Re: Home Studio

[Crossedout@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/15/98 3:19:52 PM Central Daylight Time, 
GRAIGORY2@aol.com
writes:

<< I am getting PISSED with the sound quality of computers and what not... 
so
I
 am thinking about getting the following things...
 
 1)digital 8 track
 2) dat machine
 3)standalone CDR
 4)ASR-X pro
  >>

Well, let me throw in to the ring here....

well, just for starters, you're looking at around $1800-$2K for the 8 
track,
another $600-900 for the DAT, another $500-1K for the burner, and another
$1200-1400 for the ASR-X (and these are way ballpark figures), so you're
looking at least $4,100 - $5,300 in gear. Assuming you don't need a mixer, 
so
in that case add another $500-$2500, depending on what kind of mixer you 
want.

Now, a Pentium II with 256Mb of RAM and a several-Gb harddrive will 
probably
run you around $2000 if you build it from parts. Then another few hundred 
for
some sequencing and digital-recording software, and another $500 - 
$whatever
to get a decent sounding midi sound module. You're looking at somewhere 
around
$3K for a decent computer based system. 

I personally am running a Mackie board into two ADAT XT's, and using an 
Akai
MPC2000 for sampling, sequencing and drum machine. But I also just 
discovered
the joys of editing in the digital realm, on the computer....it's nice to 
be
able to highlight a mistake and press "delete". 

You could go either way. If I was in your position, I'd probably try to 
set it
all up as a computer based system before going for tape. 

I will highly recommend the MPC as an extremely good, user-friendly
workstation, and I can also recommend Phillips CDD-2600 cd-drives - I've
burned about 200 discs so far on mine, and only one "coaster". 

Anyway, good luck. 

- Bill
Crossedout@aol.com