Category: Jam Session
Hi all
I'm getting into the home recording side of things. I play acoustic guitar and electric, and want a bit of a better medium to put ideas and songs down. I've been doing my research, and have read that one of the first things to acquire is an interface and microphone. For the microphone, I'm leaning towards the Road NT1, as I've used one in a friend's studio before.
As for the interface, I would welcome some suggestions. I need something that can take guitars and mics, maybe a keyboard when I want to get a friend over and play keys on tracks, or just to have the capability if in the future I get a small keyboard to play bass or strings with. I don't plan to do any major keys stuff as I'm not a keyboardist and don't really plan to become one. strings are where its at, smile.
I was reocmmended the Focusrite 2i2, but that has no midi capability, which any keyboard interface would need, I assume?
I'm a windows user. Not interested in spending the earth, but my comments above should give an idea of where I'm at pricewise.
So, accessibility, ease of use, all that...recommendations?
Thanks
Me
Can't recommend the focusrite products enough! I have an 18i 20 and a liquid 56 and both are wonderful. I know presonus makes a $100 interface, but I can't recall the model.
Here is a vid from the recording revolution.com where he literally created an entire song with $300 of gear.
http://therecordingrevolution.com/2015/03/26/the-complete-300-home-studio-and-my-new-challenge/
Personally I recommend Reaper. It works well with MIDI, has some great out of the box effects, does multi-track editing, is ... pretty accessible in many respects as long as you get the ReaAccess plug-in, and consts less than a meal for two at a nice resteraunt ... or even a mid end one. You can do a trial run of it, but can continue using it beyond that for as long as you like without paying. But really, it's worth the money. Only thing is it's got quite a learning curve if you're not familiar with audio recording fundimentals. If you have a Mac, I know Big Dog is always singing the praises of Pro Tools.
i've recently got amadeus pro. Haven't done too much with it, just learning how to edit files with that application. Does Pro Tools work well with VoiceOver?
yes, and right now, pro tools first is free! I believe it handles up to 24 tracks at a time which can become limiting, but at best you could give it a spin.
We have batted around the idea of creating garage band with speech tutorials similar to the pro tools with speech ptutorials we designed but not sure if it's worth the undertaking.
Big Dog, can you get Protools first on the PC as well by chance? I've always been curious to test this DAW, but don't want to purchase it without trying it first.
can, but no accessibility with speech at all. I know of no blind PT users on Windows, though I know of a hand full who are low vision using it fairly well.
HTH.
Thank you. That surprises me that there's no windows accessibility at all though. Then again, there are others such as Abelton which have none either.
Great strides were made for Voiceover support by Avid, but the truth is, Pro Tools users are vastly mac users, so I honestly don't see much of a chance that anything would be done to change this fact. There are a host of technical reasons why it would be difficult to add reall access starting with the differences between the way Windows and VoiceOver screen readers obtain information, but I won't bore you with this info. I have a reaper rig for windows if I need something in a pinch, but the way the Mac handles audio recording regardless of DAW is so much superior to Windows, that I won't even consider it for real production. For the record, I'm not an Apple lover, as I'm writing this on a dell laptop as we speak running Win 10, and the majority of my day is spent in Jaws 17, but when it comes to real recording, editing, and mixing, hands down there is nothing comparable to a Mac with PT or even logic IMHO.
Yeah, fair enough. I've never done audio recording on a mac, but I have used Final cut on one. It wasn't accessible, but all the things you could do with it were amazing. I'd love to try a mac for recording, but don't have the cash to purchase one right now, even if it is amazing. For now, Reaper's my go-to. There isn't anything I can't do with it so far, aside from some things which are limited because of my personal knowledge. Mastering audio is one area I'm still a bit weak on, and I'd love to get gbetter. By the way, Are you able to use an ios device on your Mac as a midi controller/audio recording interface? I use garage band on my Iphone and there are some things I really like it for, but I can't make it act as a midi controller on a PC. Given my inadaquet keyboard skills, midi is essential for my music construction.
I don't typically do a lot with midi, but when I do, I usually step write everything in. So, I'm not a keyboard player but I can play the notes, and then move them around to actually make music. Lol.
I didn't know there was a way to do that. I love midi, but one thing it doesn't appear to be is all that accessable.