Recording n00b in need of advice

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anotherdisciple

New Metal Member
Jun 20, 2010
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I'm a drummer by trade but we're not known as the smartest breed so I decided to gate crash this place for some advice.

I plan on using summer job money to purchase my own mics and everything necessary to let me record drum tracks and further down the line tracks for my band because we've been mooching off the equipment in my church.

I was pointed towards firewire because it wouldn't have delay that usb2 would have which was important because I also wanted to record covers to put on youtube and I don't feel like nudging audio tracks. From Firewire I was directed to Presonus interfaces. From Presonus reviews told me about bad customer report and sporadic failings and I don't have the cash flow to deal with a lack in either of those departments. Now I'm resting on a Motu 8pre but I'm still confused as possible.

What makes this all even better is today I did a lil cavity search of my computer and found that I do not have a firewire port. Is there any way to use a firewire interface attached to some firewire/usb2 thingy?

To top it off, reviews don't give the 8pre a spotless record on lack of failings and perky, helpful tech support.

I feel like I'm swimming up a creek and whatever my destination is is getting farther and farther away. Every answer leads to a bagimathousand more questions.

Any help? Suggestions? please and thank you thank you thank you thank you!
 
look for a Focusrite pro 40 on ebay. some b-stock sellers have them for 349 and they come with a full warranty not to mention its a killer interface thats pretty much on par with the maudio 2626 that everyone raves about on here but for much less money.

you will however have to buy a firewire card though they dont make adapters for firewire to usb however the firewire cards are cheap
 
Hey.

Firewire to USB2? Thats not possible im afraid. If your using a PC, the best option would be a simple Firewire card ( PCI or similar ). Check which Firewire chipset the manufacturer recommends before you get one tho..

the MOTU 8 Pre is a great choice.

:)
 
First off, I wouldn't trust a MF or GC product review because literally the fucking stupidest people on earth are the ones that post complaints or talk shit about things they were too stupid to troubleshoot.

Presonus, Motu, M-Audio, Focusrite, ect. all make quality products for a similar price with similar features.

Honestly, you're going to have to make a list of the bare essentials you're going to need to get a decent product and be able to build around it and have room to progress as time goes on. You NEED a firewire port in order to use a firewire interface. You need to take in consideration your budget and what you absolutely need in order to get where you want to be. Honestly if you are just wanting to be able to record 8 mics I would be prepared to drop at least $1000 for the interface, mics, cables, stands and a decent pair of headphones to mix with until you can afford to go from there.

As for your never-ending questions and wants- dude anyone on here will tell you that that shit never really goes away once you commit to this stuff.

The Presonus Firestudio mobile or project (or the likes of) might be in your budget

audix makes a fusion drum mic package and condensers that work fine, and a trusty I5 or of course an sm57 would have you set.

all depends on your budget man, might be best to just invest in one good thing at a time, piece by piece like stepping stones like I did (and still am)
 
The StabbinCabin said:
As for your never-ending questions and wants- dude anyone on here will tell you that that shit never really goes away once you commit to this stuff.

The Presonus Firestudio mobile or project (or the likes of) might be in your budget

audix makes a fusion drum mic package and condensers that work fine, and a trusty I5 or of course an sm57 would have you set.

all depends on your budget man, might be best to just invest in one good thing at a time, piece by piece like stepping stones like I did (and still am)
Click to expand...

I was going to buy a Shure SM57-52 drum mic set, low profile stand for the kick mic, cables, and the interface, on top of that i'll be looking into the firewire chips. I have no problem dropping a grand on this project at least. I have summer job money and I knew most if not all would be going into this project.

I understand that most of these products are at the same level of quality and usefulness but by now I'm just hunting around for what has the lowest failure rate and best tech support.
 
Ok dude so let's run down all you need

Cables - get these $70 for 10, I have some of the same ones they are nice build quality and cheap

Stands - you need at least 2 overhead stands and a kick stand - $120 new

Mics - shure drum kit, $400, or you could just use triggers and sample replace the drums... a trigger set is about $200 and you wouldn't need the shure kit, you will need at least 2 overhead mics and 1 snare mic in addition to this, matched pair of NT5's for OH's will run you about $430 new, or you could go budget and get some shure pg81's or something for about half that price

headphones - you need at least one set for monitoring or two sets if you are going to have 2 instruments going at the same time (ie guitarist playing with drummer) $50-$100ish

interface - anything decent with 8 channels will do you alright.. profire 2626, 8pre, there are lots of options really, but I'd say plan on at least $500

monitors - $300 for bottom budget KRK RP5's

are you going to be tracking in a separate room? if so you also need a snake.. I got a decent 16 channel seismic audio snake on ebay for $160

I'd plan on spending $1000 minimum and $2000 if you go all out with the mics and buy the nice overheads and such
 
I wasn't going to use overheads. I was going to close mic everything. I've talked to several YouTube drummers who don't use overheads.
 
how do you plan on capturing the cymbals without using overheads, close mic'ing does not capture cymbals, you might get a tiny bit of them bleeding in but that's it
 
Tyler Humphrey only close mics and he has plenty of cymbals in his mix. Also, I have some pretty hefty cymbals you can hear through walls three houses down. I think mics will catch them if I just tap 'em.
 
how many records has tyler humphrey produced? if you want to do it correctly, with professional results, you need overhead mics, it might be fine for a "drums only" mix but if you are doing full band on down the line you WILL need them

youtube drummers are not engineers or record producers
 
You have to have overheads if you want cymbals... I do drums with triggers & the shure mic kit... I use a pair of Karma Audio mics for overheads... I run it all into a Digi 002 & an Ada8000 & i use a behringer headphone amp for multiple mixes out... My entire rig was under 1500$...

Digi 002 - 500$ with protools 8 le
shure mic kit - 330$
ada8000 - 200$
headphone amp- 130$
ddrum pro triggers - 200$
sennheiser hd280 pros for mixing & monitoring - 70$
karma overheads - 150$
cables - > 100$ if you make them yourself
i already had stands so that was free

i would work for a rig like this choose whatever interface you like... The headphone amp really isnt nescessary... But you can use the sm57's to track guitars too...
 
Ok, thanks for the link DanLights. It answered a lot of questions. But as stated in my first post, it gave me new ones. :P If I buy an interface it'd come with a limited DAW, but if I wanted more I wouldn't be able to switch, I could only expand whatever DAW my interface already uses?
 
anotherdisciple said:
Ok, thanks for the link DanLights. It answered a lot of questions. But as stated in my first post, it gave me new ones. :P If I buy an interface it'd come with a limited DAW, but if I wanted more I wouldn't be able to switch, I could only expand whatever DAW my interface already uses?
Click to expand...
No, you could use any one. You'd just need to pay for it, and you may get an upgrade discount if you already have a limited version of one.
 
anotherdisciple said:
Ok, thanks for the link DanLights. It answered a lot of questions. But as stated in my first post, it gave me new ones. :P If I buy an interface it'd come with a limited DAW, but if I wanted more I wouldn't be able to switch, I could only expand whatever DAW my interface already uses?
Click to expand...

No. You can use any interface with any DAW except for Pro Tools. You have to use Digidesign or M-Audio hardware if you want to use Pro Tools. A lot of the dudes around here highly recommend Reaper, and it's free. Personally I use Logic.
 
Nope.alot of it comes down to workflow. Reaper is free and the word around here is its powerful as shit. 1 thing to keep in mind dude. Your new around here, Listen to what everyone has to say because you can get a fuck ton of help from the people here. Dont start saying that random youtube dudes and your local guitar center guys are telling you to do this instead, because 95% of the time, they are talking out of there asses.
 
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