# Upgrading Home Studio, Help!

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by Deadnight Warrior (Zone BBS Addict) on Thursday, 22-May-2014 18:45:42

Hi all. Not sure if this would be best suited for Jam Session, but here it goes. For most of my life as a musician/songwriter/amateur producer, I've mostly worked with physical gear. My first multitrack recorder was a Tascam 8 track, and I now have a Zoom 24 track and Tascam 32 track. I very recently bought the Tascam 32 track after having the Zoom for a year or so but rarely touching it because it was so hard to use. I'd tried to sell it, but the person who was going to buy it backed out and I decided to just hold onto it because it has great potential as an audio interface into a DAW. The Tascam is a lot more accessible, especially when it comes down to mixing and mastering. For some time I'd tried to use the Zoom as an interface into Audacity and Reaper but didn't have much luck with either since learning how to use either was very difficult to do on my own. I also had several issues with latency and hearing everything doubled through the interface, so another option I explored was recording the individual tracks externally and pasting them into empty tracks in Audacity and Reaper but I had a hard time making sense of the mixing/mastering tools. Anyway, I'd like to bring my setup into this century, and I'm considering getting something to serve as a hub for everything, as well as my main device for mixing and mastering. I have a Dell laptop now, but it's not the best and I had bought it at the time intending to use it for school work. I've considered getting some of the stuff sold by Dancing Dots, so that's definitely an option. My other idea was to use an iPad or Mac for this. I think the iPad would be the cheapest option. But I haven't heard much about apps that can handle large numbers of tracks. Any suggestions on that? Also, most of the interfaces I've seen specifically for the iPad have only been 2 or 4 channels. The Zoom recorder I have now has 8 channels with USB connectivity. Would it be possible to hook this up to an iPad? I need the higher number of inputs to be able to, for example, mic an entire drum kit. And the onboard microphones on this thing are amazing. Almost worth the price of the whole unit. So I'd love to still be able to use these. And finally, the Mac, which I feel would be the best solution...except for the price. I've heard that ProTools is accessible on them. Any experiences with that? I'm sure there's more where this came from but I can't think of anything else right now and this post is long enough. haha Any input is appreciated and thanks in advance!

## Post 2 by Deadnight Warrior (Zone BBS Addict) on Thursday, 22-May-2014 19:57:06

One more quick question: For the purposes I've mentioned, is there much difference between the iPad and the iPad mini?

## Post 3 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Thursday, 22-May-2014 22:49:58

I've used Dancing Dots product with aRoland keyboard back in 2002004 and before. It worked great then. I'm sure that they have m made improvements to t their software since then.
What are the current specs of your laptop? Let's see if that can handle what you wa want , then go from there.
I cant h help with MACs, but I can at l least give you an idea of how well your current laptop will be able to handle the software from dancing dots.

## Post 4 by Deadnight Warrior (Zone BBS Addict) on Saturday, 24-May-2014 17:48:36

Um, please excuse my technological ignorance, but how can I check that on the laptop? haha I had it written down somewhere from when I originally bought it but can't seem to find it now. I'm not that good with technology, so I guess another thing to add would be which of these options would be the easiest to adjust to.

## Post 5 by JH_Radio (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Saturday, 24-May-2014 18:06:04

What o operating system are you using? that wil depend on how you check your specs.

## Post 6 by BigDogDaddy (Help me, I'm stuck to my chair!) on Saturday, 24-May-2014 19:07:34

I personally use Pro Tools on a mac, and have had great success multi tracking and tracking both bands, and indi artists. A shameless plug, but I am probably two or three days away from rleasing a guide to using Pro Tools with speech on a mac. It's about 6 and a half hours of instruction walking you through recording, editing, and mixing in PT. I have some sample tracks I've completed in PT that I could throw in dropbox if you have any interest in hearing what can actually be accomplished.

## Post 7 by Deadnight Warrior (Zone BBS Addict) on Sunday, 25-May-2014 0:49:12

I believe it's windows 7. And sure, I'd love to check those out. That's the other thing I need to take into consideration: how much support is there for each? I've tried using Sonar with some JAWS scripts but was unable to figure much out on my own. I know that Dancing Dots provides tons of tutorials and other documentation with the scripts they sell, so that's definitely a plus. At BigDogDaddy, where would this guide be available? And are there any other resources like that available?

## Post 8 by WillieTheWoof (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Tuesday, 27-May-2014 14:03:24

Oh, large dog father. Wait, do I have that name wrong? Okay, the bad humor is out again. Is this going to be a free tutorial or for cost and if so how much and how would one buy it? I ask because I do have clients that want to use the Mack for Music and ask all the time about the accessibility of protools. Have they fixed the Midi window accessibility yet? Thanks. This is definitely a needed thing.

## Post 9 by BigDogDaddy (Help me, I'm stuck to my chair!) on Tuesday, 27-May-2014 15:19:08

At post 7, sadly there haven't been many tutorials available with much quality and actual information, and that's mostly why I decided to put something together. My best friend is an engineer who previously worked at house of blues studio in Nashville. He is sighted, and came to town to help me record an EP, and we decided to see how practical it was to use PT on a Mac with Voiceover, we were amazed at how little resources we could find to really help us get started. So we spent about 3 hundred hours putting together a web site, and tutorial. The site will have free biweekly audio tutorials on things such as creating virtual instruments, working with Midi, automation, using Control surfaces, ETC ETC.
At post 8, we were originally going to put something out for free, but after we started and realized it was going to take massive amounts of time to create an interactive tutorial, meaning we provide the end user with an exact session to follow along with everything we taught in the tutorials there would have to be some sort of cost. I have tried to price everything extremely fair. We plan to price at $9.99 for recording, and $19.99 each for editing and mixing. This way if someone already has a grasp for tracking in PT&LT; but needs some help with editing concepts; they can buy exactly what they need. The entire bundle if someone wants to buy all three at one time will be $42.99. I truly hope to grow this in to a one stop hub for those who want to use Pro Tools on a Mac. As I stated earlier along with paid content we plan to offer bi weekly 5 or 10 minute tutorials to provide information on a wealth of topics. I'd love to eventually offer webinars and forums for conversation, if there is interest.
As for the midi window, lots of work around in PT 10 available, and much more access in PT 11. I hope to have the site up within the next 48 hours and I'll post a link here and you'll probably see advertisements elsewhere.

## Post 10 by BigDogDaddy (Help me, I'm stuck to my chair!) on Monday, 09-Jun-2014 20:16:54

To follow up with my previous post, you can find our tutorials over at: www.protoolswithspeech.com.