Garage Band Quality?

[zimv20]

they said the Quality of the preamps on the M-Audio was way better.

yeah, sounds like they were trying to sell you the piece. i'd reach for a presonus pre before an m-audio one, fwiw.

I just want to make sure i get a good enough unit, so that its not the "weak link" in my recording equipment you know?

perfectly fine recordings can be made with either piece. the important stuff is what's going into the mic, and by that i mean the signal, the room and mic placement. then the mic, THEN the interface.

 

[polaris20]

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they said the Quality of the preamps on the M-Audio was way better.

yeah, sounds like they were trying to sell you the piece. i'd reach for a presonus pre before an m-audio one, fwiw.

I just want to make sure i get a good enough unit, so that its not the "weak link" in my recording equipment you know?

perfectly fine recordings can be made with either piece. the important stuff is what's going into the mic, and by that i mean the signal, the room and mic placement. then the mic, THEN the interface.

Couldn't agree more. Sound advice

 

[BlackJack325]

Recording at 24-bit ultimately will give you lower noise floor in most cases, because you can raise or lower the gain on each track without introducing so much noise as you would at lower bit rates, which correlates to the overall quality of the end product.



Which two were you looking at? It all depends on what sort of inputs you need. The converter quality and the pre quality will all be the same. If you're doing drums and plan on doing it without a submix, the Tube, Studio, and 2626 will all work. If you plan on connecting many instrument level inputs, you'll need either the Project or the 2626.

the m-audio 2626 and the studio presonus are my options

 

[BlackJack325]

yeah, sounds like they were trying to sell you the piece. i'd reach for a presonus pre before an m-audio one, fwiw.


perfectly fine recordings can be made with either piece. the important stuff is what's going into the mic, and by that i mean the signal, the room and mic placement. then the mic, THEN the interface.

well, my recording room is being built. its a 20'x30' will be divided in half so it will be 20'x15' so one section is gonna be my jam/record room the other half is gonna be kind of a living room. Big, TV, bar (stuff like that).

Mics I use are SM57's for guitar amps, Shure PG drum mic kit, and Blue Bird for vocals....
I think thats a good set up dont you think?

 

[zimv20]

I think thats a good set up dont you think?

it's a start, sure. what plans do you have for room treatment and monitor placement?

 

[polaris20]

well, my recording room is being built. its a 20'x30' will be divided in half so it will be 20'x15' so one section is gonna be my jam/record room the other half is gonna be kind of a living room. Big, TV, bar (stuff like that).

Mics I use are SM57's for guitar amps, Shure PG drum mic kit, and Blue Bird for vocals....
I think thats a good set up dont you think?

Something you may also want to consider, since you're not going to have isolated rooms, is an Apogee Duet with a nice mixer doing submixes for your drums. While it's nice to have separate tracks for each drum, there will be so much bleed it may not be worth the trouble unless you're a very experienced engineer. There are some excellent techniques for recording drums involving just two to three microphones that take advantage of a great sounding room. If you're having one built, you could take advantage of that.

Just a thought. It's the direction I would go.

In fact, I am planning on getting the Duet, because the only live instruments I'll be recording in the near term are guitar amps, acoustic guitars, and vocals. Bass will be DI'd, and drums will be a Roland kit triggering Superior 2.0, because it's easier with the room acoustics I have available to me to use an electronic kit than it is to fight with an acoustic kit.

 

[Fishrrman]

"the m-audio 2626 and the studio presonus are my options"

Before you settle on either of these, consider the Echo AudioFire8Pre.

I switched from a Presonus Firebox to an Echo Audiofire8 (version before the 8Pre), and it was definitely a "move up".

 

[polaris20]

"the m-audio 2626 and the studio presonus are my options"

Before you settle on either of these, consider the Echo AudioFire8Pre.

I switched from a Presonus Firebox to an Echo Audiofire8 (version before the 8Pre), and it was definitely a "move up".

Ooh, I forgot about them. Good recommendation as well. I had the Echo Mia years ago, and it was a very good card. Twice the price of the equivalent M-Audio, but well worth it.

EDIT

Sound On Sound liked it:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr10/articles/echoaudiofirepre8.htm

For $800, I'd say it may be worth the jump, if you need that sort of input/output capability.

 

[BlackJack325]

Ive always used my living room to record, sometimes my garage (2car w/door open). I always thought that my garage sounded better than my living room because the drums sound fuller and the guitar amp hits really well too.

My living room (tile floor, wood covered walls open to the dining room which is all carpeted full of furniture) sounds really dull/dry sound to my instruments...

Plans for my jam/rec room so far is just your standard maybe a bit thicker sheet rock, hard wood floors and area rugs for the drum set/guitar amp... Not really sure about anyother "treatments" to do to it. Im sure ill be getting better sound in there than my living room. The recording equipment will be in the same rooom, so I was thinking of tracking with headphones since im the "artist" being recorded.

