House of Drumming.com

So. As many other things, recording gear and learning how to use it sort of fell by the wayside, too. We all need to know this stuff today, though.

My old PCs are fried, so I'm starting from scratch.

Basically I want to learn a DAW and I guess it's best to go with Pro Tools. Logic has been as much a standard around here, but after they opened things up Pro Tools is up there and internationally..., I guess if you're too lazy to learn more than one.......

Anyway.

I'm not going gear crazy. It's to learn. Record for practicing,rehearsals, demos, my own ideas and so on... Eventually I'll upgrade.

Though a few too many valleys, the plan is still to go back to school. And I pretty much just want to have a small setup, throwing together with my (PCM-70 and H-3000) that I can keep in the rehearsal space and would appreciate some thoughts.

So..

DAW: Probably Pro Tools 12

Computer: Mac Mini 2,6 GHz with 16GB RAM. Becacuse it's small, mobile, the price is right and hopefully does the job well enough. I'm thinking tracking isn't really the issue as much as going crazy with plug-ins when mixing. I can move it back and forth from rehearsal space to home. When school is done and I might want for more power it can be demoted to living room computer.


Interface: This is where opinions are wanted. (But offcourse also about the little Mac if it seems uncapable.)

I know I want at least 8 inputs. I know I can go really cheap, but it would be nice for things to be generally passable long term. I've looked around at several models and so far the Focusrite Clarett 8Pre X looks pretty good. It's the only one I've seen with Thunderbolt, which I guess is a point as the Mac has those. If I need more, to record a bigger band live, I can always add an Octapre and I think that will cover my needs for a long time. Another +, because it seems to be considered pretty good, is that I'm thinking it's the one I'll might most likely be able to sell on in the future.

Lucas mentioned the Yamaha mixer which I guess Weckl also used for a while and still uses live. I've never used one of those, but just been told they're not very user friendly and I have experienced a few issues on gigs with guys being new to them. Offcourse it's also a mixer, so multi purpose. On the downside, it's more expensive and has no Thunderbolt port. They do sometimes show up used, though

Thoughts?

I think too many people rush into multitrack recording. There's more to it than most people think, and it will consume a lot of your time - time better spent on other pursuits that will produce more value for you. There are small, simple to use recording devices that would be more appropriate for you. You play guitar, so you have a major head start when it comes to composing.

I recommend something like this: http://www.bossus.com/products/br-800/ It comes bundled with a "light" version of Sonar. I use Sonar Platinum on my Windows 10 computer and I like it a lot. I think ProTools is a mess.

Seriously though, unless you're working on music for release, getting into recording engineering and production is a major endeavor. It's definitely much easier and cheaper than it was 20 years ago, but there's still a lot to it.

That's true just for putting things down and practicing, but I wouldn't learn anything.

I'll offcourse use things simply often enough, but the whole idea is to start getting really into it.

My studies might very well include 50% of engineering and music production. That depends a bit on what studies I get accepted to as well.

Really, what has been postponed isn't just my practicing and ability to do my teaching job, but also about 4 books and plenty of ideas for albums. I was very much in the process of planning and turning my home into a studio before I left.

I still have to save for a couple of months anyway, bought too much gear this summer , so I have plenty of time to think.

Still open to Logic and expect an old teacher to try and sell me on that.

I'll have to go talk to some people and play around with a bit if possible.

Get a Mac Pro with 32GB of ram and 16 cores. That should work good enough to record.

Jim Richman wrote:Get a Mac Pro with 32GB of ram and 16 cores. That should work good enough to record.

As soon as school is done and I'm working full time again I will.

Jim Richman wrote:Get a Mac Pro with 32GB of ram and 16 cores. That should work good enough to record.

You can get double the power on a Windows computer for half the cost. And forget about trying to use a laptop for anything serious. You need a minimum of two hard drives, ideally solid state. A laptop with those specs is going to start at $4,000.

I just bought one of these for live recording use.. Comes bundled with Cubae le.

https://www.amazon.ca/Zoom-H6-Handy-Rec ... B00DFU9BRK

Small.. Easy.. Use it to record by itself and transfer to mac to mix with Cubase..

