building my first HD rig, advice needed and lots of it :/

[Dism]

Originally Posted by edadema

Sounds like you got cash to burn. You should fly me and DISM out to Scotland and ill set you up!!!!!

Now there's some great advice.

[edadema]

I Love how you tell a guy who is talking about spending 50K to start with a 300 dollar Mbox. That is brilliant...... We both know this guy is talking out of his ass

[steviecandtheplacetobe]

ive been recording with Logic Pro 9 and Cubase 4, but im wanting to set up a proper small studio... (i use Logic for location stuff and cubase for composing - but i need something for studio recording)

basically all i need is 16 channels (to lay down a drumkit, guits, bass etc), plus about at least 4 aux outs for headphone monitoring or re-amping.

i haven't exactly got cash to burn, its more of an investment... if you see what i mean.


i record, for the most part, typical band-y stuff.
more often than not, laying down drums, beatdoctoring & bastardizing them in time, re-amping the bass & guitars, and pitch correcting the vocals to buggery... on the odd occasion though, i do get the odd band that play together well, and need none of the above processing.

i'll be mixing entirely in the box (i'll be re-amping though).

some people buy big cars, or flat screen tvs, or go on holidays etc.
i dont own a tv, i dont have a big car, i dont have a family to support.
all i have is an acoustically shielded lock-up. and PTHD rig IS MY big car.

[Craig F]

1) more or less true, you know Mac so stay Mac

2) OSX will see the drives, Pro Tools does not support RAIDs. You will be better served getting some WD Black drives for recoding to. The SSDs do make nice drives for VI samples.

3) Bad week to ask the question. A new version not needing DSP chips dropped this week. If we are talking an Intel based Mac than don't worry about it right now.

[steviecandtheplacetobe]

i should also say that im being asked to do some surround recording & mixing by a band i am currently employed with.


for monitoring i have a pair of yamaha NS-10s (NOT NS-10Ms), a pair of bower & wilkins DM4s, (powered by a yamaha CR-600) a tannoy 5.1 setup and a cheapo panasonic home theatre kit for comparison.



and btw, money isnt everything in life you know.

[steviecandtheplacetobe]

yeah i had heard about the RAID problem.

which is kind of crap cos i used to track onto a Dell XPS running Linux Ubuntu Studio edition with Ardour as the DAW (and 2 M-Audio profire boxes via a badly patched ALSA) - and it supported the RAID0/RAID1 just fine.


the other option of course would be to run Linux kernal 2.87 on an intel mac with a windows-shell emulator like the one in WINE, which to run Pro Tools on top of... my thinking is that PT would only see the one drive while Linux would see 4 configured in a RAID0 setup... - but then i would have to bypass the iLok to get it to run which wouldnt please avid that much...

and dont get me started on RTAS.... urrgh

[68topls]

You don't need raid for anything on a mac. Unless you want it to hold your samples. Running Linux would be a waste......doesn't need to be so complex....

Originally Posted by steviecandtheplacetobe

yeah i had heard about the RAID problem.

which is kind of crap cos i used to track onto a Dell XPS running Linux Ubuntu Studio edition with Ardour as the DAW (and 2 M-Audio profire boxes via a badly patched ALSA) - and it supported the RAID0/RAID1 just fine.


the other option of course would be to run Linux kernal 2.87 on an intel mac with a windows-shell emulator like the one in WINE, which to run Pro Tools on top of... my thinking is that PT would only see the one drive while Linux would see 4 configured in a RAID0 setup... - but then i would have to bypass the iLok to get it to run which wouldnt please avid that much...

and dont get me started on RTAS.... urrgh

[Howardk]

Originally Posted by steviecandtheplacetobe

basically all i need is 16 channels (to lay down a drumkit, guits, bass etc), plus about at least 4 aux outs for headphone monitoring or re-amping.

You don't need HD to record 16 channels. You can record up to 16 channels with LE/Digi-003r if you use a pre-amp that has A/D and light-pipe built in such as the Focusrite Octa-Pre, and there are many other options. . . Talk to any dealer and they will walk you thru options. . . Start there, get some experience with ProTools first. . . The whole LE rig will cost less than the amount of $ an HD rig depreciates in the first minute after the purchase.

[steviecandtheplacetobe]

@edadema, the system is not exclusively for use by me; hence money is not a major concern. and it wouldnt instill much confidence in a client to discover we're using LE.

[Dism]

Originally Posted by steviecandtheplacetobe

@edadema, the system is not exclusively for use by me; hence money is not a major concern. and it wouldnt instill much confidence in a client to discover we're using LE.

It don't matter what you got, if you don't know what you're doing with it.

Don't get caught up in the HD hype. There are a number of studios out there winning grammies with a 003.

Your clients' confidence should be in your product, not how much money you spent. As you said... you must think of it as an investment. Consider what the return is going to be, and how long it will take to get there. Don't break yourself if you don't have to. You could start off with a simpler solution and go from there as your client base grows. Once your system has paid for itself... everything else it makes on top can be put towards something new. Especially since there is definitely new HD hardware coming out soon, it's best to wait and see what else Avid has in store for us. It's quite possible they will release something within the next month or two that will fit your needs perfectly without having to buy a luxury saloon.

Once again, I mean no disrespect to the experience you have... but HD is about more than the name.

Think of it this way... Would you rather have a gold chain, or a gold record?