AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - seeking advice on an analogue home studio setup

In article writes:

that's just what's been recommended so far.

Narrrow gage analog recorders are a bit easier to move (in every
sense of the word) and the "on line" crowd are more familiar with
them. I had a TASCAM 80-8 that I did a lot of good work on, but my
2" Ampex was a big step up, both in sound quality and in
"professionalism." People took me more seriously when I could stop
saying "I have a TASCAM recorder."

Tape
cost is moderately important; I don't know if I want to pay for 2" tape
(but would consider it).

How prolific are you? Or more important, how vain are you? Do you feel
that you need to save everything you record because you might like it
some day, or are you disciplined enough to say "that was a turkey,
I'll just record over it."? A half a dozen reels of 2" tape isn't a
bad investment for a project. 30 reels is strictly "major sensitive
artist" stuff.

Only because it [the Ghost] was the only thing I found and looking back in this
newsgroup I found a huge thread talking about how nice it is. No other
reason. I will look at Trident and MCI gear.

Compared to a Mackie, it'll be better in most respects, and that's why
you'll see it as a favorite among those who like to help others spend
their money. There are other good boards in that same class -
Soundtracks has a lot of fans, too. But analog consoles are kind of a
dying breed and some of the better ones have been scrapped to make
rack mounted channel strips, so at any given time when you decide to
look for one, you may not have many choices available for sale.

Okay. It's only that I've heard some things come through Mackie boards
and they gave it a quality I didn't really like; hard to describe since
I don't have much to compare with, I guess a bit dry and lifeless.

I've also heard some very good things coming out of Mackie boards. One
of the reasons why there's a lot of bad Mackie recordings is because
it's an inexpensive board and most of the people who use them don't
have a lot of experience or a lot of other good gear. Another reason
is that it's a little harder to get a great recording out of one
because it IS an inexpensive board and there have been some corners
cut and some design decisions made that orient it toward doing its
best job producing straight ahead rock music.

So, at the other end of the (entry-level) spectrum, I'm considering
limiting myself to a cheap 1/2" 8-track like a Tascam 38 or Otari 5050
MK-III 8, and a simple 8-channel mixer to go with it. This would force
me to use the crap stereo outs on the drum machine and synthesizer, but
at the same time give me something rather simple to cut my teeth on, as
it were.

That's actually not a bad approach. It also forces you to make
decisions as you go along, which gives you a better picture of how the
project will end up as you're working on it.

My only real fear is that if I happened to make something I liked, I
don't know if I could go and "make it better" at a later date

If you like it, why worry about making it better? Why not just do
something new that IS better?

The stereo outputs aren't
_that_ crap, but you can imagine that onboard mixers are worse than
external mixers.

Don't be too sure about that. When they only have to do one thing,
they can do it pretty well.

A lot of people talk about how old
studio gear is now available for a fraction of the original price, and
that's why I thought it would be enough (I mean, a 1" 8-track Studer A80
Mark II is on eBay right now for $1900 with zero bids, and I thought
that was pretty decent; the "buy-it-now" price is $2900).

This is true, but it doesn't follow for everything. In the days of the
$35,000 Studer, a console to go along with it didn't cost $3,000, it
cost $200,000, and those consoles are now available for $10,000 or
less. One thing that's both good and bad about cheap studio gear is
that some of it tends to hold its value better than expernsive studio
gear.

--
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