Home Recording Setups

I think it would be interesting to hear a little bit about home recording setups. We can talk about equipment, advice, and resources. Anyone have a good setup? Affordable? I'd love to hear what anyone recommends for home recording!

Tags: Home, recording

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Permalink Reply by Paul Decker on March 10, 2009 at 9:48pm

Great topic Kyle.
We are really getting into the M-audio computer interfaces, midi keyboards, mics, and moniters. All great products for home computer recording. The new Pro Tools is really a great recording program.
I'll get a few of the guys to start up some discussions in here.
What mics people are using. Common problems that occur in computer recording....etc.

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Permalink Reply by Andy Meehan on March 11, 2009 at 9:11am

I'm getting proud of my setup, but you already know all about it. Maybe I'll post stuff later for anyone else that's interested...

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Permalink Reply by Bobby Riviere on March 11, 2009 at 9:46am

...I really think a persons budget is the bottom line. From there you can go forth and see what gear you can get. I have to second Paul's suggestion about the M-Audio equipment. You can get really affordable stuff that is of nice quality, and they have great equipment for anyone who wants to spend a little extra. I would personally steer towards any of their interfaces that have the Octane Preamps. I also love the new Pro Tools 8, they have the recording capabilities that they have always been famous for (+ some), AND they finally have a more user friendly MIDI program that definatly rivals cubase. As far as Mics go, I LOVE the Neumann TLM 103. ..Yes its a neumann, so that is synonymous with $$$, but the 103 is certainly a more affordable mic, and use it on about anything. Personally for guitar cab miking, I love the Sennheiser MD 421. Another versitile mic that absolutly kills on a speaker.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin George on March 11, 2009 at 10:21am

I'm using Presonus FP10's and Steinberg software. Your best bet is to look on the web for FREE (not W@rEz) VST's: there are a TON out there, and a lot are just as good or comparable to the spendy ones. It's at least a place to start until you decide you want to dump some coin on quality stuff (Waves, for example), or outboard gear.

...but yeah, budget really makes a difference.

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Permalink Reply by Kyle Nixon on March 11, 2009 at 1:04pm

Glad to hear this input. Seems people are pretty fond of M-Audio interfaces. I bought a Presonus "Inspire" two input firewire interface a while back, and unfortunately it's been a pretty big disappointment. When recording, I have been battling clicks, pops, and latency/computer resource (?) issues. I can't get a good recording from it. I'm afraid I might get the same issues if I upgrade to an M-Audio or higher grade Presonus. My ok mics are pretty useless without a good interface. I've just had to settle for a temporary solution for recording guitar and vocals (Blue Snowball :\ It's cheap but it's pretty good for rough recordings... VERY portable so I can record literally anywhere).

Bobby, thanks for the Octane Preamps suggestion.

I've used Steinberg and Adobe (which in my opinion in the most user friendly) but haven't used anything Protools yet. Perhaps I will give it a try.

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Permalink Reply by Jon M on March 11, 2009 at 3:25pm

This sounds familiar. I had a lot of the same problems when I first started recording over the computer.

I don't know if you're doing this already, but it helps to have everything plugged into the same power strip/outlet. I had my computer/effects/M-Audio interface plugged into three different outlets, and constantly fought with clicks and pops in my recordings. Moving everything onto the same strip killed almost all of the noise for me.

I also initially had problems with my laptop because it wasn't in full-on, battery-eating "performance mode." I kept getting glitches and skips because the OS was deliberately limiting the processor usage to save power.

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Permalink Reply by Andy Meehan on March 11, 2009 at 4:12pm

I found out that I have an outlet that would electrify anything plugged into it. If you touched something plugged into that outlet you'd get zapped hardcore. So...... watch out for that too.

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Permalink Reply by Kyle Nixon on March 11, 2009 at 4:49pm

Thanks for that advice Jon- I'll have to try that out! I definitely had everything plugged into different outlets... i feel like it's more of a processing issue, but we will see

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Permalink Reply by Kevin George on March 11, 2009 at 11:30pm

Might depend on your firewire setup. You might want to check to see if your firewire card/etc has a Texas Instruments chipset (Presonus reccomends it for thier products). If it isn't looking good, or its more than worth your trouble....I might be interested in that Inspire if the price is right ;)

Also, it's worth investing in a good power conditioner (Furman, etc..). Might help clean up your power some.

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Permalink Reply by Andy Meehan on March 12, 2009 at 8:44am

I totally forgot about that. I couldn't figure out which firewire chipset I had but I lucked out and it worked great with my Firestudio Project. Too bad you have a laptop, Kyle, or maybe you could throw in a new firewire card. That's probably why your box worked fine on my computer.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin George on March 12, 2009 at 9:26am

http://www.rainrecording.com/1-877-MIX-RAIN/store/product.php?produ...

Thats what they reccomend.

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Permalink Reply by Kyle Nixon on March 12, 2009 at 3:22pm

Kevin- Now that some interesting advice! I'll look into it and see if that can make a difference for me. If all fails I'd definitely be willing to part with the inspire, but we'll talk about that later! :)