Analog semi-pro going to PC DAW- suggestions?

[Roboburger]

So, is there a small studio standard evolving? I'd hate to get stuck on the Betamax end of things.

Here's the scoop- I have a decent bit of experience operating Live Sound and Tape based (analog & ADAT) multitracking. My PC audio is limited to the Sonic Foundry stuff (and I love it), I own Sound Forge 6.0 Full Version (started with 4.0 xp), CD Architect 4.0, and ACID. Now I wanna get a PC based DAW of (at least) the following specs- 8 balanced in/out, ability for clients to take/bring projects easily, 24/96, 24 tracks of digital, about a grand for ins/outs A/D/A unit and software. I guess this is nothing crazy these days, and I'm gonna buy a new 'puter to run this stuff, so there shouldn't be a hardware hosting prob. i am smarter than the average bear, so I'm not afraid of a not-too-steep learning curve.

I'm guessing that an External Firewire drive is gonna be the answer to the "How do clients take/bring work?" question... any comments?

I'd love to keep giving Sonic Foundry my money, as I like their products and have gotten smashing customer support over the years, But does Nuendo stomp on Vegas to a significant degree? And speaking of that- How come Stienberg offers Nuendo and Cubase- What are the differences? I can't tell from the Stienberg website.

Or should I just hop on the Digidesign bandwagon and get the 001, cuz that's what everyone else is getting? Maybe the M-Audio 1010 and Cool Edit Pro?

Thanks, Guys and Gals- Any help or comments will be appreciated. Curt.

[djimbe]

I'll bite on the M-audio Delta 1010/Cool Edit Pro option. I've been running a PC Daw at home with this combo for almost 4 years now with no real problems at all. Mind you, I have a 500MHz P3 running Win98Lite so the ASIO drivers don't work too well. I don't use MIDI so it's never bothered me. I like Cool Edit for recording purposes, and it's got nifty wave editing features, but even with the drastic improvements in v.2.0, I don't like the mixer interface (though my music partner does, so it may just be a familiarity thing). For a computer mixer I like n-Track Studio. Really. Lotta folks avoid this program 'cause it's shareware, but it kicks butt in my book, and it's only about $60 to register so you almost can't NOT try it. Unfortunately it also has virtually no MIDI support. See www.fasoft.com for n-Track. I've played a little on an old Cubase VST release and didn't like it much (seemed like a steep learing curve to me), but haven't worked on the Soundforge stuff so can't comment there, but many in the PC recording world rave about SF6. And yeah, for clients, the FireWire option seems to be popular. We have v.2.5 on our PT G3 rig and folks were chompin' at the bit to for us to get it running.

[Roboburger]

Thanks for the reply- btw, and you probably knew this, but I didn't mean you could only combine the 1010 with CEP. I was just pointing out that I was looking for opinions of combinations. I think the only must-combine stuff out there are the 001 and ProTools software, right?

Actually, I am a huuuuge Sonic Foundry fan, and just found a whole buncha positive info on the Sonic Foundry site about using Vegas 4.0 as my software platform, which would make me very happy as I already have Sound Forge 6.0 full version, ACID, and CD Architect. I think I'm gonna start looking in that direction, unless someone replies to this forum with a big "Don't Do It".

Anyone? Curt.

[eeldip]

i have been in the market for an 8x8 interface and software for the last few weeks... and i also have been giving myself a $1K target. here is the fruit of my research...

AUDIO BOX: from what i can gather the presonus firestation unit is a pretty great box, IF you can get it to work. the converters are supposed to be a step above the motu and m audio stuff, and the preamps are supposed to be "sort of cool" unlike the motu preamps, which from what i can gather sound "cheesy". (this advice is from an AE i know who owns an 828, thinks it is useless for recording, but decent for live stuff. his studio tried out the firestation and he considers it to be OK. his real advice to me involved doubling my budget and lowering my expectations to getting a two channel unit) but the firestation has all sorts of driver issues, so you will have to get it from GC or something like that and return it if it doesnt do it for you...


SOFTWARE: first of all you need to grab a student and give them $350 and walk them into a store with their student ID. then you can pick up the better software, like DP or Cubase SX with the student discount, which is pretty big. as far as i can tell this is the best option. my research here isnt going to help you much, cause i am looking for OSX software (which lead me to conclude that i need to bite the $500 bullet and get my student girlfriend to buy logic platinum student discount) DP is supposed to be very easy to learn and pretty decent. Cubase is supposed to sound good, be sort of clunky, have some problems, but it has great support, and a huge user base. so the problems with the program are offset by these factors.

anyway, if you go for the firestation, you can call presonus and see what they have tested it on. from what i read they are sort of sensitive to this issue, cause they released it with crappy drivers and people got really mad at them.

[fallout]

Another alternative would be checking out the RME Multiface. They usually run in the $800 range of things for the breakout box and the PCI card. The selling point for me was the excellent sounding converters and the fact that it's pretty flexible (8 balanced analog I/O's, spdif, ADAT lightpipe I/O, word clock). I'm waiting to hear the Apogee Rosetta 800 to make a decision on an additional ad/da converter so that i can plug into the RME's Lightpipe I/O for an additional 8 tracks.

www.rme-audio.com is their website

Take Care,
-Jay

[eeldip]

the "read advice" i got from my friend was to get an RME box. considered by many to be the cheapest way to get a real converter. but they really cost nearly $1000. http://www.bayviewproaudio.com/rme_multiface.html
for example.

if you can point me to one that has them $800 i'll consider them again.

[Roboburger]

Student Discount Tip: My wife is getting her MBA at GSU! Whoo-hoo- it looks like I can get Vegas 4.0 for under 200 bucks. ANyone know why they can offer this- do the software makers get a tax credit back from the IRS or something?

