Skip to main content

Hi All,

I have been looking at my gear and wondering if I shouldnt be taking a different tact with my expansion. I am a musician utilising recoring for my own material, but am hoping to expand to better quality as my skills develope doing personal demo's myself and others. .

As some of you know I am running a soundcraft Spirit folio 12/2 mixer into a Tascam DP01 fx/CD.

I have a decent PC (not great) that is a home unit fulfilling various roles (workstation).

My question is should I be expanding on my current system or looking at utilising my PC until I have explored its limits then update and follow the PC route?

I am thinking that initially I could mix through the soundcraft into the PC with appropriate software (recomendations?) then out to my Tascam which has a 40GB HD on board?

Am I really gaining anything by going this route or am I just making things a lot harder for my self? :-?

Regards
Guzzy

Topic Tags

Comments

RemyRAD Sun, 03/26/2006 - 20:36

Your Teac/TASCAM unit is an all-in-one box. While you can dump to your PC to record your CDs of your mix, you can also do it within the box. If I were you, I would accomplish my mix ITB, burn my CD and then if you believe it necessary, rip your CD into your PC. From there you can do some other final mastering with other types of software. Or if you're truly adventuresome, you could dump your individual tracks from your all in one box, into your PC for mixing and mastering, then burn your completed CD.

If you don't think you have a way to dump individual tracks to your computer, you actually do have. You would simply burn each track individually to numerous CDs and then rip those CDs back into your PC, lining up and synchronizing all of your tracks together within your multitrack software. That is only if you do not have another convenient port to interconnect with your computer for transfer purposes?

Even though you have an all-in-one box, you're very abilities can be multiplied through creative imagination.

There's more than one way to skin a track
Ms. Remy Ann David

anonymous Sun, 03/26/2006 - 22:51

Thankyou for your reply remy,

I am starting to think a bit more laterally when it comes to working with what I have.

Any more tips to add flexibility (with the tascam only having 2x simultaneous inputs)???

[From there you can do some other final mastering with other types of software.]
So I am seeing the mastering possibilities with my P.C. Is there any software that you can recomend for this purpose????

I think I can dump from the tascam via USB. So if I save the individual track ITB as standalone songs I should be able to do the multiple CD idea without using all the disks??.

Thanks again
Guzzy.....

RemyRAD Mon, 03/27/2006 - 00:06

Yes, I would guess there is a way if you're all in one box has USB connectivity, whether it's 1.1 or 2.0, it may only require that you merely connect it to your computer? It may then show up on your computer as another disk drive or something? If you can locate its internal disk drive then you should be able to copy all of those tracks to a " storage drive" on your PC. Of course once in your PC you'll definitely need some kind of multitrack software to be able to modify, enhance and mix inside your PC/software. I personally like using Adobe Audition along with Sony Vegas the most. Of course there are many others to choose from and only you can decide which is best and most intuitive. Once you have established what you believe to be a reasonable mix, then you can go on to experimenting with mastering.

There have been much debate and discussion regarding mastering since we have on this forum some actual professional mastering engineers. It's all so subjective with mastering engineer's dropping a fair bundle on the hardware and software, while spending years at their craft. There are numerous popular dynamics and equalization software that many people will obviously suggest for you. One piece of software I have enjoyed using is a piece of software none of the mastering engineer's recommend but anything that is manipulated with a heavy hand is bound to do more harm than good. The software I've been using for some of my work is made by I. K. multimedia of Italy called "T-Racks". Of which I have been using the standalone 24-bit capable version 2.0.4. They also offer a plug-in version which I don't much care for. I don't even like the presets they provide with my version as I find them much too over-the-top and aggressive in a non-flattering sort of way. Again, LESS IS MORE particularly with that software.

Waiting for more good sounds.
Ms. Remy Ann David