Hey out there,

I'm a musician looking to get an audio recording setup going on a new ibook (500Mhz., 192 MB Ram, 10 gig drive) I just ordered. Eventually I want to add midi as I do play a Kurzweil SP-76 keyboard, but mainly I'm a bass player and need to replace an aging four track for my band. I don't have much money to spend so it looks like I'm going to be stuck with the imic audio I/O. I've read all the posts to this forum and it sounds like protools free won't work with the imic. What other good, cheap, audio recording software do you all reccommend (I'd love a MOTU 828 into Cubase 32, but I just don't have the cash). I have about $250 to spend total. Right now I'm planning on getting a Behringer eurorack Mixer and running that into the imic. Then using Cubasis VST 2.0 to record the actual tracks. The total price for this setup looks to be about $215. Should I be looking at other hardware configurations instead? The mixer is key as I need to get 2 drum mics, 2 vocal mics, guitar, bass, and keyboard in all at once. I'd love to record separate tracks, but it looks like that's not possible in my price range. Any reccommendations would be appreciated. The UA-30 and Egosys inputs don't look like they do any more than the imic, but cost 6 times as much. If I'm wrong about this, please educate me.

rtpeyton@ukans.edu

The way you're going sounds OK. Eventually I'd be looking for a better quality interface - there are quite a few good USB devices including one I've seen with two balanced mics in and SPDIF which sounded great - but it's $500 US.I don't recall the name but I can find out. Behringer stuff is good for the price because it's reasonably quiet and has a useful BUS send (alt 3/4). With ANY portable, make sure you actually see the stuff working on one before you buy it. Heading for VST32 is good. Also I think partitions are the way to go - that way you can still use the notebook for other stuff. And partitioned drives are generally faster. If you really apply yourself to getting the best mic placement/balance you can, recording in stereo is OK. It will be a vast improvement on the 4 track in terms of flexability at least.

you could always record with simple sound or another cheap app into the ibook with the imic and then pull the sound tracks into ProTools LE for mixing. I did this some a while back with my bass. Sometimes I would just want to capture a quick riff or idea and would record through the my plaintalk mic. I even took one of the idea tracks and normalized it and applied some distortion and used in a final mix in ProTools. It didn't sound that bad really. Just an idea.

Also, I think M-Audio makes a USB interface for macs that is about $225 and gives you 2 tracks in and 2 tracks out of analog audio and it has midi. This seems to be reasonably priced audio interface that may help you too.

I read somewhere that the iMic only works with virtual memory on, which is incompatible with a lot of recording packages. Does anyone know if this is really true?

see my post in 'PowerBooks, Firewire & Music - how?' forum to same question by someone else

I'm going to answer my own question, fueled in part by info. from The Dub on another topic. There is another solution. M-Audio Quattro. 4 inputs, 4 outputs, USB, 1x1 Midi. The price at Musician's friend right now is only $229.00 It comes with it's own 16 track recording software with sequencing which is supposed to be very similar to micrologic (the cheap version of logic audio). Breaking down the price into cheap components: If you paid $79 for Cubasis or Micrologic + $60 for a midiman 1X1 interface + $35 for an imic + $99 for a cheap Behringer mixer your total is : $275 - The M-audio Quattro does all that for less money. However, there are some down and up sides. 1) on a seriously up side the Quattro can record 4 tracks simultaneously through the USB. 2) On the down side, it has no Mic Pre-amps to get those you need to get either the Duo - which is the same price but brings you back to two track recording, or you add an Omni $169, plugs into the Quattro and gives you 2 good mic preamps and 8 more line inputs - bringing you to a ridiculous 14 in and 4 out, or you get a mic preamp elsewhere and just put it before the Quattro.
3) This might be a major down, but, due to the limitations of USB (it wasn't by accident that MOTU made the 828 firewire) the quattro can only do 16 bit (CD quality) 4 track simultaneous recording. If you drop down to 2 tracks you can go 24 bit. And even if you don't you still get the benefit of the 24 bit A/D conversion which takes place inside the Quattro and therefore doesn't have the USB limitation. As near as I can understand it, the Omni is really just a mixer for the Quattro and so doesn't add any more simultaneous recording tracks. Anyway - thought others might like to know this. It looks to me that for the money the quattro is now the way to go - Plus it has a compatibility problem with PC's so for the next few months (until they get a patch) It's Mac Only!!! I'll put up a review once I get to try it out for a while.