Retro Recording - HOW TO ROCK

[steelyad]

Hi All
I've decided to make a rather humorous series going full retro with recording styles. Apologies for the low video quality, it's being filmed on an old JVC DV camcorder for extra retro points!
The point of this series is to prove that you don't need the latest computing hardware if all you want to do is record some sounds - and that it's entirely possible to record dry tracks to send to a pro studio for reamping and mixing even if you only have a crappy 2002 iMac to record with! It really is methodology that counts, not how good your gear is.

Having said that, good guitars and a reasonable interface are still a must. But there's no need to drop $1800 on a new Mac just to record your basic tracks.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6hziD4xywA

In the next episode (this one's quite long and doesn't really get anywhere, sorry) i'll be recording dry tracks using the firewire port, Reaper 4.7 and a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 (they only just stopped making these but they're going for cheap). Stay tuned.

 

[Drew]

I've thought, for a LONG time now, that a lot of the focus on better and better recording gear (as a guy who simultaneously has been spending more and more money on gear ) is probably effort better spent just getting to know the gear you have, getting better performances, and writing more memorable material.

Even "budget" gear these days is, realistically, pretty darned good.

Shameless plug in someone else's shameless plug thread (hope you don't mind!), I wrote a blog post on this subject a while back:

https://drewpeterson.org/2015/03/22...houghts-if-youre-thinking-about-starting-out/

 

[steelyad]

Haha go for it Drew. I do find myself posting a lot of content, so fair's fair.

I kinda agree with the whole quality thing, with one little caveat- budget level interfaces are still improving year on year, and I don't think they've quite reached the plateau yet, although the new generation Focusrite Scarletts look like they've hit that mark. All the issues I had with the 1st generation seem to be sorted.

But yeah, the DAW side (especially with reaper and cubase since ver 3 and SX3 respectively) has been fine for years, and with computing power, you only need what your work demands (in my professional life that's a lot, but to record stuff at home it's really not).

Interestingly, the Zilla comparison video I put out has Slate drums, but I don't think I used anything at all on the guitars, so the whole project could have run on a pentium III.

 

[TedEH]

My first thought when I read the description was "quick! show this to Wintersun!"

 

[Drew]

I kinda agree with the whole quality thing, with one little caveat- budget level interfaces are still improving year on year, and I don't think they've quite reached the plateau yet, although the new generation Focusrite Scarletts look like they've hit that mark. All the issues I had with the 1st generation seem to be sorted.

Well, the thing that's interesting for me, is even with an older, out-of-date interface, sure it's not as hi-fi as what I work on today (I splurged for an Apogee Ensemble a while back, which is effing amazing), but it's still *good enough* that you can make a pretty good sounding recording with it, and in capable hands, a good engineer tracking good musicians can do better work on, say, an old Pro Tools M-Box and a copy of LE (especially in a world where we're all using sampled drums) than a novice with a couple years' experience dicking around with Reaper could do on my Apogee.

I mean, I don't know how old you are (I'm guessing you're on the older end of the spectrum here, too, just based on the fact we're talking about older gear), but I'm 35, and when I think back to the first recordings I ever made using my laptop's built in mic and a copy of Sonic Foundry Acid 2.0, it's totally mind-bending to me just how GOOD even my first outboard interface, an MAudio Firewire 410, sounded. I think a lot of people have this attitude that it's a better interface or a better mic or a better pre or a better plugin that's standing between them and a "pro" mix, and I don't really think that's the case.

I haven't gotten a chance to watch your video, btw, but I'll try to do so tonight.