Recording Tools for an Intel Mac

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

I've been thinking of abandoning my Roland VS-1880 in favor of a new Mac system. What is the minimum that I would have to buy to get up to snuff on, say, a new Mac Mini (Intel based)? My requirements:

minimum 2 mic inputs inputs w/phantom power
minimum 2 line inputs for POD
minimum 2 direct guitar inputs
SP/DIF input/output
multitrack recording software
external effects loop
CD mastering software

I have a Line6 Tone Port UX2 that I assume could handle the first requirement, but I don't think it can handle more than two channels at a time.
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Joe Butcher · From: Dallas,Texas, USA

I have the Tone Port UX2 as well, but Ive never hooked up multiple inputs to it.
Consider a Firewire mixer.
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/NRV10-main.html

If thats too pricey, there are cheaper ones out there, but that should take care of your first four requirements.

If Garage Band isnt enough for you, get Logic Express.....its about $300.
Dont underestimate Garage Band........it does alot and has a great interface and effect plug ins.

I would avoid the Mac Mini. While it might be cute, its HD is only 60 GB and the cheaper of the two only burns CDs, not DVDs.
Thats fine for sendin' emails to Grandma, but not for recording.
The cheapest iMac is only $200 more than the Mac Mini, and well worth the money, and its everything you need in one package.

Peak is good CD mastering software for Mac.

Also if you get the iMac, it has digital/optical audio in/out.

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Hey bOb.

Here's a serious bang-for-the-buck interface that would do what you need:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FA101/specs/#anchor

and a step up in features and quality might be this:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UltraLite/

Regarding software, Mac's Garage Band will give you decent, but very basic audio recording. You can get into basic versions of Cubase for Mac, and that's a decent program for little money. If you want to go with seriously pro software that will do anything ProTools can do, then check out MOTU's Digital Performer 5. It's $500, and I don't know of any DAW that can beat it when considering the price. The MOTU hardware and MOTU's DP software is an amazing combo.

http://www.motu.com/products/software/dp/features50/

Regarding mastering software, really you can master all of your audio in a DAW environment like ProTools or DP, then just get Jam to assemble the songs and burn disks. Jam has become quite pro in recent years. Peak is also great, but you also get lots of the same tools in DP or other good workstations.

Then, of course, there's ProTools. Here's a good interface that comes with ProTools LE, a stripped but effective version of PT.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MBox2Pro/

There is little bad you can say about ProTools other than the fact that they are very proprietary about using only their hardware with their software. This approach may be one of the best for the money you could find.

Brad

Michael McGee · From: Everton, Missouri, USA

b0b, the following website doesn't have their mac version ready yet (beta is there if you want to test it), so you may not be interested. But the pc version is fascinating, and you may want to read a bit and check back down the road:

http://www.reaper.fm/

John McClung · From: Olympia WA, USA

Hey, Bob,

I'm on about the same path. My needs: recording just a mic and my steel to my MacBook, mostly to record steel lessons I teach.

Advice from a student who is a top producer is to get a Digidesign MBox 2 with ProTools LE. PT being such an industry standard, he feels that's the best mainstream way to go. After way too much research time, I've decided just to trust a pro's advice and be done with it.

I don't need nearly as many simultaneous inputs as you, Bob, so I'm planning on the USB MBox 2 (for the same reasons, I probably wouldn't benefit much from the MBox Pro 2 Pro, which is Firewire; one of Brad's links is to the FW MBox 2 Pro). Not sure if I need the extra plug-ins that an extra $100 gets ya, Brad Sarno or anyone, any input on that?

Also, Brad: are the A/D converters and preamps on the MOTU gear that much better than MBox 2, yielding noticeably better sound? I also hope to use this setup for adding overdubbed tracks, so I'd hate to sacrifice top-flight pro sound for the sake of a few bucks. I'm assured MBox 2 yields great sound.

Btw, Garageband can only record in 16-bit, so from what I've read, you've already thrown away a lot of sound definition compared to CD-standard 24-bit recording systems. If your levels are low, you simply have less headroom to play with and fix things up. I think of it as a 24-bit photo vs 16-bit photo: with more data, you can crop and trash more and still get a printable photo. With less "resolution" in the sound realm, you have less chance to salvage problem tracks. If that's not correct, recording experts, set me straight! I got that info from a great podcast, Fundamentals of Digital Recording. I am a humble newbie!!!
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Rick Batey · Posted 31 Jul 2007 2:10 am

John: I bet your student knows more than I do, but I've read reports that certain MacBooks have trouble supplying enough USB juice to operate the MBox 2's phantom power. It's worth a check.

B0b: I've had excellent results running both condenser mics and a Pod via a Focusrite Saffire LE into Garageband. It's a Firewire unit. Easy, affordable, does the job for me.

Per Berner · From: SkÃ¶vde, Sweden

I got myself a top-of-the range 24" iMac with maximum RAM, a Focusrite Saffire and Logic Pro. The software is a bit pricey, but it's written for the Mac OS and seems to ahve almost unlimited capabilities. I haven't had time to use it much yet, so I can't write a useful review - but my initial impressions are very good. Lots of stuff to learn, though...

John McClung · From: Olympia WA, USA

Rick, thanks for the phantom power advisory, I'll check Digidesign's site for details.

Per, keep me posted! Another producer student/friend recommended Logic Pro or Express, thinks it sounds better (I'm reading that each app does the summing math differently, thus different quality of sounds, egad), but it does have a steeper learning curve. Good luck! It's all I can do to manage learning steel guitar stuff, much less all this digital audio stuff!

