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Home Recording
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Recorder Information.
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Fostex VF80EX 8-Track Recorder with CD Burner- $599 ! Records 2 tracks simultaneously. Great for songwriting or capturing performances and burning quickly to CD, Or for individual multi-track projects. Has 8 real time faders but allows 16 tracks. Same great digital effects as the VF160EX. Reverbs/effects can be used in live performance while recording (2 at a time).
Fostex VF80EX All-In-One Recording Package- Condensor Mic, Monitors, Tripod, Headphones and CDs to burn. $849 !
Fostex VF160EX All-In-One Recording Package- With condensor mics, powered monitors, tripods, CDRs and headphones Special $1099 !A complete recording studio - record 8 tracks simultaneously, onboard CD burner. (See Review Below).
NEW ! Yamaha AW16G Multitrack Recorder - 8 Track simultaneous recording and CD burner, Effects plus guitar effects and amp modeling . $996 This is the newest in the bang for the buck competition. Comparing it with the Fostex VF160 I see also 2 XLR's with phantom power but only 12 faders. Both record simultneously 8 tracks. Both have two effects that can be used at a time. The Yamaha has guitar effects and amp simulation $996 !
Yamaha AW16G All-In-One Recording Package $1499
Tascam 2488 24-Track Digital Recording Workstation - 24 track (8 Simultaneous) $1199.
Tascam 2488 All-In-One Recording Package $1899
Fostex VF-160 EX Digital Multi-track Recorder Review
Fostex VF160EX 16-Track Recorder with CD Burner- $799
Digital Multi-tracking in the home recording studio is here ! Today's hard disk recorders are true full featured recording studios with internal CD burners built in !
There are currently very powerful recorders which will allow 8 tracks to be recorded simultaneously and include an onboard CD burner :
Fostex VF160 EX $799.99 has 40 Gig hard drive and can be expanded to 16 tracks of simultaneous recording. (see review below).
Fostex VF160 Features, Specifications, Review
The VF160's case is steel and very rugged, all of the faders and knobs have a smooth, quality feel. There are 8 input tracks with 1/4" jacks, Two tracks also have balanced XLR inputs and phantom power available for condensor mics. All inputs have gain controls and peak LED's. There are 16 channel faders and a master fader. We record live and I can remix and burn to a CD the same day ! There are two onboard effects processors which have a variety of reverbs, delays, chorus effects so I like the room reverb and usually choose this as effect 1 and apply it to each channel as I wish. I often use the drum booth effect setting as effect 2 to emphasize the channel which has the bass drum mic. Three bands of equalization can be applied to each track. Also, each track can be panned to the left or right outputs. There are left and right 1/4" monitor outs and a headphone jack as well. Each has its own gain control. All settings of fader position, effects, equalization and pans can be stored as scenes and recalled or modified. The beauty of having 16 faders is that we play back tracks and record harmonys on the additional 8 tracks without erasing the first takes. If I want to redo a guitar part or vocals I just enable the tracks 9-16 which I want to record onto and start recording. It is easy to exchange tracks and there are even 8 more tracks available on the hard drive known as virtual tracks where tracks can be stored for a total of 24 possible tracks per song. The analog to digital converters are 20-bit with a 44.1 kHz sampling frequency. The sound is outstanding ! There are two aux sends. We use one send to send my wife her signal from her classical guitar to a practice amp she uses as a monitor so she can better hear her guitar over the mix while recording live. The Aux sends can also be used to send any channels signal to an external signal processor and can be returned to any channel by buss recording. However there are two channels which have their own insert and return jacks as well for this purpose.
