Recording Software and Interface, what is your favorite now?

[montesa56]

I'm getting ready to buy a computer interface and some software to help my son record his band. I've talked to a lot of people about this and have gotten just as many answers as people I have asked on what software and interface I should use. Now that some time has passed and new versions of software have come out, I though I might get a different picture on some of the software and interfaces that are out there now vs. what I was reading here over the past couple of years. I hear, "Pro Tools is the industry standard", but this is usually from people who have never used it. I have a Peavey 16FX and have used a memory card with the 16FX and Acid software to record with so far. It works, but I need a much better sound quality than what I am getting. I'm sure there are several ways I can do this and one I was thinking of was to run everything through the 16FX and then out the right/left into a simple interface right/left. Or, I guess I could upgrade to something like a M-Audio 2626 or the PreSonus 2626 and run everything through it. Not sure sense I've never done this before other than what I've done with the 16FX and the Acid software. I do know I want to use a firewire interface. Any help and ideas will be greatly appreciated.

[Dirtbagg]

The best answer is, "IT depends"
On your budget, computer, what you want to do. I went through the same thing.
I use a Dell laptop with Line 6 Guitarport and used to have a M-Audio Project mix. Running Cakewalk's Sonar.

Emusicain has a great article on the that has it's choices for different budgets and different users.
http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_b ... al_studio/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dave

[JimiJames]

Man, ain't this is a can o' worms... Doing a search, This forum as well as others have some info and insight on this and will shed light on "it depends"

Good mic's are an alternative... PZM's, Condensor's and such.

[d20]

For my needs...I'm loving my current set up of Apogee Duet into Logic Express. Simple and sounds fantastic. The only thing I might add to this would be an external preamp; not for extra gain, but tone/mojo. Although the Duet gives me 75db (which is as much as you're gonna get from a preamp), it's very clean and clear - almost nonexistent.

As for mics, I use a Shinybox 46mxc (badass ribbon mic built by my buddy, Jon Ulrigg) and a hot-rodded SM57.

[motorhead_6]

I can't afford to have tried a lot of different ones but what I use is a MOTU 24i with a PCI-424 card. Its a 24 track recorder (of course that means 24 simultaneous the total number is up to the software) that can do 24 bit 96 Khz recording. 24 bit is light years better sounding than 16 bit even though you have to downsample it to 16 bit to put it on a CD. It still sounds immensely better than recording it 16 bit. I use Adobe Audition software which allows 136 tracks. If I were starting from scratch I would probably go with pro-tools, not because its better but just because it is the industry standard. But after all the time I have spent getting to know Audition I am not about to switch to anything else now.

[lityar]

Keyboards are usually lighter than digital pianos, and often do not have weighted keys. They are designed to be used by musicians. The majority of keyboards are cheaper than digital pianos but the sound quality reflects that. difference between piano and keyboard