 

[BlackJack325]

"the m-audio 2626 and the studio presonus are my options"

Before you settle on either of these, consider the Echo AudioFire8Pre.

I switched from a Presonus Firebox to an Echo Audiofire8 (version before the 8Pre), and it was definitely a "move up".

Checking out that Echo unit, But I see it only has 6 XLR inputs, that would only cover my drums... and the $ on it is kind of up there.

Edit: correction, i just saw the last 2 XLR inputs. Theyre on the far left and the other 6 are on the far right... weird?

 

[BlackJack325]

The only thing id need is some good quality preamps, a guitar plug in so I can take advantage of those amp models available on GarageBand/Logic and a MIDI/USB to plug in a keyboard to use some plug in instruments....

Think that Echo Unit is too much for my needs?

 

[polaris20]

The only thing id need is some good quality preamps, a guitar plug in so I can take advantage of those amp models available on GarageBand/Logic and a MIDI/USB to plug in a keyboard to use some plug in instruments....

Think that Echo Unit is too much for my needs?

I think the Echo covers your bases pretty well. I'd experiment with using less mics on the drums at first, then branching out. It's easy to paint yourself into a corner with too many mics, and you can easily run into phase issues. Think bass drum, snare drum, and an overhead at first.

 

[BlackJack325]

I think the Echo covers your bases pretty well. I'd experiment with using less mics on the drums at first, then branching out. It's easy to paint yourself into a corner with too many mics, and you can easily run into phase issues. Think bass drum, snare drum, and an overhead at first.

Will do, ill look into this unit a bit more... Its $700, which is not bad.

 

[BlackJack325]

I think im gonna get the PreSonus unit, great price ($500) and has all the features I need.
I found Logic 9 on Amazon for about $380, so im gonna go that route...

While on the GarageBand/Logic topic...
After you have recorded. edited, mixed, and mastered what format will the song be put into? Can you just easily transfer it over to iTunes and put it on a CD?

 

[polaris20]

I think im gonna get the PreSonus unit, great price ($500) and has all the features I need.
I found Logic 9 on Amazon for about $380, so im gonna go that route...

While on the GarageBand/Logic topic...
After you have recorded. edited, mixed, and mastered what format will the song be put into? Can you just easily transfer it over to iTunes and put it on a CD?

You can transfer it over to iTunes, or you can export to a file that you can easily burn to CD. I don't actually do a lot of burning these days, but it's not a big deal to do so.

I would get used to GB first, before you run out and buy Logic.

 

[ChrisA]

I think im gonna get the PreSonus unit, great price ($500) and has all the features I need.
I found Logic 9 on Amazon for about $380, so im gonna go that route...

While on the GarageBand/Logic topic...
After you have recorded. edited, mixed, and mastered what format will the song be put into? Can you just easily transfer it over to iTunes and put it on a CD?

Use Garage Band until you have a good reason to move to Logic. and then for $199 you can get Logic Express.

When you are done yu have just a normal audio file and you can save to the file type you like. I think for most people that would be WAV If you are working in 24-bit 96K, you'd have a 24-bit 96K wav dfile (huge) and then from that convert to whatever is required. There is a lot of flexibilty

 

[Fishrrman]

"For $800, I'd say it may be worth the jump, if you need that sort of input/output capability."

Can be had for MUCH cheaper if you shop around.

"Checking out that Echo unit, But I see it only has 6 XLR inputs, that would only cover my drums... and the $ on it is kind of up there.
Edit: correction, i just saw the last 2 XLR inputs. Theyre on the far left and the other 6 are on the far right... weird?"

Not wierd.

2 on the front panel, and 6 more available on the back.

Since many folks only need 2 for a lot of applications, they're giving you inputs 1 and 2 "right up front".

I'm going to _guess_ that the two "front" inputs are combined mic/instrument (direct) jacks, while the additional six on the rear are limited to mic/line.

My Audiofire8 was the easiest piece of audio gear I ever connected. Just plug it in, and it's "there", waiting to be used. Great stuff from Echo.

 

[BlackJack325]

you know... ive been reading more and more on that PreSonus Studio unit and im seeing a lot of negative reviews! People saying that when they wanna record above 44.1khz that they get a lot of pop on the mixes!

this search is starting to take its toll on me!
M-Audio reviews are a lot better, but some say that the audio isnt all that great, others say its awesome!

Still continuing to look up the Echo unit reviews....

My Roland is still up for sale on CL

 

[zimv20]

People saying that when they wanna record above 44.1khz that they get a lot of pop on the mixes!

could be user error. if the box and the DAW are set to different sampling rates, that's what happens.

not saying there isn't an issue with the box, but i think there's reason for skepticism.