Equipment help for a recording noob.

[AdlerAugen]

Digital is a lot more user-friendly to the newb recorder, as long as you keep everything below the 0dB level, because above that it starts clipping. Best to give it a lot of headroom.

Analog just automatically compresses it somewhat, and it will start adding distortion as you go over that.

And if you're planning on putting it on any digital media such as CDs or MP3s, instead of putting it out on an LP, reel to reel, or just a cassette, then digital just makes that process go faster. It's also a lot easier to edit with things such as punch ins, etc.

 

[hyperlitem]

Your right some of those prices may be inflated, but thats what you could pay. If your gonna get a 2 inch machine your not gonna be using cheap mics. Np, 15 grand is not out of the realm of possiblity at all. My mic cabinant is around 5 or 6 grand, but i also do not have many of the mics that would make it a very well rounded cabinant. Those are ranges but all those ranges are very plausible. The last place we did an album takes all those numbers and multiplies them by 10. www.chicagorecording.com. If your gonna record to tape everything else in your signal path better be damn good if you dont want it to end up like garabage on tape. Another thing that has not been mentioned is how hard it is to get tape, and the possiblity of that going away. Quantegy was in business, then out of business, then back in business now out of business again. There is a company that still makes 2" but its hard to get ahold of and expensive from my experience. To sum this up analog recording is great, but its super expensive and tedious. Most people dont know the craft anymore and youd have a hard time getting people to teach you or people to tech the constantly breaking equipment. For how good tape emulation software has gotten, if it gets me 90% of the way there im happy cuz digital is just so much darn easier.

 

[grindmaster]

i'm a sound engineer.
your question is HUGE.
some great recordings have been made with just one mic, a 2 track recorder, great room acoustics and inspired technique.
and some absolute cobblers has been made on million dollar budgets.
get a book, then find a sound engineer to learn from, you are opening a can of worms trying to do this from online advice...