PC vs. stand alone

[Graz]

what's the pros/cons of each if the user (myself) has never toched one piece of recording equip and will, for the most part, be self taught?

[tech1]

PC has a higher learning curve, but allows deeper editing. Stand-alone tends to be more portable and loads faster, but also does not allow for transporting projects to different systems. Other opinions?

[KKingsley]

I purchased a Yamaha AW4416 new several years ago and still do tracking on it in the studio. I was starting out just like you. It is a stable dependable platform for getting the sound to the hard drive. With the addition of an 8 channel input card, I have taken it out into the field and recorded "Live" shows (16 tracks simultaneously). I believe they sell used on ebay for as little as $600 now and there is great online support through groups like the Yahoo AW4416 group to help you through the learning curve.

That said, I usually transfer the tracks into the computer for editing and final mixing.

[Byll]

KKingsley: I am vitally interested in your response. My studio is built around three AW2816 units. This is the 4416 without the extras. Sonic and operating characteristics are identical. We use two of them, cascaded and hard-wired into the studio system, and the third for recording live venues. Data transfer is done by lightpipe. For micro-editing, we use DP and ProTools, but only when necessary. Many finished products are created on the AW series, alone.

I am aware of all the cards available for the AW series, and in fact, own a few. The 8 channel input cards I know of, in no way allow more than 8 channels to be recorded at one time in the early AW series, as the number of channels the units can record at one pass, is a function of the internal AW operating system.

If you are able to record 16 channels at a time, please let me know the methodology involved. This knowledge would greatly increase the flexibility of our system.

Graz: I agree with KKingsley that a used AW2816 or 4416 would be a good investment for you. If you have any direct questions, I would be honored to answer them for you.

The best to you.
Byll

[KKingsley]

Byll,

Yamaha MY8AD24 adds an additional 8 1/4" inputs for the AW4416. I run the snake from the stage to an analog mixer (which I use for monitors) and then use a couple of 8 channel insert snakes to patch over to the Yamaha AW4416. I run FOH with the AW4416. Instead of studio monitors, the FOH mains are the monitors (I use the monitor layer to run the FOH). I arm all 16 tracks and then press Play/Record as needed. The limit per song is 6.4 G which is around 45 minutes. I stop the song recording before that time limit and load a new song. I have recorded all day like that.

YAMAHA-MY8AT for transferring into Pro Tools - 8 tracks at a time so I take some kind of reference click track in each time to align the tracks. I take the "Live" recordings into Pro Tools (M-Powered) and a Firewire 1814 and do the editing and mixing there.

I would have to be in front of the AW4416 right now to give specifics but basically I am recording direct to disk. The AW4416 has the ability to do 16 tracks simultaneously with no problems.

I hope this helps. I can give more info if needed. This Yamaha AW4416 has been a wonderful unit.

Edit: I believe that the card for the 8 additional inputs is the Yamaha MY8AD 8 x 1/4 Analog Input Card for AW4416 (sorry..It's been a while since I installed it)

[Byll]

KKingsley: Thank you for the information.
Best.
Byll

[5454stevef]

what's the pros/cons of each if the user (myself) has never toched one piece of recording equip and will, for the most part, be self taught?

It is not as much a disadvantage as you think, not having used recording gear in the past, because you have no pre-conceived ideas about how it should work. Might make learning easier and less frustrating because you're not constantly comparing it to anything you already know how to do.

I haven't used one of the newer stand-alones, but from my experience moving from a Roland VS-1680 to PTLE on a PC:

Stand-alone Pro's:

Take it out of the box and plug it in. Doesn't get much easier than that.
Easy to get the hang of doing the basics. You could be recording right away. Nice to have a physical interface with real faders.
Small footprint on your desk.
Portability - I took mine to recitals, choral concerts, you name it, it always worked great and was the perfect tool in that context.
Built-in effects, usually they sound pretty good.
Everything you need is right there. Most have built-in CD burning, etc.
Makes you immune to the OS-upgrade cycle that plagues computer-based recording. You buy it once, and it works from then on unless the hardware breaks.
If fine editing is needed, most units can export WAV files. Believe it or not, on my old Roland you couldn't do this. So pay close attention to what the unit can and can't do.

