x
anonymous 24 March 2005

I was reading an old post on PT versus Native systems, and i was wondering, compatability aside, if you were purely going for highest quality, and you had to start from scratch, would anyone buy a high end PT system, or would you by a Native system for much less, and buy the converters you want, and still have cash for pre's, etc. Just imagine you already have a nice acoustically treated rooms, monitor chain, and mics, but no recording system or pres, plugins, or outboard gear. Where would you put your money. This is based solely on sound quality, not compatibility.

Me personally I would invest in a native system that could stabley (is that a word) handle 48 tracks, probably coming in at around 5-7,000, and i would drop the rest in outboard gear and pres. I'm interested if compatibility wasn't an issue if more people would invest their money this way.

K

Topic Tags

Comments

KurtFoster Fri, 03/25/2005 - 16:02

There's no reason a native system should cost that much unless you're going for the best in converters. I have a 18 in 18 out 24 bit system that I'm into for about $3000, that's converters, software, computer, OS and flat screen monitor.

If money is no object, I would be getting the Apogee 16 in and out units. But that being said, I have always thought that good mics and pres were the most important thing to worry about. After that, monitors and the room. Of course, none of it is worth anything if there's no talent.

maintiger Sat, 03/26/2005 - 15:34

forgot the daw, sorry- logic or Digital Performer- if DP also buy Mach Five so plan to spend 1K here- But that's only because I have always worked with macs and am not about to change now (see no reason- I get a good sound plus have my DP chops down) For someone starting out though a PC might be more economical, I don't really know-

anonymous Mon, 03/28/2005 - 11:40

I just did this....

$4500 to finish studio construction. The rest...

Genelec 1031A (Ebay) $2600
RME Fireface $1400
Sebatron VMP4000e $1300
Focusrite ISA428 (Ebay) $1100
A/D Option for ISA428 $575
BLUE Kiwi (Ebay) $1200
Soundelux iFet7 $1800
Presonus Central Station (Ebay) $250
Logic Pro 7 $1000
Cabling $400

I'm a few dollars over, but you get the drift....

I have a UA 4110 on order too, this will put me even more in the hole!!!

The native system is definately the best choice if you want some good outboard gear. PT is great for the big-wigs that an afford it all, but I bet you can't tell one of my mixes from one done on a PT system!

anonymous Mon, 03/28/2005 - 23:59

i can dream can't i

how about a down payment on a Fairchild 670...then i'd be welcome at almost every studio i wanted to go to. lol

But seriously ...
Digital performer all the way (i like the software)
a vintage akg c-12
some sweet RCA 44's
rack of v-72's (8)
pair of la2a's
pair of fairchild 660's (cuz I can't afford the big dog on 15k)
and a great pair of headphones and headphone distribution.

on a budget of 15k
i'd worry about room acoustics and monitoring at some other time down the road.

anonymous Thu, 03/31/2005 - 10:14

I'd 110% buy native - unless I "knew" I "had" to work with other people with ProTools projects who were going to give me money and not a beer.

IMHO you pay quite a premium for any "locked in" system and most of the time they aren't that good anyway :oops:

I was going to say $4000 bucks on a solid state portastudio, a guitar, a beach deck chair with umbrella and the rest on hookers - but I guess that isn't helpful :P

My point being I'd like gear which was (operationally/artistically) invisble and I just had to think about music - which is what I should be doing.
Hence the guitar, beach and portastudio scenario.

The beauty of any (native) modular system is you can pick and choose and have an assortment of "sound characters".
So I'm not even going to list what I'd buy in particular. Some of it would even be cheap stuff!

A UAD-1 would certainly be in there.

Other than a solid quality core, I'd go for a RANGE of sonic textures.
Not that I'd get much change out of 15K :shock:

Cucco Thu, 03/31/2005 - 10:36

Kurt Foster wrote: There's no reason a native system should cost that much unless you're going for the best in converters.

So True! 5-7 K on a native system?? I just recently built a native system for portable use - it includes the following:
Asus system board
P IV 3 gHz Extreme
2 Gigs RAM
80 Gig ATA HD
200 Gig SATA HD
Lynx AES 16
Matrox Dual Head Video
2 Samsung 17" LCDs
Win XP Pro
AND Sequoia V8

All of this cost me just over $4K and $2650 was on software! Just imagine if you used Nuendo or Cubase - you could save a couple thousand on that!

BTW-- this will handle well over 120 tracks at full resolution.

The rest of the money - crack and hookers! (Just kidding - I'm married, I don't need the crack.)

Then, for the rest of the money - decent converters (Minimum RME, possibly Mytek, Apogee, or Lucid) a few decent mics - some value mics including:
AT4040
SP C1
AKG C451s
Then the staples
U87
AT4050
Lawson
And of course pre's
I like the Summit stuff and hell, may as well throw in a half a dozen GT Bricks.

Good luck!

Ps. If you need any help getting rid of it, you can donate to my studio - I'll call it a non-profit if it will help you out.

J 8-)

x

User login