upgrade and a complete steal at around £300.[/quote]

Or Logic Express which is even cheaper- especially from eBay (£75 ish?)

Garage Band is the sensible starting point though. Keeps it simple- nothing like technical problems to stifle any creative flow!!

Either way, have fun!

[sdgrsr400]

[quote name='MythSte' post='520046' date='Jun 21 2009, 04:42 PM']Oh, and if you have a decent spec PC just download and give reaper a whirl before you spend too much on a mac, might quench your thirst without draining your wallet[/quote]
+1 for Reaper, excellent product, free evaluation. You can buy a printed manual too.

Edited June 21, 2009 by sdgrsr400

[clauster]

Garageband on a mac is fantastic and if you do upgrade to Logic, anything you've recorded in Garageband is forwards compatible. Incidentally, our singer has just downgraded from Logic to Garageband, as it's more immediate when the creative juices are flowing. M-Audio also do a nice control surface for Garageband.

The real power of Logic is in its midi implementation, and this can get REALLY VERY COMPLICATED. The only functional advantage it offers for audio is the ability to set punch-in/out point for over-dubs. There are also more bundled plug-ins with Logic but you can find decent free ones for either on the KVRAudio website.

However, if you are looking at spending money on a mac, also look at the Boss BR1600. My old neighbour had one and it is fantastic. A great one-box, plug and play solution for recording.

You can achieve the same results with a PC but you will need to spend more time (and possibly money) to get it up to speed and keep it stable. After spending 5 years (and a lot of money) recording on PCs, I got my first mac for less than my audio interface cost and just using the inbuilt soundcard the Mac's performance and stability kicked the PC right out of the park.

After 12 years of computer based recording, my next set-up will be a Boss BR (or Yamaha / Korg / etc equivalent) and a PC with Reason (for drums and keys), a decent wav editor and a mastering tools package. But for the mo, I'm more than happy with GB.

[Bilbo]

Loads of options out there depending on your budget. I went for Cubase but Pro Tools is a kind of industry standard but expensive.You need to know a lot more than which programme to use: microphones, positioning, room acoustics, VST instrumenys, programming etc are all important but, at this point, you just need to get your toes in the water and start. There are a few credible books out there that mat help but your mate is as good a place to start as anywhere. Lots of room for trial and error but a lot of fun & frustration.

Learn to love the egg-timer!

One BIG piece of advice is to not use your music PC as an internet/music download PC and vice versa. You have a lot more to lose than a few word documents if you get hit by a virus.

[skankdelvar]

DI all your instruments via a £50-100 interface. Nice little Shure PG mike - £30-40. Loads of free plug-ins out there, including amp sims. Reaper - Free.

Never been a better time to start. Enjoy!

[crez5150]

+5 on the Mac front... (I have 5 currently)

Garage bad to get you started..... move up to Logic Express for not a lot of money and a whole load of program... then take your choice from there... I favor Digital Performer...... but MAC all the way!!

[plumbob]

[quote name='crez5150' post='520177' date='Jun 21 2009, 07:07 PM']+5 on the Mac front... (I have 5 currently)

Garage bad to get you started..... move up to Logic Express for not a lot of money and a whole load of program... then take your choice from there... I favor Digital Performer...... but MAC all the way!![/quote]


Yeh , if your budget can stretch to it go for the Mac !

Also remember you have two computers for the price of one with the Mac, as Bootcamp which is now built into the operating system of the mac , enables you to run windows XP etc .
The general workings of each software recording package are similar and you may aswell try a few demo's out and see which one works best for you.

Garageband is a fantastic writing tool free with the Mac , and I'm convinced its built on stripped down Logic code , easy to get going with drag and drop loops in the arrange page and away you go, and as said before you can import these into Logic at a later date if you want.

