all-in-one digital recording studio

[bandman322]

I would like a home recording studio. I have a sound proof room, and I would like to set it up to do some recording. I was thinking about buying a Korg D1600. It sells for about $2K, but you can pick them up used for about half of that.

Do any of you have an all-in-one digital recording studio? Is a machine like this good enough to go out and record high school band concerts and produce good quality CD's?

I would love to record for these organizations and then sell their CD's to help them raise funds. I have fought that fight for almost 30 years and this would be a nice way for me to help out the local bands as I get close to full time retirement. The kids can have a recording of their concerts, and the band can take the profits and reinvest them in instruments, music, or a scholarship program.
_________________
C - Harrelson 750 Modified Bach Strad
Picc - Schilke P5-4
Flugel - Kanstul ZKF1525
Bb - Bach Strad 180ML-37

"To be a teacher you need to be as good a performer as you can be: you'll have more to impart to your students musically." - John Haynie

[snyde1]

Hi,

I'm a band director with several standard ensembles and a jazz band with singers. Around four years ago I wanted to make a CD of the jazz group and sell them for school fundraising, etc. Anyway, a friend of mine lent me an old DAT Tape recorder. I used this to record the group and then took it to a local mixing studio for their first CD. The results were okay, but the cost of the studio mixing was over $100 plus we only used three mic's and they were not the highest quality.
Then, the next year I called several recording studios to see if they would come to the band room, or the group goto the recording studio, and record us. Their cost was well over $250-$275 per hour and only one multi-directional mic would be used? Plus, I had to work around "their schedule" and they didn't want to come in an d record the group at 7:30 AM. And after school was out...after school sports, etc.
Finally, I did some research and decided to purchase my own entire recording system. I chose the Yamaha AW16G. It is incredible! The cost for me was around $979. I looked for a USED or Reconditioned machine. These are sent to Yamaha and refurbished to their high standards. Look at Music123, or WWBW, etc. With this machine, I can record, edit, over-dub, use split channels, add effects, etc., and then burn the final CD with great results. The best thing about it is, I can record the group ANYTIME I WISH during any normal rehearsal. I then create covers with CD Creator or any similar product...there are tons of great publishing programs you could find.
The Yamaha AW16G allows you to use upto 2 standard microphone hook-ups and 6 more mic connectors using IMP adaptors for a total of 8 mic's and one high Z input for your bass guitar, keyboard, etc. You can split upto 16 channels and mark, edit, and finalize all songs. I also purchased enough Shure microphones for the entire system and mic stands for my needs. Plus, one double input cable for monitor out capability. Finally, I purchsed a great hard travel case for the Yamaha from the GrooveNut Case Co off of EBay or their web-site is GrooveNutCaseCo@cs.com. This entire system is completely portable and efficient.
I know many recording experts will say to use a new Mac system or a Korg and go into thousands of dollars. However, for my budget of $1,500 total, this Yamaha system works fine.
I just recored the jazz band's fifth CD, we do one at Christmas and one in the Spring, and the parents and school love them! We have sold them for fundraisers, at performances, etc. I hope this helps and good luck!

[LittleRusty]

I also have a AW16G. I have recorded my sons elementary school chorus with it and will be doing it again on Tuesday.

It works well, I would recommend it also.

One issue I have with it is the mike preamps are quite noisy in the upper 1/8 of the range (even without a mike attached). I think I have solved that problem with a couple of 2 channel mike preamps.

That said, I mentioned my dissatisfaction to others who had the resulting CD and they could not hear it, so perphaps I am just too picky.

Snyde have you noticed this with your unit?

[FatPauly]

Whew! Where to start!

First, the short answer to your question is YES, the Korg recorder will definitely do a good job and can be used to produce quality recordings worthy of pressing onto CD. So will its competitor products from companies like Roland, Tascam, Fostex, etc.

However, the recorder is just one piece of the recording chain, and probably the least important one, sonically speaking. Its job is to take some number of input channels, convert them from analog to digital and stream that data to disk. On the other end, they play back those tracks, let you mix, compress, eq, and effect them and finally produce a stereo pair of tracks for burning to CD. These units typically have decent digitizing chips and OK eq, effects, and compression, and burn disks just fine.

But it is too easy to forget that the initial capturing of the sound is where the real work is done, and that is accomplished best by quality mics feeding into quality preamps, then into the recorder's A/D circuitry. Even better is bypassing that and using high-end outboard digitizing gear, but that is getting into serious cash outlay.

On the back end, when you are mixing the tracks you have recorder, your monitoring chain is also critical to let you make wise judgements. Having good speakers (not just headphones) and a room that doesn't work against you is key to getting good mixes.

So, I guess I am saying is consider spending more of your budget on mics and preamps and speakers and room treatment will have a bigger payoff than the recorder. Look for a more basic recorder for capturing your tracks, then plan to migrate the tracks to a computer for mixing. With all the incredible software available for mixing on your computer, doing everything on a standalone like the Korg seems like a poor decision.

