Hi folks. I'm an amatuer/novice musician looking to start recording music. I have a windows vista based laptop and am looking purchase a firwire interface to do this with. I have looked into the many makes and models avaiable and have almost made my mind up. I'm going to a couple of shops tomorrow who stock some and hoping to come away with something i'll be happy with for a long time. My budget is about £500 max but i only wanna spend up to £400 if i can so i can purchase some mics, but this can wait for a couple of weeks as i want the best mics i can get for not much money. If need be i'll save for a few weeks for these. The Focusrite Pro40 interface is looking to be top of my list at the time of writing. I was hoping some of you could impart some of your wisdom into interface choice. I would appreciate it.

Now for the second bit of advice i need, and one that has probs been asked a million times. DAW choices. I know that most of the interfaces come bundled with a lite version of a DAW, the focusrite one comes with Ableton Lite as well as some plugins(?) & Novation Bass station software i think. The kiind of music i'll be trying to make will vary but to start with i'll be mostly recording drums. I will buy a full drum mic set in the coming weeks to accomodate this task. I'm going to be working with a friend who already makes and records music. We'll be making a kind of electro punk/pop music that could turn into electro metal stuff if i have my way. She'll be putting together the bass and all the electronic synth type parts and will then send them to me to do my part. Would the Ableton lite be the kind of DAW i could use to do this task or is there another one more suited to what i want to do? I will be dabbling in making my own music too at some stage. I will be recording guitars, bass, drums etc and will hopefully be aquiring an analogue synth of some kind possibly a Moog Slim Phatty as i have a midi keyboard for a controller. A soft synth would be considered with a more versatile controller being purchased to accomodate it if need be. I'm not sure if playing with loops etc would be my thing, but until i play with that kind of thing i don't know.

Anyway, this has been a very long winded way of asking a couple of simple questions. What interface for about £400 ish and what DAW for my recording needs at the lowest price possible? Thanks for listening, any help would be very much appreciated.

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Can i make music? Maybe....

I'd advise against rushing into this as quickly as you are suggesting. For a start Vista is not really an ideal OS for a DAW and Firewire is a dying breed.

So hold off for the moment and let the good folks around these parts guide you before you part with your money!

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Quote The Elf:

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I'd advise against rushing into this as quickly as you are suggesting. For a start Vista is not really an ideal OS for a DAW and Firewire is a dying breed.

So hold off for the moment and let the good folks around these parts guide you before you part with your money!

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Ta for the prompt response. I've been looking into this for ages, but only recently got the funds to do anything about it. I can get around the Vista thing by installing Win7(32 bit only tho), tho i was looking to possibly purchase a MacBook Pro in the hopefully not too distant future. Until then if need be I have the use of my mothers laptop which is Win7 64bit and a lot faster.She barely touches it since she aquired her iMac and iPad. My options are still wide open as regards the interface or other recording medium. I'm hoping the "experts" at the music shops i'm going to visit will help me with my decision without being pushy. If that happens i'll walk out the shop mid conversation, i hate being pushed. I don't wanna leave it too long to start this as i've been putting it off for years due to relationship and funding problems. Not only that but my friend has music waiting for me to do my thing with and i'm getting more impatient than her.

As for the firewire being a dying breed i always thought it was the better of the two connections commonly used. I know there's usb3 but there doesn't seem to be anyone making things with it yet, and as for Macs Thunderbolt well that seems just as far away for interfaces despite how fast it is. I have been looking into the Roland Octa-Capture as that seems pretty good for a usb2 interface. Seems their latency figures are as low as firewire equivalents if the blurb is to be believed. Does any interface actually give "ZERO" latency really? A few seem to claim this. I don't wanna waste my money on a substandard product, but if there's not much difference to be had in the price bracket i'm looking at then i just need to look for what features best suit my requirements i guess.

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Can i make music? Maybe....

Quote Sian G:

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As for the firewire being a dying breed i always thought it was the better of the two connections commonly used. I know there's usb3 but there doesn't seem to be anyone making things with it yet, and as for Macs Thunderbolt well that seems just as far away for interfaces despite how fast it is. I have been looking into the Roland Octa-Capture as that seems pretty good for a usb2 interface. Seems their latency figures are as low as firewire equivalents if the blurb is to be believed. Does any interface actually give "ZERO" latency really? A few seem to claim this. I don't wanna waste my money on a substandard product, but if there's not much difference to be had in the price bracket i'm looking at then i just need to look for what features best suit my requirements i guess.

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Hi Sian, and welcome to the SOS Forums!

The difference between claimed latency and what actually gets measured in the real world can be rather diffeent, so I suggest you take a deep breath and start reading this thread:

www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=918351


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Hi Martin. Phew that's a hell of a thread. Most if not all of it went straight over my head. I asked on that thread what i'm gonna ask now, Roland Octa Capture yay or nay for my needs? I can stretch my budget to accommodate it if need be. I'll worry about the rest of my needs later.
Sian.

