Best Gear And Program, inexpensive recording Options

[lucasmyers]

I want to get a usb interface, a mic and a program to record music and create sound cues for theatre. Garageband is too limited. I am new to recording music on the computer but would spend the time to get a to know a good program. I have been looking at the tascam us122L that comes with a mic for around $200, would this be sufficient for what i need or is there something drastically bad about it? I am recording relatively straightforward live instruments and voice, as well as sound editing for the sound cues.

Thanks for your input!

[houstonmusic]

Hi,
i'm a composer and sound designer for theater. here's my 2 cents. a decent condenser mic, and a quality preamp. (what you're looking at is probably a dynamic mic) these things aren't cheap, of course.

That said, i've been doing some amazing location recording with my Zoom H2, which records 2 or 4 tracks to wav files at various resolutions, then imports via usb to my mac. The H2 was less than $200, mics built in. leave your computer at home. i NEVER go anywhere without it now.

then the editing. a good two track editor is crucial. I use Peak Pro, expensive. However, a free mulit track editor, that allows some mixing, etc, is Audacity. allows plug-ins, easy to do edits and fades, once you get the hang of it, handles various sample and bit depths.

in the theater, on macs, we're using Cricket or CueLab.

good luck