I just used the RME box to record a band from the soundboard at their show- I mixed them to the 8 busses of the house mixer, and ran the FOH from the 8 bus submix faders, which didn't affect the sends to the RME box (it was hard to resist touching the channel faders, though). It worked flawlessly, although I didn't get to hear the reults as we were on tour, and I ain't part of the project it was recorded for. The owner of the box raved about the unit, too. Said it was the best he had heard, and he said he did a fair amount of reseach... I like the fact that there are no Mic pres on board and they got the package down to a half rack- i would tend to think that that means the signal traces are as small as they could get from good PCB design (which is talked about in the latest ish of TapeOp letters section, column 4).

Everybody- thatnks for all the replies- I might not get any of my scheduled housewoke done for all of the web surfing I am doing!

Curt.

[Roboburger]

the "read advice" i got from my friend was to get an RME box. considered by many to be the cheapest way to get a real converter. but they really cost nearly $1000. http://www.bayviewproaudio.com/rme_multiface.html
for example.

if you can point me to one that has them $800 i'll consider them again.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Multiface/

725! I'm thinkin 'bout it...

Curt.

[eeldip]

nope. the 725 is the multiface with no PCI card.

i just looked and an ebay dealer has them with the PCI card for just under $900. sort of tempting.

but i really want to get mine from someplace i can return it if it doesnt work.

anyway speaking of the firestation here is a good deal below. so if you wanted DP student discount $300 and got the firestation from below you are looking at the price of the RME. i think you can use the below deal to talk down your local GC.

PRESONUS FIRESTATION. $589 (cash), $599 (Credit); SALE PRICE - LIMITED TIME!
16 lbs

Todd P. Atlas
******************************
todd@soundpure.com
******************************
Phone: (919) 682-5552
Cell: (919) 302-1609
Fax: (801) 720-5175
*****************************
Sound Pure
312 N. Buchanan Blvd.
Suite 206
Durham, NC 27701

[fallout]

I got mine for under $800 shipped from Germany.

www.digitalaudioservice.de

Email them and let them know you want the PCI/Multiface combo.. I agree w/ Kurt on the preamp situation.. I like using my own pre's a lot more.. You cant go wrong with the multiface.. Take care..

-Jay

[swillhite]

My set up is an M-Audio Delta 1010 and Cubase SX running on a PC and I have been very satisfied with both. But if you can afford something with higher quality converters such as the Apogee Rosetta, by all means do so. The converters in the 1010 are probably comparable to the Mbox but not as good as a Protools HD system. One option is to start with a 1010 and then add two channels of a high quality D/A conversion and run them through the SPDIF channels on the 1010. That way you have at least 2 channels of high quality signal. By the way, Univeral Audio's UAD-1 card is a great addition to this set up for the price. Hope this helps.

[ladewd]

Well, if you like acid, I would recommend Sonar. While it has a bunch of midi stuff that you probably won't use, it incorporates acid style looping with audio quite nicely. If you need an eight channel interface, I would recommend the Aardvark Q10. Sonar does not support audio editing (ala sound forge), but since you already have that program, it does allow you to open up any track within Sonar to edit in Sound Forge.

These programs are very personal. Some people will swear by Cubase, while others like Logic or Sonar. I would recommend downloading some demos and see which one seems natural to you. They all do pretty much the same thing. I would suggest trying them all out.

Cary

[SeventhCircle]

RME is definitely the Cadillac of PC interfaces, but check this thing out: http://www.frontierdesign.com/pr_dakota.htm I've seen them on ebay for $400, and I've been using mine for almost 4 years now with no problems whatever. Pros are the LightPipe interface, ADAT sync, and SMPTE, cons are the 48K limit of the LightPipe interface and no sign of bit splitting support in sight. Still, the uniquitous ADAT interface lets you use just about any converter worth having, since the board isn't permanently tethered to a box.

Whatever you do, don't buy a 001. Why lock yourself into a system where the eventual (inevitable?) upgrade path costs as much as a new car, and will be obsolete in two years? Go native, and piggyback on the inexorable progress of CPU power.

-Tim

[DeafinONEear]

Whatever you do, don't buy a 001. Why lock yourself into a system where the eventual (inevitable?) upgrade path costs as much as a new car, and will be obsolete in two years? Go native, and piggyback on the inexorable progress of CPU power.

-Tim

What? an 001 is native! It's all CPU based and, really, if you built a system now with, say a P4 between 2.4 and 3.06, a new board with a dual channel 875 chipset and a gig of 2700 DDR, you could easily max out the capibilities of the box.
I mean, yeah, the next step up is in the multiple thousands, but I've been using mine now for at least 3 years and I will probably be using it for the next decade, not as a main unit, but I can always make it a backup unit or a location unit.

Ya know, for all the trashing that goes on for the 001, I have to stand up for it and say that it is a pretty good piece of equipment. Yes, it does have it's weaknesses and Digidesign does resemble the Bush Administration in more ways than one, but if you play by the rules (build a compatible system) and know your way around computers, the 001 can be a great piece, and I will continue to keep saying this.

[SeventhCircle]

Yes, I realize the 001 doesn't have dedicated DSPs. But I still think it's a cynical ploy by Digidesign to get people locked into ProTools in the hope that they'll eventually move to a TDM system. And even though it's native, the 001 still doesn't provide the open architecture and expansion capabilities of a system built around Nuendo, Samplitude, Sonar, Logic, or whatever software you like this month. It makes adding I/O a problem, and drastically limits your choices when it comes to plug-ins. I'm sure people can do good work with it, but it's just the wrong way to go, IMO.

-Tim