Completely Stuck, HELPME!! Options

[MOLLOWITZ]

it's short for Audio Interchange File Format, it's basically a very high quality audio file (tends to be quite large in size, say, about 40 some MB per song.)

if you really want to know about AIFF files: http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tech/aiff.htm

it's a good format for burning normal cds (about 14 songs or so).

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anyway... you can always convert AIFF files to mp3 if you need to.

[kaboombahchuck]

AIFF is the standard. I'm assuming that the protools program will save your music files as AIFF. You can use iTunes to convert them to mp3 if you wish.

[danml69]

One thing your band can try is miking the drums and getting all the balances and levels just right. Then set up mikes in front of all the other insturments in your band. Record a bit on the song you want to do and listen. Do that a few times until the balance and levels are to your liking. Then record the song live. minus the vocals. You will preserve the energy of the tune and will sound good. That done, record the vocals track at a time. Process and mix until done. Total cost. $40 bucks for the iMic.

[ryosode]

I actually agree with danml69. When you don't know much about this stuff, you want to start simple. Go ahead and get your sound recorded using SoundStudio OS X which is a 20days free trial shareware or Spark LE (free?). Save it to AIFF or whatever it might be, if necessary convert it to MP3 using iTunes. After you get it right, go ahead and explore into multi-track recording and other professional features. One thing is multi-track recording software by itself usually costs you $200 at least. A decent USB audio i/o is also at least $200 and could go up to $700 for those FireWire models. My point is that the investment is not cheap. You should try it first.

Also, don't forget that there are decent portable recording studio solution for $500 ~ $1000 (depends on number of channels and extra feature). These are multi-track recorders that have a hardware drive and USB interface in them or a flash memory slot for your convenience. This way, you don't have to worry about all the technical crap and after the recording is done, you can transfer the sound to your iBook for editting. Just a suggestion.