Con's:

More or less fixed number of simultaneous inputs - some models have upgrade hardware available, but it's not cheap and may not be available once the model is not in production any more.

Typical units of 16 or more tracks allow 8 tracks to record at the same time.
Itty bitty one-color display on most models compared to typical comp. based DAW makes editing difficult.

Lots of button pushing and paging to access deeper features. Physical controls do different things depending on what buttons you push.

Limited access to the wonderful world of plug-ins.

Limited number of instantiations of built-in effects.

Noisy fan on the one I have. You can set it to turn off when recording, but I always wondered how safe that was.

No MIDI recording/playback that I'm aware of on any current unit.

Simultaneous playback limited to a fixed number.

My experience with both is that the computer based setup sounded a little better than the Roland, BUT keep in mind it's an old unit, and the default record mode was actually a proprietary lossy compression scheme. I imagine new ones sound comparable to similarly priced computer interfaces.

Computer based (Pro's)

Open-ended systems, you can go nuts later if you get fired up and decide you need more inputs, power, plug-ins, control surface, digital mixer, better interface, outboard clocking, whatever. The ultmate upgrade path goes incrementally all the way up to seriously professional installations.

Plug-ins.... the number you can use at one time is generally limited only by your computer power. A lot of pretty decent plugs are available for free. The great thing is, you buy it once, and can use as many instances of it as the computer will handle. Roland does have a card that will let you use certain plugs but the selection is limited. It's also possible to string many effects in series, something that is limited at best on stand-alones.

Many more tracks available, for the most part computer based DAWs are limited in track count only by the computer's cpu power. This is not the case with ProTools LE, which limits you to 32 simultaneous playback tracks, however.

MIDI capability - most have integrated MIDI, making the use of Virtual Instruments like orchestral sounds, pianos, drums, etc. possible. Huge palette of available instruments - just depends on how deep your pockets are.

Bigger screens (get the biggest you can afford...) make editing so much easier it's not even a contest. Also it's nice to have a semi-meaningful meter display - the ones on most standalones are pretty small.

Multiple monitors are an option, you can keep all your stuff right in front of you.

You can stick the computer in a closet if it makes too much noise.

Adding disk space is as easy as plugging in a drive.

CON's....

It can be a slippery slope to financial ruin if you get caught up and have to have every new plug-in or upgrade that comes down the pike. : ) Seriously, you might find, like me, every time you get a few bucks you start thinking of how to blow it on software or gear...

COMPATIBILITY can be a nightmare. Fortunately I've never had any problems, but a quick perusal of, for example, the Digidesign User forum will give you an idea of what can happen if you go in unprepared. The other side of that is, few people post to say how flawlessly something works, so you're seeing a skewed overview of experiences. If these things didn't work well in the vast majority of applications no one would buy them.

Installation and getting up and running can be tricky if you've not done it before. Usually you don't want to do recording on the same computer you use for daily stuff, because in some cases there will be conflicts between the crap that runs in the background on a general-use computer and the software and drivers for the audio system.

Overall learning curve is a bit steeper, mostly because you can do more, but the basics are not that hard to grasp. The manuals I've seen for various programs are pretty good these days. Can't say that about the manual for my Roland, but that was a few years ago.

Unless you simply buy a computer, install the software, and never upgrade anything or add any new plugs, etc., you will inevitably be subjected to the "new OS" mess that happens periodically with any computer-based setup.
Depending on your tolerance for screwing around with this sort of thing this can be a major drawback.

Computers still seem to crap out or freeze up at the worst possible time. I used my Roland for years and it locked up once. I don't think anyone who uses a computer-based system can say that. I use PTLE 7.3 on a fairly old PC, and though it seldom gives me trouble, it's not bulletproof like the Roland seemed to be.

Whew... what a windbag. sorry, hope there's something helpful in all that.

SF