Once you start you wont stop

Good Luck

[SteveO]

[quote name='MythSte' post='520046' date='Jun 21 2009, 05:42 PM']Oh, and [b]even if you have a crappy[/b] spec PC just download and give reaper a whirl before you spend too much on a mac, might quench your thirst without draining your wallet[/quote]

There you go , fixed it for you.
You really don't have to spend much cash as even the free stuff is massively more powerful than you need. I recently bought Cubase 4 and sold it within a month as I don't think i'll ever use any of the extra features over and above those in Cubase SE that I got free with a box of cornflakes. I'm personaly not a big fan of Garageband - purely because I learnt using Cubase and fruityloops, and when I had a go at Garageband I found it far too restrictive, it felt a bit too much like my hand was being held if you get what I mean. Saying that, if all you want to do is record multiple tracks and then mix them all down then Garageband does that pretty well. The really important things to consider are: what mic(s) will you be using and what DA interface will you be using. It goes without saying that a crappy condenser mic through your laptop's mic socket is gonna sound terrible, even with 10k's worth of DAW sotware running, but record with a half decent mic through a half decent interface and you can't go wrong.

I'd also suggest getting a copy of [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Recording-Studio-Leonard/dp/1423454464/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245612358&sr=8-1"]this[/url]. It'll be the best tenner you spend.

[quote name='clauster']You can achieve the same results with a PC but you will need to spend more time (and possibly money) to get it up to speed and keep it stable.[/quote]
Sorry mate, but i'd disagree. My macbook was about twice as expensive as my pc and all the audio hardware / software on it (i'm not including sibelius here ) it's about as stable (maybe one system freeze per month) and if you are really saying that your mac's onboard soundcard is up to the job then I'd suggest getting the doctor to look at your ears

[ironside1966]

A lot of people will say go down the Mac rout but it is quite an investment to make. For what you want a reasonably up to date PC will be more than adequate for the time being plus you do not have the learning curve of a Mac.

The most important thing is the soundcard or audio interface anything by M Audio, Emu or similar would be fine, maybe consider the protools mini for all in one package.

Logic , Cubase Protools they are all capable of great results, one is no better than the other.

My advice is go for some second hand bargains on EBay to see how you get on, If you find that recording is for you then consider a Mac but a dedicated PC Daw is just as stable as a Mac unless you fill it with cracked software or crap.

I use both

[thisnameistaken]

I got an M-Audio breakout box and a copy of Pro Tools M-Powered for about £150, runs on either PC or Mac so I can use it at home on my PC, or stick it in a rucksack, walk to my singer's house and plug it into her Mac.

[leonshelley01]

I get pretty good results using Cubase 4 Essential and a Line 6 Toneport GX using the Pod Farm modelling software that comes with it. My PC is fairly low spec (3.46 GHz Celeron, 1 Gb RAM) but Cubase is still very stable. The only problem I have ever encountered was when I used different reverbs on all 7 tracks and it started jumping on playback.

[clauster]

[quote name='SteveO' post='520260' date='Jun 21 2009, 09:05 PM']Sorry mate, but i'd disagree. My macbook was about twice as expensive as my pc and all the audio hardware / software on it (i'm not including sibelius here ) it's about as stable (maybe one system freeze per month) and if you are really saying that your mac's onboard soundcard is up to the job then I'd suggest getting the doctor to look at your ears [/quote]

That sytem freeze rate makes your PC 60 times less stable than my PPC Mac - One freeze in five years

Regarding the quality of the onboard soundcard - it's all comparative isn't it? With a very cheap A/D box and a couple of DIs, I get two channels of relatively noise free 16bit 48Khz recording with a latency in single figures and my mac only cost £599 - nothing wrong with that. Okay, it's not going to give me the results that a Protools HD rig in an accoustically treated environmet with decent monitoring would give me, but I doubt your system will either.

[ironside1966]

A lot of the problems with PC’S is that most people use them as a multi function system, games and programs like MS office and Internet security doesn’t help and can make them a little unstable.
I use a duel boot system one side for office and internet the other for studio only.

On a limited budget I would go for PC + Audio Interface then monitors before paying extra for a Mac.

Edited June 22, 2009 by ironside1966

[skankdelvar]

DI-ing works great for electric instruments - but the biggest problem I had when using a mic for acoustic gtr and vox was my acoustic environment. Nasty short room reverb, external house and street noise, fan noise.

Once you dip your toe and decide you're going to follow it up, getting some acoustic treatment materials is a really worthwhile move.

[Sean]

+1 for Garageband and Mac - it's all so easy to use.

Tied in with that I use [url="http://www.drumsondemand.com"]Drums On Demand[/url] instead of a drum machine, much more realistic and easier to use for numpties who have to spend a whole day or more programming a simple song. If you are using Garageband or Logic make sure you order the Apple Loops variant of DOD otherwise you have to convert the files yourself.

