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@TADodger , I have a cheap Behringer audio Interface at home (cant remember the model number but can check later), that I bought when I wanted to start doing some recording. As it happens, I ended up getting a Katana and just use that straight into Studio One now, so never used the Audio Interface at all. Took it out of the box once to look at it...
Ill be happy to shove it in the post for you if you wanted? Don't want anything for it.
Let me know.
There's a lot to be said for this approach. After many years of Cubasing I've just bitten the bullet and gone for a hardware recorder for use in my practice room. It only arrived yesterday, but within five minutes I had it set up and recording. Now it's set up, it's simply switch on and go. No messing with conflicts, drivers, that why-am-I-scratching-my-head-for-hours-instead-of-making-music feeling. Just a few faders, buttons, meters, and music.
The R16 is has a proper 8-track mixer which is necessary if you have a few sources like synths, guitar, and microphones, or if you want to record a full band with drums all at once, or you could go for something smaller if you don't need all that functionality. The R8 is about £230 and the R16 £280.
Both those units can be used as an interface and controller for DAWs too, but the great thing is you can use them as a sketchpad for getting ideas down, or for tracking your parts initially, then bring the files into a DAW for production. The best of both worlds IMHO. There's loads of units available for all price brackets, particularly if you consider buying used.
Obviously a computer is more powerful, but your story of having to fiddle with software for ages just to make a sound is so familiar. A hardware unit is much more convenient and intuitive.
Was thinking of putting an entry in for the Xmas competition recorded this way. Mine will undoubtedly suck when compared to all the talented sorts on here, but you can but try.
The zoom r8 or r16 have caught my attention, but they are now 7 years old. Is there anything more recent which is better?
Have people realised how easy it is to record with hardware DAWs?
Feedback
If you using your Zoom as the interface to record, then you also have your sound played back through that device - so have you got speakers plugged into the Zooms outputs? That's all it is! Otherwise go back into devices and switch back to your pc's soundcard and then when you press play you will then hear the audio you can see recorded but as of now are not hearing.........its something I can relate to - I was there myself and thought "derrr!!!" when the penny dropped!! Noob error...I so can relate!
@siraxeman - I was working on the basis that by setting the preferences in Reaper to Zoom for input and PC speakers fro output I would have sound out via the PC, but will try headphones / speakers from the zoom.
@TADodger
If you can see a .wav file recorded i'll bet money on you hearing something when you do!
Its a shame that Boss and Zoom haven't updated their hardware units. They are selling the same ones now as in 2010.
Perhaps its a case of 'if it ain't broke', but I'm guessing that's because a most folks are now attracted to something like a Focusrite Scarlett attached to a PC, with plugins.
I already have a separate modeller (an Amplifire) so have no real need for plugins etc. I'd just like an easy way to record from it.
I'm really looking forward to taking it to the next band practice, chucking a few mics up on the kit, recording everything multitrack, and bringing it into Cubase to tidy it up for a really high-quality solution to doing live recordings.
In short, even though the Zoom R16 has been around a few years, there's still nothing else out there that does a significantly better, or cheaper, job.
I have an R24, so its like 8 better isn't it! Does a great job even the onboard amp sims n fx are quite useable. This track was completely done on the R24 apart from the drums which was my Boss DR880 plugged into the R24.
The great thing with these Zoom and also Tascam's is you can USB your audio files across to a pootah....to get it out onto teh web, or to manipulate it furtherer in a DAW(which I haven't done with the track below)
The Boss ones I'd stay away from, just because they don't record to .wav files! The BR800 is really not an 8 track recorder either. Boss use their own compression format and you have to use a converter software to convert the files into .wav format which takes a while and as its recorded compressed in the first place the quality can't be as good as a raw .wav file when you convert it too one! I've had the BR1600 and the latest BR800 and the lil mini micro BR...never really did anything with 'em though....kept 'em for a while the just flogged 'em to get my money back.
The one thing I would definitely check if you are getting stuff for a Mac is what OS the hardware/software you intend to buy is supported up to (particularly if you get an audio interface off eBay or something). I hadn't updated my OS for ages, really as I couldn't be bothered and was being lazy, but decided to do it a week ago to the latest (High Sierra I think). After I'd done this, I found out that Logic Pro was no longer supported on the new OS (and going back a few!), so I had to upgrade to Logic Pro X (£200 - Apple don't upgrade for free between these releases). I'd sort of planned to get that at some stage anyway, but it was a pain. I then found out that M-Audio no longer provided updates for my audio interface, so that was obsolete after only about 4 years. Luckily a load of people had got pissed off with this, and had crowdsourced an update, so I've got it working now, but that could easily have been another £100+ I'd have needed to spend. This is all entirely down to my own stupidity, but Logic is the only big bit of software I use outside of all the stuff that comes with a Mac anyway (and is updated for free), so it completely slipped my mind. Just worth thinking about. I think this was raised in another thread elsewhere which might be worth a read.
https://www.facebook.com/benswanwickguitar
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself