why i love recording with my firepod and laptop

I find a balance. I do all my own stuff (record, mix AND master all my songs from my study) from my study where I have some recording software, 2 amps, some pedals and a 57 going into a little 4 input board.

It's amazing. On the other hand this summer was my first recording session in a "pay-by-the-hour" studio, and it was not that different, but it was a little better. I was stressed, but so many things were better. I didn't have to do each track by itself (Which I don't mind since it is my solo project), but you can just have 16 tracks BAM, seperately. But it was amazing. We spent three days, and on the last day we mixed and mastered in the SAME DAY. Yay technology.

 

I go into recording for precisely this reason. I was tired of working hard writing and arranging songs only to go pay someone else to record them how he thought they sounded best.

Now I do it myself. Its taken me a lot of time and money, and I'm still learning the ropes of it, but I'm much more satisfied with the results. Most of the stuff I turn out now sounds better than the stuff that I got when I did projects in a studio, and the songs remain mine from one end of the creative process to the other.

 

Hmm... Well on the one hand I agree with you, but on the other hand it may mean that there will be a lot of well qualified expert music engineers looking for new jobs - and these are just the people you would want to talk to if you ever want to "smarten up" your recordings.

I love being able to record at home, in my own time. However I find that because I can take my time, I *do* take my time and it seems I have lots of ideas that I've never really finished. Or started.

I did a recording last year of a local choir and recorded it myself. Yes, I made plenty of mistakes... What we did though was to send the final edit to a professional to master it and I can say that the difference was HUGE. So even if you record yourself it's sometimes worth calling in the people with expertise to mix and master your recordings.

 

Can I ask - what kind of computer are you running? Mac or PC? Desktop or Laptop? Processor Speed and RAM? What is the Latency that you are getting with these machines?

Just bought a Firebox (4 channel with 2 mic pres) and am having a bit of trouble. I'm going to run it on 3 different machines - PC desktop, PC laptop and Mac desktop - and I'll post specific specs and latency times after I load everything and test it out.

Thanks,

Benner

 

i run an hp desktop pc. it has 2gb ram, twin 160 seagate barracuda's, one os + programs, the other hd is where i record onto. 2.8 ghz HT intel processor. i upped the power supply also to an antec 430 watt trupower. it happens to have a radeon 9800 pro graphics card. for a sound card, i use the presonus firepod. i always use twin monitors. twin hp 17' lcd's.
i just went from 1 ghz ram to 2 ghz.
i tell the firepod software that my cpu is a low power cpu....to acoid clicks and pops.
i set the latency at 10 ms.
with 1 ghz ram this gives nice clean sound with no clicks and pops.
at 8 ms i get clicks and pops.
i havent recorded since the ram upgrade from this week. but it should be fine.

 

Absolutely. A good thing to do for any project is to get someone other than the person who mixed it to master it.

The benefits are:
1. A fresh set of unbiased ears to get the final mix sounding as good as possible as a whole.
2. The distance between a home studio production and a pro studio production are shrinking more and more, but a pro mastering job will still be a lot better than a mastering job by a home based studio.

 

I’m pretty happy with how my home recordings sound, although they seem to lack the punch and warmth I get when im in a pro studio. I sent something that was recorded in cheap studio, to a professional, and there was a huge difference when I got it back.

I guess a lot of mixing skills, and expensive preamps can make a big difference.