Hey Guys,
I've been in a blues/rock/pop band for almost 8 years now. We started as a Pink Floyd/Beatles covers band, but by now we have a lot of our own material and we are tired to spend lots of money in studio time. That's why we are in the process of installing a small home studio for demos and we want to use my powerbook (Al 15, 1.5Ghz, 1G RAM) for the recording.
We're using old pieces of equipment acquired during the years: and old Tascam portastudio (2 inputs), a Yamaha Mixer MG10/2 and some sm57 mics (as you can see, we don't have lots of money). We are four musicians, 2 guitars, bass and drums, but some of the songs have a little keyboard work. 3 vocals are used most of the time.
For the drums, we're using 2 "ambient" mics, connected to the portastudio, plus 1 for the snare and 1 for the bass drum, both connected directly to the mixer. The portastudio is also connected to the mixer. We record the bass simultaneously with the drums, using another input from the mixer. Later, we add guitars, keyboards and vocals. You can hear the results of that setup here: http://music.download.com/pezblanco
We record everything in the powerbook using Cubase SX 1.06. I haven't had any problems with the software for mixing and basic mastering. We don't use a lot of effects (some reverb here and there).
That's the current situation. Now, the questions: 1) We're planning to invest some money in equipment. Which are the devices and brands you would recommend? A firewire input device?
The goal would be to record almost all the instruments simultaneously as independent tracks in the mac (now, everything that comes from the mixer is "downmixed" to stereo before coming to the computer. that's why we record only drums and bass at the same time).
2) Is Cubase allright or are we missing too much by not using Logic or ProTools LE?
I've been in a blues/rock/pop band for almost 8 years now. We started as a Pink Floyd/Beatles covers band, but by now we have a lot of our own material and we are tired to spend lots of money in studio time. That's why we are in the process of installing a small home studio for demos and we want to use my powerbook (Al 15, 1.5Ghz, 1G RAM) for the recording.
We're using old pieces of equipment acquired during the years: and old Tascam portastudio (2 inputs), a Yamaha Mixer MG10/2 and some sm57 mics (as you can see, we don't have lots of money). We are four musicians, 2 guitars, bass and drums, but some of the songs have a little keyboard work. 3 vocals are used most of the time.
For the drums, we're using 2 "ambient" mics, connected to the portastudio, plus 1 for the snare and 1 for the bass drum, both connected directly to the mixer. The portastudio is also connected to the mixer. We record the bass simultaneously with the drums, using another input from the mixer. Later, we add guitars, keyboards and vocals. You can hear the results of that setup here: http://music.download.com/pezblanco
We record everything in the powerbook using Cubase SX 1.06. I haven't had any problems with the software for mixing and basic mastering. We don't use a lot of effects (some reverb here and there).
That's the current situation. Now, the questions: 1) We're planning to invest some money in equipment. Which are the devices and brands you would recommend? A firewire input device?
The goal would be to record almost all the instruments simultaneously as independent tracks in the mac (now, everything that comes from the mixer is "downmixed" to stereo before coming to the computer. that's why we record only drums and bass at the same time).
2) Is Cubase allright or are we missing too much by not using Logic or ProTools LE?
