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Home recording studio questions

I have a co-worker who is aiming to build himself a recording studio in his house. Ive helped aim him in some directions for amplification and monitors, he is on somewhat of a budget, but he seems to have come across some stumbling blocks.

He is currently thinking of using a computer for the main system. He is an aspiring rap artist and needs to be able to input analog signals such as vocals and live instruments and digital samples and loops, mix and coordinate it, then be able to record this to a CD.

Does anybody have any reccommendations for computer hardware that is not TOO costly (not thousands of dollars) that he could use for this? It looks like he already has his software picked out, but he needs a real good interface that will be flexable and give him the capabilities to do what he wants to do.

Any reccommendations? Anybody here built a recording studio based around a computer? If so, what are you running?

He is getting some advise from some computer guys, but they seem somewhat hung up on MP3 and stuff. I know that he is looking to be able to make real quality recordings.
slappy
ed_sawyer
588 posts
 
iMac.

" rap artist" and " real quality recordings. " seem to me to be mutually exclusive terms, however. (A case could be made for "rap artist" being an oxymoron too.) ;-) yeah, I don't care for rap at all, but the Mac is the best platform for this sort of thing.

-Ed
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,155 posts
 
At a minimum your friend will need a microphone, a mic preamp and a computer interface supporting analog, digital and MIDI I/O. The computer/software can handle the recording/mixing/editing functions. The computer he uses should have at least two hard drives with one dedicated for recording tracks, a fast CPU and plenty of memory. The type of computer, Wintel or Mac, depends entirely upon the software he wants to work with.

For hardware he might consider either a Tascam US122, a Digidesign MBox, a Tascam US428, or a MOTU 828MkII. I've listed them in ascending price order with the US122 at around $200 and the MOTU at $750. Mackie, Lexicon, M-Audio, Aardvark and RME also make similar products in this price range.
plugged
28 posts
 
Monitor wise...definitely look at PMC. Most of the really serious studios use them and there is a definite advantage to having the same voice as what the big boys use.
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