whats the best recording setup?

So i have one of the new mac book pro's and its maxed out. 2gig ram 250gig hdd everything. I am a serious musician and am trying to record mt stuff in garage band. This program is obviously not good enough for what i am trying to do. I usually have about 7-10 tracks all mics no direct input. I record drums guitar and bass. Most of the time when i am recording in garage band it will record out of sync or the audio will sometime cut out and screw me up. What is a better set up and better program for me to use? Also i have sonar production but it is for windows are there any windows emulators i could get to install it?

rns900 said:

So i have one of the new mac book pro's and its maxed out. 2gig ram 250gig hdd everything. I am a serious musician and am trying to record mt stuff in garage band. This program is obviously not good enough for what i am trying to do. I usually have about 7-10 tracks all mics no direct input. I record drums guitar and bass. Most of the time when i am recording in garage band it will record out of sync or the audio will sometime cut out and screw me up. What is a better set up and better program for me to use? Also i have sonar production but it is for windows are there any windows emulators i could get to install it?

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Out of sync = latency issues and not necessarily GB issues.

That being said, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Digital Performer are all great mainstream mac apps.

With protools, you have to buy protools interfaces and hardware or it won't work. Not too expensive for their entry level equipment, but expanding and larger setups can get expensive if you don't have a large budget.

If you want quality, you're best to get preamps based on your mic and what you're recording. You could get a mixer/channel/analog to digital interface with 10 preamps, but the quality won't be as good as a good tube preamp. Vocals are a must. Instruments not so much.

Along with that is the fact that you're recording 7-10 tracks at once. I don't know that anything except a drum kit would take nearly this many inputs and most are only 4 or 5 mics. Recording two miced guitars and a bass at the same time is a no no unless you have seperate sound proof rooms as:

A.) Tube amps (which most guitarist will play unless they're broke) need to be loud to get a warm sound.

B.) More than one micced amp = bleed.

C.) tracks with bleeding = impossible to fix.

I think this is it. I'm slightly confused by your post.

What A/D interface(s) are you currently running? Most come with some type of recording software or demo...

Do you actually record everything at once?

What's your budget?

And Bootcamp, a free download from apple.com will let you install and boot into windows. If you're going to do that, I'd just return the mac and buy a PC though...

do you have a external harddrive?

Ok so i dont record all at once and i may have exaggerated when i said 7-10 maybe 7 max usually 4 or 5 tracks. I use a tube amp and usually do crank it when i record. My budget is low. like 500 on hardware and then whatever the software would cost. and i dont even know what a A/D interface is.

MDavid, dont have and external drive but could get one.

rns900 said:

Ok so i dont record all at once and i may have exaggerated when i said 7-10 maybe 7 max usually 4 or 5 tracks. I use a tube amp and usually do crank it when i record. My budget is low. like 500 on hardware and then whatever the software would cost. and i dont even know what a A/D interface is.

MDavid, dont have and external drive but could get one.

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Analog to digital interface. It's what you plug your mics/inputs into to get them to send the signal to a computer.

You can find one with 2 inputs for about $150-200 I believe. For one with 10, you're looking at atleast $500

You NEED one of those. Presonus, MOTU, Apogee, Alesis all make one or several different types. With $500, you're not going to be able to get a full setup that can record that many inputs at once. I'm thinking you're looking at at least $1000 and that's for generic gear and generic quality. It's going to cost you probably $200 for 4 cheap mics, and when you buy cheap mics you get cheap sound.

And if you can fanagle the student version of Logic Express, that's $150. If not, $250 is about the cheapest a recording software will be for the mac as far as the programs I'm familiar with. Plus depending on which interface you purchase you may need a mixer.

Basically you need these to have a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)

Computer
A/D Interface
Mixer
Preamps (can come on mixer or interface)
Mics
Recording Software

well i guess i better start saving then. Thanks

rns900 said:

well i guess i better start saving then. Thanks

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That's usually the case...(G) However, it all depends on just how high a quality recording you are looking to make. If you just want a good sounding .wav file to use to make demos with you can get by a little cheaper. If you want top quality professional, then start saving hard cause your $500 isn't even gona get you started.

No matter which way you want to go the first thing you need is good mics. Do not skimp here on quality. Something like a Heil PR40 or better i would recommend.

Next on your shopping list would be a mixer/preamp. Here, depending on the quality of recording you want you might be able to save a couple of bucks. Something like a Behringer Eurorack UB802 will give you both input and amped output to the computer for very little money. Of course you can go wild here and spend thousands... Which ever you go for, also do not skimp on the connecting cables, get good quality cables.

As for software on the Mac, again you can spend lots of money or you might be able to do what you want with something like Amadeus II or Amadeus Pro, which is a pretty good audio editor program for the Mac computer. I have used it for a couple of years now doing a podcast. You can record with it, edit with it, and do quite a few things with it for not a whole lot of money ($40.00). It works quite well and you can set up multiple tracks. You can download a test version to see if it will do what you need.

http://www.hairesoft.com

All in all you can probably get by on that $500.00 budget and produce a decent .wav demo if that is what you want. Or you can spend loads going the top end route. Which ever you decide, don't skimp on the mics.