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Ideas for basic home recording

Justinvs

Justinvs

Guest
Jul 8, 2017
167
352
64
Wise River, Montana
#1
Hi everybody!

I'm trying to think of a Christmas present for my daughter. She's 21, computer savy and very musical. She plays keyboard, ukulele, learning bass and sings, and I think she would have fun writing and recording her own music to her iPad or laptop. (21 Pilots and Imagine Dragons are among her favorite bands, so she's definitely into that type of DIY music) Any suggestions for basic gear to get started? She already has access to all my mics, amps, etc, so primarily I'm thinking of DI boxes or interfaces, mixers and such to put her tracks into the computer. Not sure if she has any recording software on her iPad, yet, so suggestions there greatly appreciated, too.
 
#4
Does she have a laptop or desktop computer? I don't like the iPad much for recording and I like having a dedicated computer for music-making but kids these days can do everything on a tablet.

My suggestions would be:

1) A decent interface (one with decent preamps. two channels should be enough)
2) A decent pair of nearfield monitors

Don't worry about the software just now. One usually has to try various DAWs and see which one works for you.
 
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#7
M Box or any decent interface. A pair of powered monitors.
If the laptop is a Mac, use that with GarageBand.
IOS GB only has eight tracks. Even a pair of headphones will get her going while looking at speakers. And dad has all the front end goodies. I wish my parents had mics and cables when I was 21!
 
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#12
I personally would prefer an iPad. And I'm a software engineer. But Notebooks and DAWs on a notebook just distract me from focusing on music. I'm much more creative with Auria on my iPAD than with Logic on my MacBook.
My personal opinion:
If you want to write music and have the possibility to record it, but you're a musician first and don't plan to become a mastering engineer or sound-engineer - rather use an iPad.

Now to something completely different: Did you think about a Looper? Most of them record on SD-cards so if you want to, you can get your tracks into a DAW. As she is a multiinstrumentalist, she might have a lot of fun with a Looper.
And it gives you - not in a bad way - instant gratification. You just start with some chords and 2 minutes later you improvise to that chords and hear both. And if you have made a mistake, you start recording the next track to the loop...
I started with a Digitech Jamman Stereo and later bought an EHX 45000. The EHX is a bit expensive but in many ways is not just a looper, it is a four track recorder with an extra stereo track and it has midi.
I had a lot of fun with the Jamman. The 22500 from EHX looks interesting too and has an inbuild mic-preamp like the Jamman.
Boss is one of the most well known makers of Loopers.
This is recorded with a Loopstation from Boss (No mouse involved, no plug-ins, no sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-menues on a notebook.

 
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#13
DirkP said:
I personally would prefer an iPad. And I'm a software engineer. But Notebooks and DAWs on a notebook just distract me from focusing on music. I'm much more creative with Auria on my iPAD than with Logic on my MacBook.
My personal opinion:
If you want to write music and have the possibility to record it, but you're a musician first and don't plan to become a mastering engineer or sound-engineer - rather use an iPad.

Now to something completely different: Did you think about a Looper? Most of them record on SD-cards so if you want to, you can get your tracks into a DAW. As she is a multiinstrumentalist, she might have a lot of fun with a Looper.
And it gives you - not in a bad way - instant gratification. You just start with some chords and 2 minutes later you improvise to that chords and hear both. And if you have made a mistake, you start recording the next track to the loop...
I started with a Digitech Jamman Stereo and later bought an EHX 45000. The EHX is a bit expensive but in many ways is not just a looper, it is a four track recorder with an extra stereo track and it has midi.
I had a lot of fun with the Jamman. The 22500 from EHX looks interesting too and has an inbuild mic-preamp like the Jamman.
Boss is one of the most well known makers of Loopers.
This is recorded with a Loopstation from Boss (No mouse involved, no plug-ins, no sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-menues on a notebook.

Click to expand...

That's definitely a thought! I have several loopers myself, and they're practically the only thing I do recording on.
 
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#14
Check out Presounus AudioBox. It comes with a DAW called Studio One 3 Artist. It's a full feature DAW with digital drums, fx, MIDI, and the ability to control it all with a keyboard controller. With this set up, just plug and play, and use a keyboard controller to create beats, drum tracks, synth loops, and any type of synth music. No need for extra plugins. And the digital/audio quality is very good (studio quality). And it comes with a bunch of loops and samples to experiment with.
 

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