Which Digital Recorder to use? Need help...

Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 7:49 pm

Hello, Folks at Recording Music forums....
I have been looking at digital recorders for past few days and don't know which machines suit my needs.

I and my friends run Internet Radio Station. We broadcast once a week over the internet using computer microphones and Windows Media Encoder. We also record them and make cd's and stuff. Usually there are 2 people talking at a time, and can go up to 4, or maybe more. I bought 4 $20 computer microphones(ones with headset) from bestbuy. We've been using them for a while but the recording is terrible. I had to get 3-way splitter and 2-way splitter to connect 4 mic's at a time.

So I decided to go little professional with this broadcasting and looked at digital recorders on ebay.com. Then I found about musiciansfriend.com where they have many list of "computer recording hardwares". The thing is....there's so many of them and I don't know what to buy. What I need is about 8 inputs, 4 outputs, can connect to the computer. I don't want to overpay for something far superior than my needs.

If someone could point me to the right direction, I would really appreciate it. Again, this recording is for capturing talks, not the fancy guitar or any musical instruments.

Thanks.

Seong

Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 8:07 pm

It sounds to me like you need a preamp/mixer and a simple stereo soundcard. This way, you could have enough inputs for everyone's mics, mix the signals to stereo, then record the mix to the computer's harddrive. Does this sound about right? Am I correct in the assumption that you do not need multitrack recording capabilities? If you elaborate a little, we could make some reccomendations.

Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 8:14 pm

Thank you for the fast reply! I don't really know what the multitrack recording is. Is it something that can split the sounds coming in into separate tracks? If so, I don't need that capability.
4 mic's and also if I can play music from cd player into the recording while people are talking, that's also what I want.
I just looked at M-Audio Delta 44 4 in/4 Out Audio card.

It has 4 inputs and 4 outputs, looks very simple to use. Is this something I need? Although it'd be better to have more than 4 inputs...

How about Echo Layla? It has 8 inputs...
Phase 88 ?

Seong

Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 8:31 pm

Yes, multitracking is recording the output of each mic onto independent tracks so that you can adjust each sound source individually after the recording is made - I didn't think you were interested in this. I'm guessing the soundcard in your computer will need to be replaced with a better one. The Delta 44 is a great card, but you may not need that big of a card. Right now, i'm thinking you sould buy a clean, two channel soundcard, like the M-Audio Audiophile 2496, and a multichannel preamp/mixer like the Studio Projects SP828 This setup would give you eight inputs and would allow you to operate in the manner I outlined in my first post.

Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 3:51 pm

My only thought on this is if you use splitters on the mics they're definitely gonna sound bustah (impedance issues)
And I cant imagine your best buy mics have XLR or TRS connectors...even with some adaption it could be dicey
maybe get yourself some SM57(s) to boot
Take it ease
Wave

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