Saturday, March 2, 2013

The Home PC Vrs The Table Top Digital Multi-Track Recorder

Hands down, if you record with, or want to record with a table top recorder, this would be one of the best, the price 1,500.00 or more; it is not a pro recorder spec wise as it is not 24 bit at 96Khz. I have said before in my books and on blogs and schools I taught, you want a true polished pro recording you MUST record in 24 bit and 96Khz, not 44.1, not 48 Khz, but as said. These are the exact same specs pro recording studios use, so you can to. Yamaha has one of the only table tops that record in these must have specs. That would be my choice. Very expensive.
The Boss unit up top, as all boss recorders were designed for the guitarist in mind, and tailored for that purpose, a one man band. It has a decent mastering unit and a quality amp simulator, sound loops, many, many drums it can be a full band, via one person. You can do the same for less and with better results on a PC. More and more people are going PC music studio set ups in home studios.
I gave the info on 4 different PC home set ups, and many saw the cost, if you have not seen the gear, and set up plans for a almost zero down to a few hundred dollars to make a truly, studio quality radio ready song, see the free e-book The Poor mans Guide -To making Pro Recordings-For pennies on The dollar, also my great how to market your music on line free e-book, no adds in the books , just a lot of needed info. On this blog you will see part of the making pro recordings for pennies on the dollar set ups.
If you are a song writer only, and plan to shop your demos to publishers it matters not the quality, meaning almost any cheap 4 track digital recorder will do it, or free Pc recording software.
If you are a soloist or band, a worship group, you plan on selling your music on line in MP3 format, the way its done, you must record in the specs mentioned. Never over look making a CD with Disc Makers, a good one coast around 1.00 to 1.25 a CD and around 1,000.000 down for 500 pro CD's thy have them in 1000 Cd's, less bells and whistles, they offer mastering at a huge price over 400.00 per CD, I charge 10.00 a song for a full CD or 15.00 for 1 to 4 songs, beat that. Also you will need a real nice CD cover, our CD cover art is second to none, see the business link.
You can do all this yourself, and you will with practice, that is my goal, not to make sells, but to educate you to do all this on your own. See the few things we offer and the price, you will see I am not doing this for the money, my passion has always been to teach others, and work with people who need help taking their talent to The Next Level. A free recording school via email, oddly still not one student, no one else offers this, do not think free means it’s crappy. I had a big Business, a big domain, I still have a record Co, and Production Co, it is all just a few things I do and offer now. I teach by email, why, everyone has different recording stuff, I do not know it all surprise, hay do not laugh you don't either. LOL. but you can master, mastering, mike placement, recording tricks, all but maybe not the pro CD cover art work, my 32 year old son of Loan Goat art studios does that for us now, and he gets the cash, he offers frame-able fantasy art as well, so email me soon.

In the email free school You ask a question, or if in the
USA we can talk by phone, a true pro free and your finger tips, audio recording consultation, I used to make 125.00 an hour for this. Free, no strings attached, no need to use any of the services, nothing. You will get your answers you need while recording and you encounter a problem, or if you want to learn the art of audio recording, call or email.

I have been an Independent music and movie PR person, marketing, promotion and advocate for the INDY biz, and I know all about musicians and no money, starve till you make it LOL.

If you play out, any type of venue, anywhere have a CD for sale, a T-Shirt, a band, soloist can make a real living from merchandise alone, so do not over look free concerts, free playing for no money, make sure your sells table is there. 

The ones who play out, are the only ones that will make any money now days in the business, fact, song thief, you name it, I know some established acts who do OK on I-tunes, but not many. Try and sale your mp3's on line, see, since my book all has changed that way of selling is going no where, but a band-solo that plays out, that is key to making a honest living in music. I never liked doing cover stuff at weddings, I wanted to do my own stuff and rock out in clubs and later concerts, the applause, the thrill to see tears from a song you wrote, music gives hope, tells a story, and has a heart felt message you want to get through, or its candy pop, with no content.

I was In N.Y. last week, on the plane I sat next to an Indy rap artist, he has his laptop, and was running Ableton live. We talked, I was watching him, seeing what he was doing, I could tell he was having problems, I could not hear it, I could see it, and it comes with time.

He was doing a sampled sequence, and I saw him isolating a trouble spot, a glitch, a silence, an out of sync problem. You fix this by isolating and finding the problem, the sample, track giving you trouble, than you use the + button to make the wave form larger and larger, he was having so much trouble, he was expanded to a wave form that looked like almost a straight line, for hours he struggled, I said nothing, practice makes perfect and he was no newbie.

I wanted to say, listen just do this, hit that, etc. I held back, but could have saved him hours of agony, that’s what I do, so not to use it would be insane, back in my day, no one taught their secrets, even as a JR Engineer, second engineer, the SR. Engineers always kept me out of the loop on a lot, job security lol. Also; I have fixed a lot of old analog music and remastered it and made a digital CD, if you’re an old timer with LP's and Cassettes, you need to convert them to digital. Magix has a great cheap product that does all of it for you, around 30 plus dollars a good investment to save your music, analog tape only last so long, I have a box full and many have a audio drop off many times per song, this drop off, or silence is due to magnetic tape, and that can not be fixed, the humming, white noise, pink noise, clips, noise, can be eliminated with that cheap product. I used to offer that service in my old biz, I see many on line still do, I could not in good conscience do it and charge for it, because of the 30.00 magix software, that does it all , so I gave that up, do not pay to have this service done, buy the cheap software and do it yourself.
If you do not have a LP player and a power amp, hit a yard sale or pawn shop. No Cd player and amp, again used 10.00 bucks for all of it at yard sales I did it, so for around 40-50.00 all your music can be done in CD format of all your old recordings and after converted to mp3's to load in your player and your mp3 unit at home.
At The moment the very best software for fewer than 100.00 is 79.00 it is called mixcraft, the best, get it. If you have money get a recorder that allows you to make music and not get hooked up in all the technical stuff, this will affect your songwriting, and recording. I love the tech stuff, but I do not use these 1,000 seq or 500.00 ones that take 6 months to a year to master, no way, I write and record constantly and as a songwriter, it kills the flow. For looping Acid Pro Is my go to unit, Like Hans Zimmer and James Horner, they have been using acid pro, think the lion king on acid pro, it is also used for vsti's and samplers, thus film music, it is much more than a lopper, I do a lot in acid pro, now almost all my music sound beds and compositions ar3e done in Acid Pro, audio Magix Samplitude pro, and mastering Samplitude pro with Wave plug ins and others.
Lastly, another free service I do is song evaluation 100% free, many artist want to know, is my song ready, is it ok, how are the levels, the content. Big Co. charge a lot of cash for this, not Digital Goatee all free, all the time, now get involved , if you want me to keep doing this I need some students, some submissions, something, anything, let me know your out there, I have several websites and things I do, so I look to keep only what is getting the reads, interaction, and dropping a lot of stuff this year, I will give this a month or two more, if nothing by then I will say good-bye.
Until next time, happy recording