Been looking and researching different ones and trying to decide what to get. I know the quality im getting recording through the usb mic and stock sound card aren't as good as it could be. Im going to wipe this desktop clean and get started from scratch. Its going to be purely for recording. I've got an M-Audio mic im using now that came with Pro Tools Essentials. However that program wont recognize the mic (yea go figure makes sense bacuase the came together) anyways im looking at the M-audio interface with 2 jacks and phantom power for using a condensor mic. Price on that is like 150ish. Or I've found a Tascam US1800 which I know of someone who has one and he likes it and it will run like 8 mics off the one unit through a USB to the PC. I've found one as cheap as 200 but don't know that i'll ever run more that 2 mics. Should I just pick up the cheaper with 2 mic capability or spring for a more expensive model. Keep in mind this is purely personal use and im not going to start a studio or anything. Leaning more of the cheaper way as I like the traditional sound of live cuts (like Foggy Mountain Banjo album) as opposed to multitracking. The first time I heard it you can just feel them all standing together working the mic and playing and feeding off each other. MAKING MUSIC

The other option is a porta studio, I've recorded on one of these before at a friends. They recorded, mixed and mastered right there then burnt the songs to a CD. May not be a user friendly but at least I could throw a couple of mics, cables and stands in a case and hit the road and record not only at my house but anywhere we gather. Some of the best music that passes through the air and gets forgotten about is at a late night jam at so and so's house. That capabilty makes these appealing but then I got a limitation on memory as most of these I've seen utilize a SD card for memory purposes. But with the high cap memory cards available now I suppose this is not a big deal.

I would like to make a CD, maybe in the upcoming year if I can get everything together. Nothing major just maybe some fiddle and banjo tunes, instrumentals and favorites featuring my local friends who have taught and mentored me along my little musical journey. More or less a a record featuring the people who I've enjoyed playing with over the past 4 years. If nothing more than a keepsake for myself to remember some of these people by when I get too old to remember. I've had the priveledge of picking with people I consider to be great musicians in this area. Some including an outstanding fiddler have moved and are no longer in the area and I miss them greatly. Id like to capture as much of this as I can for the future.

Let me know your thoughts on both setups and pros and cons of either. O yea this is my 1000 post. So yea w00t for me lol thanks in advance for any info

You may be a good candidate for a Zoom H2 or something similar. It travels well, sounds great and has USB out for easy transfer to your computer.

If you want to go with a USB interface then Presonus offers some of the best mic preamps out there. The AudioBox is cheap and sounds great.

Buy the best mics you can afford and don't forget you'll probably want a pair of good headphones and a decent pair of monitors.

I use Protools, and it always delivers for me. I've been a beta tester for most of the big DAW companies, and have found the Protools software and the digi/avid interfaces to be reliable and great sounding. I use good mics, good analog pre-amps, and a digi002 at home ..... works great.

The Mbox series of hardware all work great, and are affordable. We have 3 Mboxes in the house (kids protools rigs) ... everyone is able to make quality recordings just about anywhere.

I use Protools HD systems at work, and we are able to move projects between my home studio and work with no problem.

Seanray that's the other ones I was looking at was Presonus. I read good reviews on them. I like the Zoom line as well but for the money id like to have something more than a souped up pocket recorder. Not putting them down they sound great. But again tied down to one mic.

Thanks for the advice and info, anybody else got opinions or info

Possom, You may want to carefully evaluate what you ultimately want to do and base your decision on that.  It sounds like you have more than one path that you're considering.

On the computer side, I purchased a Mackie Onyx blackjack that I'm extremely happy with.  I had a M-Audio Direct Pro USB interface that I thought was OK, but the drivers were poorly written and implemented for my use.  Not familiar with the Tascam US 1800, but I don't think that any USB interface can port 8 mics to a recording app, even at lower resolution 16 bit settings.  USB isn't capable of handling that amount of digital information.

(Edit: I took a quick look at the Tascam site, looks like although it has 8 mic inputs, there would be only 4 outputs available via USB, and that would come at the expense of not being able to monitor via USB back through the audio interface.  If you want to record AND monitor it would require limiting yourself to two inputs, which would seriously reduce the interfaces's quoted specifications.  It's just the nature of USB, and no fault of the interface.)

My recording setup is based on a portable recorder that I can easily haul anywhere for audio capture and then finishing off whatever project I choose to work on with my PC.  I'll do a detailed post on this in the near future, as it relates to a lot of the posts I do in this section.  Here's my portable rig; the mic pres and amp are not necessary, but it's just part of the way I choose to work.

Edited by - rudy on 02/08/2012 08:02:03

What works for me:
AT825 - Audio Technica stereo microphone
M-Audio MobilePre USB (has two XLR inputs, mini stereo mic input, instrument line input and some outputs which I've never used), phantom power, mini stereo headphones output. Real knobs for adjusting recording level and for headphone output.

I like the portable set up! Did you build that box Randy? I love it!

quote:

---

Originally posted by london31

I like the portable set up! Did you build that box Randy? I love it!

---

 Hi London, Yup I did.  Here's the original post with more information about the portable setup:

http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/206260

Awesome! Thanks!

That's a sweet setup rudy. Very neat and orderly...as opposed to wires run all over everywhere.