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Can i make music? Maybe....

Hi Sian,

I haven’t personally tried the Octa Capture, but the main thrust of that thread is that some interfaces have longer delays between the sounds being recorded and you being able to hear them with software effects than they claim.

If you’re recording drums then timing is obviously important, but you’re unlikely to be listening to them with effects. I suspect you’re far more likely to be listening on headphones to the rest of the already recorded track playing, in which low latency monitoring may not be a huge concern to you. IN other words, the Octa Capture could well be fine for your purposes


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Hi Martin. Well some of you might tell me off but i have gone ahead and bought one of the interfaces i had my eyes on to start with, the Focusrite Saffire pro40. I spoke to some guys in a drum shop about computer recording and if they had any ideas or preferences. One of them has been using the Pro 40 for a while with no problems both recording and live stuff. One of the others uses a Motu 8pre and says he is more than happy with it. In the end i thought if it's ok and i can save a few pounds to go towards the other stuff i need then i'll go for it. I've waited long enough to get into this game, so i'm doing it now while i can still be arsed . I just wanna have fun and start getting creative. Next purchase is drum mics etc. Budget stuff will do until i feel i've outgrown them, if i ever do.

I'm looking forward to plugging my keyboard into the interface and playing with the Novation BassStation soft synth that comes packaged with it. I will still hanker after a Moog analogue synth but until i save up or win the lottery the computer job will do to play with.

I dare say i'll be back on here asking for more advice at some point. Wether i take it remains to be seen. I can be quite impulsive and i follow my heart more than my head quite a lot. Thanks for the advice given sofar. I apologise if you think i've not taken heed of you words of wisdom, i'm not the best at following good advice.

Well here's to making music, hopefully soon i'll have put something together to impress you all. Until then...

Sian G X

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Can i make music? Maybe....

Glad you're making progress - looking forward to hearing some music from you in due course


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Hi folks. Well since my last post i've achieved absolutely nothing. I know i'm a novice at this sort of thing, but i thought i'd have someting recorded by now. Well actually i can record something, i just can't hear a thing. I don't have any monitors yet so i'm trying to monitor through the headphones. The mix control software is too confusing with all the routing options and even after following what the tutorial vids and the user guide says i'm not hearing anything. The focusrite tutorials leave me baffled, and the handbook does too. Nothing is explained in the kind of bit by bit detail a complete beginner needs to be able to understand what they're dealing with.So there is a chance i'm just not doing something really small that could let me hear what's going on. At the mo i've got 7 drum mics plugged into the interface. The Ableton lite only lets me use 4 of them tho. I'm trying to monitor my drumming while i play, but also i'm trying to monitor the drums while i play over some tracks i've been sent to play drums to. I have tried a trial version of Mixcraft and that seems so much easier to use than Ableton. But the trial has expired now so i'll have to try and struggle on with the unAbleton for the time being. I find Ableton has too much going on for me to comprehend. There is a guide to help you out as you go, but i find that it tells you what things are but not always what they do and how to use them. The same for the focusrite tutorials. They almost seem as if they expect you to have some experience with DAWs and computer recording already. I'll see what happens by the weekend, if i have no joy come friday night it's either going back to the shop if i can do that or i'll take it to another shop down the road who may let me p/x it for a digi multitracker. Something like the ZOOM R-24. At least with that i can plug all my mics in, press record and away i go, almost. I can take the music requiring drums, put it on an sd card and plug it in and play away wile listening to it all through headphones or monitors and mixing it down to a stereo track once i'm happy. Then i'll just email it or stick it on sd card again for my friend to do any fine tuning on her computer, she uses Mixcraft and has no problems with it.

I hate to be defeated, but i feel so deflated by this experience. If anyone can offer a solution or if anyone has used the Saffire Mix control and can guide me step by step into using it properly so i don't feel i've wasted my time and more importantly money i would much appreciate it.

Btw, i'm getting a Roland Gaia sh-01 soon. Just coz it's cheap and makes wonderfull noises :-)

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Can i make music? Maybe....

If you can see some level coming into the pro40 I'd move along the chain and see if there is any level showing on the mixer strip in your DAW. If not I'd look at your input and routing options within the focusrite software or within your DAW.

I would say thought the Profire 40 is exactly that, a professional standard interface and as such assumes the user has a certain experience level, hence the huge amount of options and features. I'd maybe look at getting a simpler inteface for your needs, although most interfaces with capable of tracking multiple mics and inputs will be more tricky than a simple two in two jobby with no additional software interfacing between the device and the DAW.

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http://www.williammorrismusic.com

You are rather jumping in at the deep end here and you’re going to have to have some patience. Firstly you need to strip things down to their simplest form and begin working through the process one step at a time.

I suggest you unhook all of those cables and end up with your audio interface, your headphones and the cable connecting the interface to the computer.