[51m0n]

If you are just getting into the idea you really do not need to invest in a mac.

Later on if you want serious pro quality recording facility (think 40 odd channels with VSTs and VSTis all over them, then you need a big f off mac.

Simple home recording is possible on an up to date PC running very cheap software (I recommend you try Reaper).

A very good friend of mine ran his studio on PC for years, he seriously knows his stuff with PC building, and his networking skills are far greater than anyone on this forum (in all probability) since that is his profession and he is at the top of it. Getting a PC to run close to 40 tracks of audio with plentiful VSTs and no glitches on output proved beyond an absolutely money no object top of the range current PC hand built for that specific task. It could not reliably bounce to stereo, it just ran out of horsepower. A top spec G5 mac cruises through the same test without any issues at all, every single time. He now bores everyone evangelising macs

You dont need that horsepower for simple home recording, I manage on an old HP business laptop running Reason. It ain't ideal, I have limits technically, but it does do the job, just.

Get a good book on recording, get on a couple of recording forums, get a decent couple of mics (an SM57 and an AKG C1000s for instance) and get on with it

[escholl]

-1 for the C1000, there are much better sounding mics out there for the price -- such as the Studio Projects B1 or B3, or if you really need a battery powered condenser for some reason, the Rode M3 is not bad and fairly versatile.

IME, YMMV, etc...


edit: I should add as well though, that a PC is fine for home recording. Mine is coming up 5 years old now and I'm still able to do pretty much whatever I need to, including our latest album. Pair up a decent soundcard like the EMU 0404 USB and the software of your choice (Reaper seems to be the popular recommendation, I've not used it), get a book on studio practice and recording technique if you need one, [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Recording-Techniques-David-Miles/dp/0240806255"]this one[/url] is pretty good IME.

Of course, if you want a Mac, and can easily afford one, then by all means get one -- they are brilliant for recording (although you'll still want to get an external soundcard such as the one above, some mics, monitors, etc.)

Edited June 22, 2009 by escholl

[51m0n]

C1000s is a perfectly good all round mic. Its not a vocal specialist mic I'll grant you, but if you want to go that route I would suggest saving up from a TLM103 or C414 and stop naffing about

[stingrayfan]

[quote name='Sean' post='520472' date='Jun 22 2009, 07:46 AM']+1 for Garageband and Mac - it's all so easy to use.[/quote]
Get one, you won't regret it. I've done more on Garageband in a few months than I ever did in years of running other software on a PC. Garageband is dead easy to use and can get a finished result onto an MP3 player or CD in very few clicks. Oh, and it's fun in the process.

[basexperience]

I'd echo another +1 for Mac (and I don't even have one!) - the multi-hardware environment of PCs simply means they're a pain in the arse.

As for expense - aren't Mac Minis good enough to do the job? They're not that expensive...

My next studio machine will def be a mac, the PC experience has been rather painful at times. I'm still using Cubase SL1 though, it does all the stuff I need to do and I haven't hit limitations with it yet. Lots of existing VST instruments and plugins out there for it too - Cubase4 changed the atchitecture and my mate with his CB4 install has real trouble with some plugins he was rather fond of. Not sure if Cubase5 is any better?

I'd also echo that there's never been a better time to get into this stuff - audio interfaces are dirt cheap now. You can get simple single-inputs (there's a Line6 device, I believe), midrange devices (I've got a little Tascam until which does twin audio and Midi, the 122L, as a portable system) or go nuts and spend a fortune (I've also got an oldish system based on the ADC2000 and DSP24 PCI card from Hoontech in the studio which does nicely)

Go to it!

[skankdelvar]

Even more so than bass guitar, the whole home recording thing is chock full of confusion, questionable manufacturer claims, well-meant voodoo and varying mileage.

All of which increases the mind-f*ck and condemns you to months of Web-bage when you could be knocking out some tunes.

I'd recommend you start with the simplest of entry-level gear - both software and hardware - so you can actually get some songs down. After a bit, you'll have hands-on understanding that'll highlight which areas of limitation (track-count, system stability under pressure, mic quality, acoustic environment) are most relevant to your objectives. Thus you can scale your 'Stage 2' accordingly.

In certain instances, projects are migrate-able, so time spent creating stuff on an entry-level platform is not necessarily wasted.

Edited June 22, 2009 by skankdelvar