Reality Check -

Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:09 am

Okay, so I am looking for a reality check.

Over the past couple weeks, I have been researching, thinking about, and agonizing over which hardware/software setup to upgrade to. As of right now, my primary projects will involve recording/mixing live audio --- acoustic guitars, acoustic bass, vocals, and lots of backup vocals. My budget is around $2,000 or so dollars.

So far, I have more or less narrowed my choices down to the following two:

(1) Digi 002/003 with Pro Tools

(2) RME Fire Face 400/800 with Logic Pro

As near as I can tell, the benefit of going with the first option (Digidesign) is that I would get (1) a control surface and (2) Pro Tools (which, from my experience, is the simplest program for live audio recording and mixing). The downside, of course, is that the A/D/A converters and Preamps in the Digidesign stuff isn't all that great while the RME stuff is supposedly fairly high quality.

So, I guess my question is this: recording at home, in a non-professional environment, will I really notice the difference in converters and preamps between the Digi stuff and the RME Fire Face stuff?

Should I sacrifice the Digi control surface and ease of use of Pro Tools for the superior sound quality of the RME units?

I need a reality check here --- as a non-pro who just wants to make really clean recordings, does any of this matter?

Any thoughts, comments, complaints, suggestions, observations, reservations, revelations or visitations from God would be much appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:12 am

Greetings,

I'm curious. What are you upgrading from? Am I right in assuming that you're using (or will be using) a Mac? Is it one of the older Powerpcs or one of the newer Intels? What else do you currently have in your set up? Do you have any acoustic treatment applied to your recording and/or mixing space?

Depending upon your answers to these questions you might find that you could spend that $2000 on something else that'll be more beneficial to the end result - the quality of the recordings.

HTH

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:53 pm

Thanks for the response.

To answer your questions:

(1) Yes, I will be using a Mac. I have a new Macbook Pro, intel-based laptop that I will be recording on for the time being.

(2) No, my recording space is not treated, and I don't really have the option of treating it at the moment. I will be moving to a different state in about 6 months and it just seems like a waste to spend time and money treating a room that I will be leaving so soon.

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:16 pm

I really don't think you should be agonizing over this??

First off, stick with your Mac Book Pro. All of which, FireWire would make the most sense for you. There's nothing wrong with the ProTools converters. It's a phallus, see? Use your Pentium III 450 for e-mail, that's all it's worth to use on. Maybe as a 2 track mix down machine but why? But since we are talking FireWire here, I might recommend the Presonus Fire pod which has 8 inputs of decent quality microphone and/or line inputs but won't necessarily run with ProTools. You would have to use another software package such as Sony's Vegas, Adobe Audition, Steinberg Cubase or Nuendo or, others. They're all the same but slightly different and there's nothing simple about ProTools that isn't as simple or simpler as the other packages available.

You might want to consider the new Apogee FireWire interface? That's where my money would go but then it's still not ProTools capable. Only ProTools hardware can be used with ProTools software. So your selection process is somewhat flawed methinks?

If you really want to use ProTools, I might suggest my above recommendations for tracking and overdubs and then purchase yourself an inexpensive M-Audio Transit with ProTools 7 LE M-Powered for mixing ITB.

Just like a kid in a candy store
Ms. Remy Ann David

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 3:36 pm

To me PTLE is more of recording tool, Logic pro is better suited for composition.

The othe consideration is that Macs are still going through the Intel transition, some of the plugins are not yet compatible.

The effects and Instruments in Logic Pro are integrated into the app and are part of the source code, so everthing works.

The instruments are compareable to the Native Instrument's offerings, the included effects have enough quality that you don't have to immediately purchase 3rd party plugs.

So if you are mainly recording live instruments go PTLE, If you are more of a composer Logic Pro.

Cool

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