Now load up a DAW (I’d suggest Cockos Reaper for starters), create a new, empty song, and import an MP3 file into a new track. Begin play back and make sure that Reaper’s meters are dancing. Now begin tracking the audio from the DAW, through its routing system, to the interface and to your headphones.

Most of all you’re going to have to dig deep and have patience with your learning process. There is a lot of background knowledge, terminology and technique that will take time to learn, but the payback for learning it is enormous. It’s hardly surprising that some of the documentation you’re seeing assumes a depth of knowledge, since the interface you have chosen is not a typical beginner’s rig.

Simply jumping ship and throwing more money at problems is rarely the best approach. Give yourself the time and grace to make mistakes and you’ll learn from it.

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Quote The Elf:

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You are rather jumping in at the deep end here and you’re going to have to have some patience. Firstly you need to strip things down to their simplest form and begin working through the process one step at a time.

I suggest you unhook all of those cables and end up with your audio interface, your headphones and the cable connecting the interface to the computer.

Now load up a DAW (I’d suggest Cockos Reaper for starters), create a new, empty song, and import an MP3 file into a new track. Begin play back and make sure that Reaper’s meters are dancing. Now begin tracking the audio from the DAW, through its routing system, to the interface and to your headphones.

Most of all you’re going to have to dig deep and have patience with your learning process. There is a lot of background knowledge, terminology and technique that will take time to learn, but the payback for learning it is enormous. It’s hardly surprising that some of the documentation you’re seeing assumes a depth of knowledge, since the interface you have chosen is not a typical beginner’s rig.

Simply jumping ship and throwing more money at problems is rarely the best approach. Give yourself the time and grace to make mistakes and you’ll learn from it.

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+1
defo good advice here, strip it down to the basics and build from there

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www.humandrums.com
online session drumming at realistic prices

Quote The Elf:

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You are rather jumping in at the deep end here and you’re going to have to have some patience. Firstly you need to strip things down to their simplest form and begin working through the process one step at a time.

I suggest you unhook all of those cables and end up with your audio interface, your headphones and the cable connecting the interface to the computer.

Now load up a DAW (I’d suggest Cockos Reaper for starters), create a new, empty song, and import an MP3 file into a new track. Begin play back and make sure that Reaper’s meters are dancing. Now begin tracking the audio from the DAW, through its routing system, to the interface and to your headphones.

Most of all you’re going to have to dig deep and have patience with your learning process. There is a lot of background knowledge, terminology and technique that will take time to learn, but the payback for learning it is enormous. It’s hardly surprising that some of the documentation you’re seeing assumes a depth of knowledge, since the interface you have chosen is not a typical beginner’s rig.

Simply jumping ship and throwing more money at problems is rarely the best approach. Give yourself the time and grace to make mistakes and you’ll learn from it.

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Ta for the advice. I didn't read this til after i attempted something tonight. I'm able to hear the sound picked up by the 4 mics i've left connected to the interfce in the headphones now. I can record something successfully. I just can't hear back what i've recorded and i've followed the instructions on how to do this exactly, both in the mix control software and in the DAW (ableton live lite). Once funds allow i'll purchase either mixcraft as i've tried the trial and it seems simpler to use, or possibly Reaper as it seems to get decent reviews for its ease of use. I will persevere though, as advised. I spoke to the Focusrite tech support peeps today and hopefully i'll finish work early enough on friday to phone for help should i need it. Here's hoping i can succeed

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Can i make music? Maybe....

You might get a lot of mileage from finding someone local who can visit and help you get up and running.

A couple of hours of Q&A in front of your computer could be all it takes to get you over the hump of the initial learning curve. And it's amazing what a few beers can do to lubricate the process.

Worth a thought...

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Hi there. I hope everyone else in this thread can see this as I am in the same kind of place as Sian G is/was. I have been using a Yamaha Audiogram 6. I have Cubase AI 4 on a windows XP media system. I'm not too good with computers but its a dual core and pretty fast for its age.

I don't notice any latency when I record either my electric guitar with a mic on the speaker cab or my electric drums using the line in.

I would like to record my real drums which is an 8 piece twin bass drum set. So I would like an interface that will allow me to record 8 channels at once. Ideally I would like it to manage 10-12 channels at once so I can mic the Hi-Hat and the ride plus 2 over heads for the rest of the cymbals. I could manage with just the 2 over heads as they are only for demos and if need be I can stick with just the drum shells miced.

I have been recording my kit with my Yamaha MD8 8 track recorder which is great until I come to download the tracks to my computer. I don't have a midi input on my PC or on the Audiogram. I am therefore restricted to 2 tracks at a time and syncing them up afterwards. As hard as I try to press play on the MD8 and record on cubase at the same time it never truly works.

So the main question is as of course I need a laptop for the interface as my drums are at my parents and not in my flat, what would be the best interface to suit my needs and the cheapest laptop system it would run on comfortably?

Cheers

Trevor

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Time for the Glacia to flow.