Per Berner · From: SkÃ¶vde, Sweden

Steep learning curve - you can say that again! I bought a 3 DVD Logic tutoring packagage. Halfway through I thought "I'll never learn half of all this". But a colleague who has a lot of recording and programming experience told me I won't need more than a quarter of the stuff it can do anyway... My trouble is finding enough time often enough - as it is, it's months between and most of what I learn is forgotten by the next session.

From what I understand Logic needs comparatively "little" processing capacity and memory to work well, i. e. you can do complicated stuff on many channels without running out of steam. And the basic stuff seems straightforward enough, after all it's an Apple product.

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

I had a lite version of Logic for the PC once. I couldn't figure it out at all. It wasn't an Apple product then, though. Maybe they've improved it.

I've been doing everything except for the final compression/mastering and CD building on the Roland VS-1880. Those final steps have been on the PC using WaveLab and Pyro. My PC is on its last legs anyway, which is one of my driving factors here.

WaveLab has a lot of plugin power, and allows me to boost/cut/process problem segments of the of the final mix. Pyro allows me to set the size of the gap between tracks, mainly, and of course it burns the CDs. With Pyro, I can save a little file that defines each CD I burn, so I also use it as an organizational tool.

What would I use on an Intel Mac to replace WaveLab and Pyro?
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Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

bOb,

I think the obvious Mac replacement for Wavelab would be Bias Peak. Peak is incredible. It's about the most powerful 2-track editor, do anything program. But it is 2-track only, not mixing software. It runs 3rd party plug-ins, it creates and burns CD's from it's playlist. Their new playlist is quite similar to Waveburner's interface.

I don't know about Pyro, but if pro CD burning software with control over fades and crossfades is what you need, then Roxio's Jam is really quite good. But like I said, if you have Peak, you can burn right from there.

Brad

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

WaveLab is 2-track too.

Does Bias Peak include a way to assemble a CD from stereo mixes and then save those assembly instructions without saving a complete CD image? That's the main thing that I use Pyro for. I master my mixes in Wavelab and then assemble and burn the CDs in Pyro. It would be nice to do it all in one program.
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Randy Phelps · From: California, USA

The full version of Logic has really solid, reliable and very good mastering software as part of the package. You can do it all in Logic Pro.

PM me if you'd be interested in test driving it.

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

bOb,

The new playlist in Peak is saved as a document, but that's simply an instruction set to assemble separate audio files. You can create an image from there, but the playlist is made of separate files that can be re-ordered, cross-faded, spaced differently, etc. It's not quite as slick as Waveburner or Soundblade though. Not yet at least. I know that Peak Pro 6 has made some leaps, and I think they're continuing to refine the playlist section.

But let me ask you, have you messed with the latest versions of Roxio's Jam? It's pretty nice for making CD's. The new crossfade edit mode is perty slick. I ask because it seems that a full DAW like Logic or DP5 can let you do all the "mastering" and manipulation you may need, and then you can simply assemble and burn in Jam. Peak is amazing and has plug-ins, and deep editing and manipulation, but much of it is deeper than most people need to go, generally. But do check out Toast/Jam, because it will save very small files that are simply the list of audio files to burn, and you don't have to save a large image file from there. Jam is quite good, and cheap. It may be bundled with Toast these days.

Now if you're after something extremely pro for putting together a final CD, Sonic Studio's PreMaster CD is quite good. The step up from there is their SoundBlade which does a LOT more.

http://www.sonicstudio.com/products/pmcd/pmcd01.html

Brad

basilh · From: United Kingdom

I Think if Logic is good enough for "Skywalker" then it's probably good enough for us, I know I haven't found a task it can't handle (Yet)

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

I've got Logic Pro, but I find the learning curve to be VERY slow and overall not the most intuitive software. But that being said, the sound quality is very nice, and it really does seem to be able to do just about anything. I've just gotta spend a week learning how to get around in there more quickly and efficiently. Still DP is extremely intuitive and sensible to my feeble brain. I'm expecting Apple to come out with a new release of Logic within the next year. I've heard rumors that they're on it, but the new iPhone held things back a bit. The new software should be more friendly, and incredibly advanced.

Brad

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Bob,
I just picked up the Focusrite Saffire interface and use it with DP5 for my intel macbook. I'll let you know how it goes.
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Joe Butcher · From: Dallas,Texas, USA

The new iMac was revealed today. Its available now, is totally badass and is actually cheaper than the previous one!!!

Also revealed was iLife '08, which has cool new features in Garage Band, iMovie and iPhoto.

Do it, b0b!!! JOIN US!!!! Devil

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Jonathan Shacklock · From: London, UK

Check out the Magic GarageBand feature in the new iLife08 - cheap gimmick or revolutionary way to create backing tracks from scratch??

Whoa!

http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/#magic

Jonathan Shacklock · From: London, UK

There's a demo towards the end of this:

http://www.apple.com/ilife/guidedtour/

John Walden · From: Simi Valley, California, USA

Hi B0B, I've recently up-graded from 001 to 002. Digidesign has 003 out now as well. I've been using a Mac for some time now, and I love it. I use all 18 tracks out to analog. Including SPDIF. Plenty of MIDI, and easy to learn.

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David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

b0b, Brad's on the money in general.
Pick you price point.

DP and Jam are tools you can use for a LONG time.

This is a DP project.
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John W. nice workroom pic.
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Johan Jansen · From: Europe

How many digi 001 units can I connect on eachother with a Mac G4? With PT 5.01
Thanks for reading,
Johan

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