Topic: Audio (music) recording

[Perspective]

Any suggestions for (affordable) devices for music recording on a laptop (ie., usb connected, nothing that I need a PCI slot for).

I'm thinking of picking up one of these:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/avid-fast-track-c400

It's $149 at a few places and comes with Pro Tools. I appears to be 2 channel though they claim you can do up to four simultaneous inputs. Two should be enough for me anyway.

[jkim]

I have an M-Audio Pre that's sort of old. Works fine. Sometimes stops sending out sound, but fixes itself if I unplug it and plug it back in.

Yours looks nicer and if it can do more than one channel recording at a time, you have a step up on me. Can't really give you any more feedback on what else is out there since the available products have changed so much.

What will you be recording?

[Rob]

What are you recording (electric guitars, acoustic guitars, voice)?

Personally I'd want phantom power to drive a condensor mike via XLRs, and that unit doesn't seem to have it. (edit: yes it does. XLR's on the back)



By the way, your link says that it's currently unavailable.

[Rob]

It's a while since I looked at this stuff, but if I was in the market I'd be tempted to drop the cash on this. No protools, but meh, it's LE anyway, and you're locked into the supplied VST's with that.

The reviews are all very positive.

[KnuckleBuckett]

This was on Ben's Bargains today.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/stupid/?icid=200510&CJAID=10381297&CJPID=404255

Dunno if it is what you require.

[KnuckleBuckett]

Clan member thought this was a decent unit for PC for the money.
http://www.amazon.com/Tascam-US122MKII-Audio-Midi-Interface/dp/B002TTOJUC

He also note that the now discontinued Lexicon IONIX U82S is nice.

[Rob]

Clan member thought this was a decent unit for PC for the money.
http://www.amazon.com/Tascam-US122MKII-Audio-Midi-Interface/dp/B002TTOJUC

Yeah, I looked at that one too. Tascam gear is nice, but there were a lot of negative comments about the windows 7 drivers.

[Perspective]

I'll mostly be recording acoustic guitar and voice. It'd be nice if I could run an electric guitar directly into that (or through another pre-amp I have) and play with some software effects but I don't know how that will sound. My guitar amp is about 3000km away =(

Phantom power is a must and that unit does have it. That link I posted is just the first one that came up in a search, but it's available from apple.ca and used to be stocked at best buy but a few locations seem to still have them.

The tascam unit looks nice and comes with Cubase. I'll check out some reviews of that too. I used to have a tascam 4-track that recorded onto cassette tapes. That thing was awesome back in the day.

Thanks for the input, I'll be sure to update with a review of whatever I end up with!