Analog Guy Needs Help
malbuff
perhaps someone will be able to make a helpful suggestion or two.
I have been away from the music and recording busness snce the late
1980s. Recently, a series of opportunities-- some music, some spoken
word-- have arisen, and I want to start making high-quality home
recordings again.
Along with quality instruments and microphones, I have my trusty old
TASCAM 234 four-track analog recorder. It is a 3 3/4 IPS cassette
machine with full four track capability, NR, hi and lo impendance
inputs. It has produced many fine quality recordings in the past, and
is still in excellent shape.
My first question is, is this thing still worthwhile at all in the
digital age? Obviously, my goal is to get clean, clear MP3 and/or .wav
files of my music and/or voice-overs.
I have done some experimental work with my 128-bit sound card and my
best Shure mic, input direct to the PC mic in. The quality is
mediocre. I have this sound processing software called Audacity that
was recommended to me by a PC expert. It is easy enough to work with
and will create files from single or multiple tracks. If I get some
decent input, I can probably figure out how to use it for mix down to
stereo or mono.
But I can't help but womder if I should be recording to a different
medium (such as tape) and then patch individual tracks from the 234 to
the PC separately, where I can work with effects and balancing via
software. I guess my main concern is, those little dorky line and mic
inputs on the PC, what kind of quality control are we talking about
here? I am used to tweaking the instrument or mic signal before it
gets to the 'medium' itself. How doable is that with these PC
inputs? For instance, my spoken voice, direct from mic to PC, comes
in very hot and with a fair amount of noise. Am I doing something
wrong? What does everyone else do, that is, those of you who can't
spend a fortune on equipment?
I very badly want the finished product on the PC to be clean and
clear, and I just don't know how it's done any more! By way of
background, I learned basic recording techniques in San Francisco from
the master himself, Leo de Gar Kulka, back in thr 1970s, so I am not
completely technically incompetent. But I am completely ignorant of
how to proceed if I want the finished product to be a PC file and not
a cassette.
Well, that's enough for now. Anybody willing to help?
Thanks.
David Malbuff .
Grey Loki
On Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:15:57 -0700 (PDT), malbuff <mal...@aol.com>
said:
> Well, that's enough for now. Anybody willing to help?
Sure - I would say the first thing to think about would be investing
in a higher quality interface for your computer - perhaps something
by Alesis, MOTU or Digidesign (their mbox series). This will give you
much higher quality audio to work with in the box, which is where
it's happening these days. Keep hold of your tape machine, but for
the sorts of things you seem to record, I would say digital is the
way to go :)
HTH.
Cyberserf
Wow...quite the mouthful. Here's my 2 cents:
Ok...personally, I'd say, if you"re happy with the Tascam (and many
people would be), there's nothing wrong with that...but if you're
going digital anyway (mp3), you might as well invest $40 in a nice
firewire card and pick yourself up a nice 6/10 (6in, 10 outs)
interface...Something like a Presonus Firebox has a couple of nice mic
pres (with phantom power for condensers), two line inputs (with gain
boosts) and a couple of spdif...USB2 audio interfaces work well too
(you can run them with low latency ASIO drivers) and there are a host
of them, so do some Googling on audio interfaces. These beasts
typically come bundled with some recording software (sequencers) such
as Cubase or Pro Tools LE. These allow you to record a number of
tracks at once, and do overdubs in a surprisingly visual way...mixing
in the box (as they put it) is not quite the same as analog mixing so
you might want a nice analog style hardware MIDI interface (like a
Mackie Hui or a Behringer B-Control) to run the software (most audio
interfaces have the MIDI connections required). You can thus record 24
bit at 44.1 (or better) and dither down to 16 bits for CD quality WAV
( AIFF). Some benefits of mixing in the box include a host of VST
effects and instruments can be added to your creations (a little
keyboard to drive the instruments is helpful, but not necessary), the
edits are visual...you can see the wave form and zoom in on it...beats
become evident, as do imperfections. Further, you can automate pretty
much everything from gain structures to EQ settings to effects...it's
all as easy as drawing a line with a mouse. Grab yourself a back copy
or two of Sound on Sound (or visit their website) and I think you'll
be surprised how much affordable gear there is that will allow you to
really expand your home studio in a modular manner.
Cheers, CS