Comes with 2 stereo mics.. Cardiod x/y and mid side.. Has 4 combo TRS/XLR..

So you can use built in mics for OHs add kick snare and 2 toms you are good to go..

Not going to be professional release level, but for demos or ideas you can't beat it..

Going to try it out this weekend gig. For me easier than using a laptop and interface in a rack at a gig for a basic but decent recording live.

A big part for me is simply learning the software.

Not going to go crazy with tracks in this time period. Max 16 at a time and the possibility of a session going over 30 isn't all that great.

If I was to do a score with 150 tracks I'd use the school's studio. Not likely and not really an issue at this point.


I've been looking around for a couple of days and have sort of reached a temporary conclusion.


- Around here, except for the Cubase crowd, the basic idea is a Pro Tools for Studio A(main tracking and mixing) and Logic for Studio B(composing) type of situation. This is also the situation in the studio one of the teachers and his wife at the school are running. The average student uses Logic, at least they used to when I went there, for then obvious reasons.

- Focusrite 8Pre X + Octopre seems to be the best "bang for your buck" out there today. That's 16 ins with preamps that are considered to do the job well enough for pro duty. Decent sound, low latency and reported to work well without issues with said software.

- There seems to be a number of people using Mac Minis successfully. Tracking in itself should be no problem. The question is more or less where the limits are after that.



Still waiting a bit, though. Already spent my money on other gear. Extra hardware, practice kit, couple of snares and stuff... Basically shifting priorities and getting every else except the new drum kit. That money goes into a savings account for school and at a point I feel comfortable not needing it, the new kit will be ordered.

A small all in one box is cool and practical for some things, but I'll just find something used and as cheap as possible if I get one of those.

Just found an old VS-880EX for $100.

I would highly recommend educating yourself quite a bit before jumping into something like this, especially if you're not experienced at all with DAW software. I jumped in without knowing what the hell I was doing and wasted a lot of time and money.

What kind of recordings you're aiming to make is going to drive your system requirements, and if you're looking at recording anywhere above a 48K sampling rate you're going to need a pretty powerful computer and a boatload of storage space. Consumer-grade external drives also suck for music and video production... fragmenting is a bigger factor when that kind of data writes to disk so you'll want enterprise grade drives (or SSD). All of this gets pretty expensive fast.

Paul is right, you can get a lot more power and space on the Windows platform cheaper, but industry standard DAWs and Video production isn't very common on Windows. A couple guys I know use Reaper and dig it. I guess it's about whatever DAW you start with and how long you use it, because the longer you do, the more reluctant you become to switch to (and/or learn) something else.

Aside from all the gear and DAW stuff, I'd also say that a good sounding room to record in is also a pretty big part of the quality of drum recordings you're going to make, or at the very least a big part of getting a good sound without a lot of post-production, and for a drummer that usually means a decent sized studio space. A good room, two solid LDCs overhead, a good kick mic, maybe a snare mic (all well placed... another thing that takes some education) and a decent 4 channel Focusrite mic pre will get you some really nice results.

Austin Burcham (Study the Greats) does a pretty good little 5-part series that will explain the gear side pretty good for the uninitiated. I wish this was around when I got started. He uses Logic, as do I, but the DAW isn't the focus here, it's more about setting up a pretty solid home recording rig for drummers:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLleS-Mfyj_ffMRXOrhlyXh8Q3Cw6oLLjI

Again, since I'm a Logic user, this next video series is based on Logic, but it's a pretty excellent deep-dive type coverage that explains a lot of stuff that is pretty much standard in any pro level DAW. It will give you an idea of the level of familiarity you'll need to have to operate any DAW efficiently, and explain sampling rates, encoding, etc. which will go a long ways towards letting you know what system specs you want to look for when buying stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXmi76euGSyzX8KMPAHJPyOSZy5w4CsV9

Good luck man.

*sorry for all the edits here, added a few things as I thought of them