Trying to build a bare, bare-bones home studio with the most affordable Mac?
You probably already own a monitor, a mouse, a keyboard... ever heard of the Mac mini?
Yes, Logic Studio works on a Mac Mini, as well as it works on an Macbook Intel 13-in.
Very well, see that FireWire port? you can get a nice, bus-powered FireWire interface with enough ins and outs to cover your needs...
...provided that you are not going to record each performer of the Radio Berlin Orchestra and instead you just want to record your guitar or keyboard playing or your voice or what have you.
There are dozens of audio interfaces out there ranging from -100 US dollars to +1000 and beyond... but as I said if you are going to record into a few inputs at a time I've prepared a list of my personal favorites (sorry if yours is not there) - by the way I use an almost-decade-old MOTU 828 (not even the MkII, let alone the MK3!) and it has never let me down, so yes, FireWire works.
Here are the criteria for the list:
1. Price range: 200 to 350 USD.
2 Power: Has to be bus-powered (the FireWire bus powers the interface)
3. It must have:
a) Preamps for your unpowered instruments (like a guitar)
b) Phantom Power spec for your condenser microphones that need it
c) At least 2 instrument inputs for your synths or samplers or drum machines or effects...
d) MIDI I/O for your older MIDI instruments (the newer ones usually connect to the computer via USB)
4. It must record at minimum 24bit/96KHz
That said, that price range and with those specs my personal favorites so far are:
1. Yamaha GO46
2. PreSonus Firebox 6x8
3. M-Audio Firewire 410
4. Edirol FA-66
and here's a comparison sheet with their specs (click on it)
And this is how your budget would go:(In US Dollars)
1 Mac mini 2 GHz @ 799 $ +
1 copy of Logic Studio @ 499 $ +
1 Yamaha GO46 @ 340 $ = 1,638 $
What? still too expensive? ok, let's change the Mac mini and the audio interface:
1 Mac mini 1.83 GHz @ 599 $ +
1 copy of Logic Studio @ 499 $ +
1 Edirol FA-66 @ 279 $ = 1,377 $
You know you could even reduce it to 1,077 $ if you took a copy of Logic Express which in my opinion is a lot better and feature-packed -if you compare the specs- than all the 'lite' versions out there.
Update - August 3rd
Fellow twitter Alex Hoffman had told me to include the Presonus Firepod - he says it's great, I didn't see his message earlier so I apologize!
5 comments:
Way cool, this is the post I've been waiting for. I'm going to be building a small studio soon around an iMac so I have similar budget constraints.
There seems to be little info out there about how well a cheaper system like this works. It's also hard to find good info on cheaper audio interfaces. I'm looking getting a $500 range firewire interface w/ enough inputs so I could record a drums set if I really need to.
Hello Patrick, you might want to take a look at the PreSonus Firestudio Project interface.
http://www.presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=43
Who knows, it might be just what you need, don't forget to read as many user reviews you can.
Cheers.
what about the project mix i|o ? its about $1300 and can be rack mounted ... what do you think about this?
can you email me back?
dalepreddie@yahoo.com
If you're getting into the $1300 range, then the AD/DA converters in the RME Fireface 400 / 800 are superior. But, then the new Apogee Duet is superior to RME at $500 but gives you a lot less inputs. Check out RME, the converters to the price truly up your studio quality quite a bit.
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Thanks
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