In my case, I record to a $500(?) Fostex VF-16 in the field while employing about $3000 worth of mic and $4000 worth of preamps. Then, I transfer all my tracks into a PC at home for mixing. The system that I use (Paris by Ensoniq) allows me to mix up to 128 channels with world-class eq, compression, and effects builtin, and all this can be had for $300. Sadly, I do need to spend some money on room treatment, but I use Hafler and a/d/s speakers for monitoring and they seem to do a decent job. Samples can be heard by following the links in my signature file.

Hope this helps. Recording is a great, albeit ultimately expensive hobby, but you can get started with a pretty minimal investment and build up from there. Good luck.
_________________
- Paul Artola
Ellicott City, Maryland
Keyboards with More Toys Than Talent
Electronic mayhem as Uncle Chrome

[bandman322]

Thanks to all of you for prompt, and complete responses. This is something I really want to do. In all the years I taught I got some prettty decent recordings of my students, but never a really good one. I still have the recordings of my high school in the 1970's and I think those recordings were almost as good as the ones I have of my most recent bands.

By doing this I can give the kids memories they can have forever, and if I get good at it I can probably stay pretty busy in the spring with all the festivals that go on. I'm serious about wanting to do this as a service for teh kids. Kind of my way of saying thank you for all the years I've had teaching some pretty wonderful young people!
_________________
C - Harrelson 750 Modified Bach Strad
Picc - Schilke P5-4
Flugel - Kanstul ZKF1525
Bb - Bach Strad 180ML-37

"To be a teacher you need to be as good a performer as you can be: you'll have more to impart to your students musically." - John Haynie

[_Don Herman]

You say you want a home studio, then mention recording band concerts and stuff... That's very often two different rigs! For your stated "live" use, I think the all-in-ones are pretty nice. A couple of schools in my area take advantage of one of the tech teachers. He uses a Roland 20-channel unit (forgot the number) with a preamp/compressor unit in fornt of it (like the Presonus Digimax) and gets good results. For "real" studio work, it gets expensive quickly, but maybe that's not your goal?

The Korg does OK; I use an older Roland unit, and they make Boss as well; the Yamaha cited has gotten excellent press (I've not fooled with iot enough to judge); m-audio makes decent PC interfaces, etc. ad nauseum.

But, pay attention to your preamps and mics -- I'll second Paul on that. Lose it there at the front end, and it's hard (impossible, actually) to get it back. One thing I like about the Roland units is that they include mic modeling. It ain't like using the real thing, but ain't bad and they based it upon a decent midrange mic (AKG C3000, as I recall) that you won't go broke getting. A pair of those and a decent (albeit cheap) preamp will go a long way. Make sure you have phantom power.

I send my mics (pair of C3000's usually) straight into my old Roland 880 for live recording (older son's orchestra) -- I have a couple of Presonus Blue Tubes, but most often just go through a power box. The Blue Tubes don't sound bad, but I prefer a very dry recording, usually, for orchestra/band stuff. (I like the BTs for recording myself, or small Jazz groups, but plan to sell them soon -- they were really "for fun" when I started out and I need to upgrade badly.) For recording the orchestra live it's good enough; for more exacting work I borrow a friend's pre (and 414's, or a couple of Neumanns). A Digimax is in my future, I hope... It would make live recording band concerts much easier and the sound better (less gain riding, which has to be fixed later). I plan on picking up a cheap (<$500) Rhode stereo mic to make life easier, and because some guys are now doing videos of the orchestra and so I want to run more channels (meaning more mics used and more setup time) for them.

For my boy's orchestra, I record and make the CD for free; a local church dupes them cheap, and the orchestra makes a decent profit to help rent music and such.

Aside: Paul's displaying only the tip of his knowledge. Ping him and you'll get a list of nice equipment to look at from from cheap to stratospheric. (Hope I'm not getting in trouble with you here, Paul. Thanks for your advice in the past!)

HTH - Don
_________________
Don Herman/Monument, CO
"After silence, that which best expresses the inexpressible, is music." - Aldous Huxley

[LittleRusty]

This might be slightly off topic, but one thing you should be aware of is that recording concerts requires copyright clearance, even if you don't charge for the recordings. (the choice of charging for the songs is up to the author(s) of the songs not the recording engineer)

The choir director of my son's elementary school choir has handled this in the past but I think it runs about $.90 per song.

Many people ignore this, and I am not one to preach to others, but it is taking money out other muscian's pockets if one ignores this.

[_Don Herman]

Good point. In my case, the orchestra has it covered, but in general it's good to note that you can't simply make a recording and sell it without getting your ducks in a row. - Don
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Don Herman/Monument, CO
"After silence, that which best expresses the inexpressible, is music." - Aldous Huxley

[FatPauly]

For royalty fee info, check out the Harry Fox Agency (www.harryfox.com). They are the licensing fee collectors and have special rates for low volume (i.e. 1000 instances) runs for non-profits like schools and churches.

Rates used to be 7.5 cents per instance up to a 5 minute recording and some additional charge per minute over that. So, each song 5 minute song costs $75 per 1000 pressings (each CD is an instance).

Note that most big pressing plants won't take on your job unless you verify that your licenses are all proper.
_________________
- Paul Artola
Ellicott City, Maryland
Keyboards with More Toys Than Talent
Electronic mayhem as Uncle Chrome