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anonymous 19 March 2011

Hi Everyone,

I'm an experienced performing musician who has dabbled in home recording for about 10 years (cubase/reason/small outboard mixers), but now that my curiosity for recording has gotten the better of me, I'm trying to understand what I'd need to do/gear I'd need to acquire to achieve very good quality recordings from a home studio environment using the traditional studio approach and to record live bands.

I've spent about 18 hours of internet browsing time trying to do my homework and research my best options, but the more time i spend researching, the more my brain wants to explode from option-overload.

I'm hoping someone would be kind enough to take the time to read on and offer any relevant advice for my situation. You already have my thanks if you've made it this far into my post.

Here's what I'm currently using at home:

  • - HP 2111tx Laptop /w 1x firewire port + 4 usb 2.0 ports / Cubase 5/Reason 5
  • - 2x 2 channel power amps
  • - Ashton PMX1024st 10 channel powered mixer
  • - 12 channel Stage mixer/effects send box
  • - 8x foldback monitors
  • - 4x PA speakers/2x Yamaha NS-10 Studio monitors/2x JBL 8in Sub bins
  • - 5x Shure SM57's, 5x various vocal mics, a couple of condenser mics & one set of 6 drumkit mics
  • - Line6 POD X3

All of the above are currently only being used in Jam situations at home/live setups as i've not been ready to focus on the recording side of things until now.

I've pretty much settled on buying the Avid/Digidesign 003 Rack + as my interface but i have a couple of questions about that.

  • It sounds like it covers a lot of bases but it doesn't look very tactile. Where's all of the mixing knobs & faders?

Which leads me to:

  1. I'm guessing I'll need to buy a digital mixer to integrate with the 003. But i've only got one Firewire port on the laptop. Could this be gotten around somehow? I've got my eye on a Yamaha n-12 but i don't know if it would work with the 003/Pro Tools software. What would you recommend?
  2. The laptop just has it's own onboard soundcard which is annoyingly difficult to control. Will it affect the operation of an audio interface like the 003? Can i bypass it?

Basically, if anyone can answer those questions or do a step by step connection by connection explanation of how it's done, i'd be really grateful!

Thanks for your time

Cheers

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Comments

natural Sat, 03/19/2011 - 11:15

some possible answers, Although I don't know all these products in detail.

  1. Your mixer is in the software. If you want to have a more tactile experience, don't get the rack version. Get the one with the mixer. There's several configurations in the 003 family. Make sure you get the one with 8 mic inputs. I assume this is enough inputs for you since you've already researched this product. More info here: https://www.avid.co…
  2. The Yamaha will give you more mic inputs on the front end. You'll need to research further what the 003 can accept for digital inputs in addition to it's analog inputs. In any event, you might not need this item up front, but may come in handy down the line.
  3. The 003 is your new soundcard. your computer (if it meets the Avid requirements) will recognize it and allow you to switch to it. more info here: Avid - Pro Tools LE for Windows Compatibility & Upgrade Information http://avid.custkb…

Also check out the various forums at the Avid site which should provide you with oodles of info.
http://duc.avid.com/ Avid Audio Forums

Hope this helps a little.

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