Novice question-home recording setup!

[thunderbroom]

New to the board so greetings all. I am a long time analog guy about to make the digital plunge and after exhaustive researh, have settled on a few options. Here's what I am currently considering:
1) Digi 002 (PT setup w/ the controller)
2) Tascam 1082 (Cubase w/ controller)
3) Standalone (such as Roland VS2480) to track but with seperate editing software.

With any of the above I am also looking at a keyboard controller (25 or 49 keys), a good set of headphones to replace my old Sony 7506's, and a firewire harddrive for any recording work.

My computer setup:
iMac G4 upgraded w/ 512 RAM, 80G harddrive. Will look to add a firewire drive to handle recording and saving files.

If it helps, I am a mostly guitar-based writer.

So my question (finally) is does anyone have a preference for a direction to go? Remembering that I know NOTHING about digital recording other than there is a steep learning curve from my years of analog recording. I know everyone has their preference, I just need to know if it's worth the investment for the digi 002 or is it better to go standalone with some good editing software. Thoughts, ideas, suggestions all welcome! Thanks in advance for all your help and happy new year to all.

Howard

[Larsen]

Hi, Welcome to the board!
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The learning curve isn't quite as steep as you may think. Once you get the hang of things, most programs work on the same principals. Personally, I would shy away from the stand alone units. They work great for portable recordings and they aren't "bad", however, a lot of times the pre-amps are a little thin. Plus, you have limited editing capability. Even if you do get a stand-alone, if you ever want to edit on a computer, you have to get some sort of soundcard to bounce it in, so why not skip the middle man and get a decent card?
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The way a lot of people go, me included, is to track to tape, then bounce your files into the computer for the final editing. That way you can still get an analog feel with the ease of computer mixing.
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I use Cubase, because it came with my card. It works fine for me. PT is great too, and seems to be pretty easy to pick up on. I could'nt really afford PT, but if you can, it's the "industry standard", and that doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon. I don't think it's going to hurt you in the long run, and you can always sell it.
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You can also pick up a decent mid priced card, (like an M-Audio, Echo, or EMU) and use some free software like tracktion, and find out if you want to continue recording digitally at all. That way you haven't blown all of your cash.

Anyway, that's my two cents...

Have a good New Year..

j

[kittonian]

The MOTU 896HD and a Glyph 051 (tabletop hotswap firewire drive) might be the perfect option for you. From there you can use Digital Performer, Nuendo, Cubase, etc. PTLE limits you on the amount of tracks and various other things and IMHO it's much better to get a standalone piece of software than to buy a bundled product.

[StivBatorsWreckedMyCar]

I just moved from one of those stand alone units to a 896HD/G4 setup and the difference is night and day. The pre's in those stand-alones (Korg/Tascam) are brittle at best. The editing also leaves something to be desired.

[thunderbroom]

Thanks all for the replies to the thread. After much research, I decided on the Digi002 w/ the factory bundled software, with a nice keyboard controller, a sweet pair of Event powered monitors and a nice pair of AKG 'phones to replaced my decrepid Sony 7506's.

Thanks all-happy new year!

[mrc]

Send those 7506's in for a tuneup. They come back as new

[drliebs]

I love my AKG's for critical listening, and my 7506's for giving to the guitar player during tracking...wait...you're a guitar player...wait...so am I!

Can't go wrong with the setup you have. One tip I have for you. Always start your session by naming it and saving it. If the 'puter crashes and auto save is on, there will be something to load when it recovers and hopefully you won't lose anything, or much at least..

Second tip (did I say just one?) Always name your tracks before you start recording so that when you are sifting through scads of audio files, they have somewhat usefull names. "Guitar 1" will make a lot more sense then "untiled 1" when you are looking at 100 files!

Save often!

[aishabag23]

i use protools myself, but am looking into cubase since i do electronic music. i think it's always good to know protools regardless of what you end up using because as was said above, it is the 'industry standard'. so i think you made a really wise choice!

a good inexpesive controller i could recommend is the m-audio radium 49. i think i paid about $150 for it.

there's a company called "EZQuest" makes external firewire drives that are supported by digidesign. i love my EZQuest drives.