I should note how this recorder has been used by us and changed our performances. We used to use a Roland 8 track powered mixer for effects, panning and levels at our concerts. Now everything goes into the recorder and effects, equalization, panning are being done at the recorder level THEN the monitor outs of the recorder plug into two of the powered mixers tracks with one of the mixer tracks panned hard right and the other panned hard left. The signals record to the hard drive without effects, so I can re-mix and master afterwards untill I'm happy and then save and burn to CD. We have two guitars, a keyboard four vocal mics and one mic for recording the drums which use our 8 recording tracks. Sometimes the drummer isn't singing and can use his mic for an additional mic for the drums. You can store about 10 hours of recording 8 tracks on the 40 gig hard drive (80 hours of single track recordings), then you can store these tracks by burning them to a CD in the Fostex Format, as individual wave files ( one for each track - a good way to input into computer recording software). Or as ADAT . Or you can mixdown to a stereo CD audio signal to burn onto the CD and be played in CD players. An internal mixdown feature mixes down to a separate stereo song with all added effects and eq. . There are MIDI in and out jacks and this will record MIDI time code and act as a MIDI controler which I have not used.
The selling feature which sets this multitrack apart from the rest is that there are optical input and outputs for digital/ optical SPDIF stereo signals as well as 8 track ADAT optical... and this recorder can record 16 tracks simultaneously if 8 are being input by the ADAT optical interface! Digital mixers are available which have optical ADAT outputs. Also there are a number of 8 track analog to digital converters which have ADAT optical outputs. (see the Alesis AI3 below which sells for $399.99 and would double the VF160's tracks ... more mics for the drums or for more musician's. ). The Alesis ADAT Edit sound card is another method to transfer Tracks to the computer for computer editing (Includes editing software- see below).
Fostex VF160EX 16-Track 40 GB Hard Drive Recorder with CD Burner- $799
Alesis AI3 Analog-to-ADAT Optical Interface- 8 -1/4" inputs (adds 8 tracks to Fostex VF16/160) $399.99
Alesis AI3 Manual (PDF)
Roland VS-1824CD Digital Studio Workstation
Roland VS-1824CD - $999 10 gig hard drive.
Behringer DDX3216 Digital Mixer - $1099
32 input channels, 16 internal busses, 8 aux sends, 32 channels of 4 band parametric EQ, 4 stereo multi-effects processors, optional 16 channel ADAT interface (ADT1616), TDIF interface (TDF1616), and AES/EBU interfaces (AES808/ACB808P) available.
Marshall Electronics MXL2001/MXL603S - A large and small diaphram Condenser Mic Package $149 !
SHURE SM58-LC MIC $99.99
SM58-LC Mic List: $188.00
Price: $99.99
The undisputed king of stage microphones. Legendary for its uncanny ability to withstand abuse that would destroy any other mic. World-renowned for its distinctive upper-midrange presence peak that ensures an intelligible, lively sound. Perfectly fits the hand, balanced for total comfort during long gigs. Frequency response is smooth, vocal-tailored 50Hz to 15kHz, and the price is a bargain considering its life expectancy. Now includes free Mic cable !
Home Recording Notes - Information to record your first
CD.
If you have a CD-RW drive in your computer you don't have to spend any money on software or hardware to make your first CD .
The latest MusicMatch Jukebox software (A free download) will record a stereo signal from your soundcards line input jack and burn a CD-R disk to CD audio format that can be played on any CD player.
If you are going to convert your band to a cd .... or your vinyl albums to digital
... You go into your computers
sound card via the stereo line input jack ( not the microphone input jack)
, Pick up some adapter plug
wires from radio shack to connect the right and left channels of your stereo
(the tape recorder line jacks... not the speaker outputs !) to the
small stereo line input jack of your sound card. The plug into the sound
card then must split the stereo plug into right and left inputs....
Over Dubbing/Multi-tracking- Recording Software or hardware to allow
multiple tracks in the making of a song. Each track can then be manipulated
- levels, effects (reverb, etc.) separately. Cakewalk has Multi track recording software
that can produce professional CD's and also a home studio version.
N-track studio has many features and a demo can be downloaded for free.
Helpful Home Recording information - Pro and home recording resources on the internet.
Music Software- Shareware music machineHas many PC based multi-track software and other music programs to download.
Recording HanbookA one page lesson in home recording.
Recording Directory - links by subject.
Home recording top sites.
Multitrack Recording.Multitrack Recording - Good information.
United States Copywrite OfficeLibray of Congress copywrite office.
