NEED HELP WITH MULTITRACK DRUM RECORDING!!

[southwellweb]

I am fairly new to production and have set up a small home studio, i just wanted to know what is the cheapest way to get around 8 tracks of separate audio recording at one time. I have looked for mixing desks with multiple group outputs but they are way more than what i can afford. Are there any soundcrads you can connect multiple XLR cables to and record each input onto a separate track?????

Thanks

 

[cobrahead1030]

presonus firepod ($400 usd) is about the best cheap deal around right now...that connects via firewire, and gives you 8 inputs

 

[lilhermiejobo]

+1
PRESONUS FIREPOD

This is something I looked at when I was browsing for an audio interface for multi-tracking. When I was jamming with the band a couple years ago we got an M-Audio 1814 but I wouldn't recommend those because the 2 front mic-pre's are known to break down fairly quickly, but I've only had experience with 1 unit and have only read from other users that their mic pre's went out as well.
I hope this is of any help to you man, it was the first one I came across but it should steer you in the right direction on your search for multitrack interfacing.

ROCKIN LIKE DOKKEN

 

[cobrahead1030]

if you look on MF's site, they have a whole section for usb and firewire powered recording hardware now (for multitracking like that, you'll need firewire) which offers a lot of easy/affordable options

the firepod is the only one i've personally owned and used tho

it's a shame such products weren't so prevalent 4-5 years ago when i was first getting into recording...all those headaches running a cheap mackie mixer into the mic in of my laptop uke:

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

I agree with them on the Firepod but if you want more inputs (at a little less quality and maybe a little less price):

e-mu 1212/

with:

ADA8000

 

[colonel kurtz]

just to let you in on a little secret...well, maybe not a secret, but a great tip:

if you plan on using 8 channels to track drums, you'll want more than 8 total inputs. if you're asking "why?"....it's because you'll want to get a scratch track of the guitar, if not also the bass while tracking drums

take my word for it - track drums ONCE on 8 channels, then try to overdub guitars over it later with no scratch, and you'll never do it again. the same thing happened to me the 1st time i stepped into a studio - our drummer was engineering, and used all 8 inputs for the drums. i played along with him as he recorded his part of the deal, then had to record my guitars over raw drum tracks later on. needless to say, i was hating life for the next week - especially since it was my 1st time being recorded while playing.

of course you might be alright if you aren't doing extremely technical death/grind stuff...but i thought i would throw the warning out there, because there's nothing worse than dropping a bunch of bones on an interface, and thinking shit's all good, then smacking your forehead later on and wishing there was ONE MORE FUCKING INPUT FOR A SCRATCH TRACK!!

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

just to let you in on a little secret...well, maybe not a secret, but a great tip:

if you plan on using 8 channels to track drums, you'll want more than 8 total inputs. if you're asking "why?"....it's because you'll want to get a scratch track of the guitar, if not also the bass while tracking drums

take my word for it - track drums ONCE on 8 channels, then try to overdub guitars over it later with no scratch, and you'll never do it again. the same thing happened to me the 1st time i stepped into a studio - our drummer was engineering, and used all 8 inputs for the drums. i played along with him as he recorded his part of the deal, then had to record my guitars over raw drum tracks later on. needless to say, i was hating life for the next week - especially since it was my 1st time being recorded while playing.

of course you might be alright if you aren't doing extremely technical death/grind stuff...but i thought i would throw the warning out there, because there's nothing worse than dropping a bunch of bones on an interface, and thinking shit's all good, then smacking your forehead later on and wishing there was ONE MORE FUCKING INPUT FOR A SCRATCH TRACK!!

+1 this was the main reason I picked up a toneport UX2 to go along with ma firepod.

 

[Executioner213]

Why not record a scratch guitar track to a pre-programmed drum count or a click track? Then the drummer can play along to your scratch guitar track that is tight already instead of you both stubling through shit at the same time and having a goofy drum track to record guitars to later.

 

[Noumenon]

Why not record a scratch guitar track to a pre-programmed drum count or a click track? Then the drummer can play along to your scratch guitar track that is tight already instead of you both stubling through shit at the same time and having a goofy drum track to record guitars to later.

+1

That's how we're doing it.