Looking for advice...Home Computer Instrument Recording???

[Andyyyy]

Originally Posted by kirk

...
they're great for when you're starting out, in need of feedback
or a confidence/ego boost. there's over 3000 of them, the largest
is probably www.soundclick.com .

kirk

Ah, Thanks. I thought we always remain in need of feedback and ego boosts.

[TruthInAd]

I just have to add my 2p here since I've been through this struggle before.

When I was composing for my first solo CD I used a Brother Midi Recorder. It had pretty good editing capabilities, but lots of button clicks to get around the menus. However, I used it to control up to 7 devices, which saved me a ton in the Studio of having to not play all the instruments individually one at a time.

So, then I moved into Cakewalk Home Studio. I could import my stored midi files from the Brother onto the PC. Tweaking and editiong became a whole lot better. However, being a drummer first, I did not like the mechanical production of most drum packages. I also could not get the sound I was so used to in my own kit. So I moved up to using Soundfonts, and I sampled my own kit.

This still was not satisfying. And I found myself being more of an editor and less of a composer. Essentially I played for the computer, and not for myself.

Solution: I then bought a Fostex VF160 so I could take it LIVE again. Man am I ever pleased with this option. It does do MIDI as well, but I like best playing my MIDI parts into it, then adding live using good mics and a mixer, and NO COMPUTER. It's portable and lightweight.

The band I'm playing with now is releasing a CD this month, completely recorded on the VF160. The Mastering engineer said it was comparable to a pro studio in production for the type of music we were doing.

Here are a couple of places where you can hear the recordings made on the VF160:

http://www.eccehobo.com/eccehobohome.html
http://home.blarg.net/~markman/demos.html

Hopes this has saved you a few mistakes.

Truthinad

Please visit my product listing page on eBay
TRUTH IN ADVERTISEMENT ~ BALANCE ~ CD Prog / Fusion

[sharcnorris]

Rob, As A Home recorder on Keyboard I also went thru this. I think Kirk has given you the professional answer and he knows whats what. But we poor shlebs dinosaurs from the Seventies are just home enthusiasts.
Amateurs.
With this in mind I would say the puter adds layers of edits but also layers of more complication. I was happy with my old Sony 4 track reel to reel.
Truth has the ticket. This is a fairly easy machine to use and you will get satisfying results very soon... you can play Bass for me anytime
Here is some Fosgate Info......http://www.zzounds.com/item--FOSVF160EX