[[email protected]]

hi there.

i am looking for your advice on buying some home recording
equipment...i am aware of the m-box and interfaces like them, and i
have read recently about four channel fire wire multi-mixers from
yamaha and other companies.

with so many different options (as well as salespeople with varying
levels of expertise and honesty), i'm just a little over-whelmed by it
all.

ideally, i'd like four channels as i play in an acoustic duo and would
love the option of recording live...would like to keep it under
$500.00...sorry, but its the budget i have...i'm looking to record
good quality demos as we work out parts for a CD to be recorded
professionally in the fall.

thanks for your advice, rick

[Barry]

On May 16, 8:01 pm, wrote:

thanks for your advice, rick

I know less than everybody here, including you...

from what I can gather, recording good songs on little cheap shiny
equipment is hard to do. It just takes a lot more work to conceal that
it was recorded on cheap shiny equipment.

[Mike Rivers]

On May 16, 8:01 pm, wrote:

with so many different options (as well as salespeople with varying
levels of expertise and honesty), i'm just a little over-whelmed by it
all.

ideally, i'd like four channels as i play in an acoustic duo and would
love the option of recording live...would like to keep it under
$500.00

That's an awfully general question to try to answer here. What you
need is to pick one of the sales people who seem to have good
experience and learn what you can do with what he can sell you. You
don't need to evaluate every product on the market - you'll be even
more overwhelmed than you are now. Have him put together (at least on
paper) a system that's within your budget and go over all the things
you'd like to be able to do to see if you can do them at all, and how
much trouble it is.

And don't rule out an integrated recorder/mixer like the TASCAM DP-01
(though they only record two tracks at a time). Roland may offer
something like it in your price range.

[[email protected]]

nothing to be sorry about, rick.

do you have a notebook computer?

your best bet by far in this price range is the series from emu. look
at the 1616m. they make a pci slot one for desktop computers, and a
pcm/cia version for notebook computers. they have outstanding
converters and specs. i know the 1820m sounds fantastic. it looks
like they went with a slightly smaller package, but the same specs
with the 1616 series (i believe they stopped making the 1820 series,
and streamlined their product line more). whichever you get, make
sure it has the "m" at the end of the model number. that means you
get the better quality converters. i'm not sure why they came out
with the non-m versions.

besides outstanding signal quality, it has the convenience features
you need like headphone outputs with volume control, all sorts of i/o,
etc. it even has a turntable-in! (you might not care, but i think
it's awesome they still do that)

www.emu.com

they got bought by creative a while ago. rather than being a bad
thing, this is actually very good, because they are able to buy
converter chips by the zillions and leverage creative's massive
manufacturing infrastructure.

there is nothing even close at this price point.

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

wrote in message...

ideally, i'd like four channels as i play in an acoustic duo and would
love the option of recording live...would like to keep it under
$500.00...sorry, but its the budget i have...i'm looking to record
good quality demos as we work out parts for a CD to be recorded
professionally in the fall.

Check out ZOOM and a cheap Behringer mixer - or live with stereo inputs.