Hi, everyone. I'm back. First of all, I want to say that this group is awesome. Great people here. I hope I haven't been a nuisance to anyone. Perhaps I can say that my quest is approaching an end. I've been reading all day long for days, passing out in bed with the tablet on my hands, and I've learned a lot about many things. My quest is not over yet, but there is a lot less haze in my sight, everything is clearer and should be resolved soon.

Now on to the latest comments.

Bob, I'll reply to you last.

Herb, sorry if I sound stubborn, but I really loathe Windows. I used it for a few years then moved to Linux and never looked back. Learning was hard, but definitely worth it. I also used to think that Linux was too limited, but I've been investigating that over the last few days and I'm having a pleasant surprise. There is a lot more music software than I thought, and some of it is really good. I'm just not happy with the plugins, I think I can do better on Caustic even with its limited number of effects, but the whole scenario is certainly better than I'd thought. And I'm not so sure that Windows is the best bet for serious computer musicians anymore. Take a gander at this thread, for example:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_devices/windows-support-for-usb-audio-20/0d633b9f-3193-4c63-8654-fb10b3614a04?page=9

Weird, wild stuff.


Charlie (I assume c_fogle is Charlie), I have ruled out a multi track recorder for the time being, simply because it's too expensive. Everything is too expensive in my country, it's the worst place in the world for people who love technology. frown I found the Tascam DP-24 for sale here and whoa, too much for my wallet. Not gonna happen now. I had considered the Tascam DP-008ex, but after further investigation, I don't want it anymore. It's 16-bit only and two inputs only. It's 8 track on playback, not on recording. I would have to do a lot of overdubbing, and that I can do already without buying anything. For a tad more, I could get a Tascam DR-40 or even stretch my budget to the max and get a Zoom H5. I really like the way you think and it seems to be a very good piece of equipment, I just can't afford it.


Now here is a full-length reply to Bob (jazzmammal):

Alright, let me separate all the ideas. For the sake of clarity, let's say I have three distinct projects:

1) my band
2) other bands
3) myself alone

1) My band. That one is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. You see, I am a drumkit apprentice. I make some pretty good beats on the beatbox, but I am a big nerd who takes studying seriously and decided that it would be very beneficial to me if I had true drumkit lessons, so I would understand the whole beating business better. I like the classes, I have a good teacher. He loves jazz and hates percussionists. smile The school set me up with a band so we can practice, the whole bunch of newbies. It's a plus that the school offers for free. I could turn it down, but I understand it will be a very good experience so I accepted it although I have, strictly speaking, no time for that. I've been pulling time out of my sleeves like magic to accommodate it.

Well, incidentally, I am very, VERY interested in learning all aspects of production, so yes, I can use the rehearsals as an opportunity to learn and practice, but I don't really have to do that if it becomes a problem, like say, buying expensive equipment just for that. But it kind of overlaps with the second project:

2) Other bands. I have many musician friends, including one who is a close friend and very talented, he has an album and he's asked me to produce his performances. I can't, I'm not ready for that, but I am willing to learn. Besides that, I am assistant producer of a monthly event, a sort of a cabaret with pre arranged guests and it's also an open mic night. It's the best description I can provide. Anything goes. That's why I strongly considered buying a mixing board. The one we have now is not ours, it belongs to the bar, it's old and kind of lame, and nobody seemed to know how to operate it, not even the bar staff. I had to learn and I was promoted to mix desk operator. Mind you, it's just a leisure thing put up by friends having fun, and it's loads of fun, but we care about the quality of production. We are better than most similar events in our city, except for the sound. We really have to put more effort into that, and it's a matter of honor to me because I always loved all things related to sound, I just had to be realistic and pursue another career in life, now I have to catch up with my passion. So that project involves producing live performances and recording them. That is more or less important to me. I can postpone it, and I HAVE to postpone it if it becomes expensive, but I would be a happier person if I could pursue it to the fullest.

3) Myself alone. This is the one that really, really, absolutely matters above everything else. It involves me writing songs, plus production, recording, mix'n'mastering, everything. I'll have to learn production from scratch, but that's all the more fun. I'm a huge nerd at heart, I love learning and I gobble up heaps of information quite fast. I know it's going to be one heck of a ride.

I've been writing my songs on Caustic, a phone/tablet application that has an excellent beatbox and many synthesizers. It's very good for the sounds and has excellent workflow within its own restricted context, but it's made for mobile and it wants to stay that way, so there are serious limitations. I am forced to deal with a lot of overdubbing. At least I can hook up a MIDI controller to it (over USB), but I can only hook the tablet up to the computer through an analogue TRS cable, or Caustic can dump the track into a WAV file that I can edit on the computer. It can dump each instrument into a separate file too, that helps, but the whole process still is a bit clumsy. I guess I would have to use the exact same approach if I used a multi track recorder (such as Tascam). Caustic also runs on desktop, both on Windows and Linux, and I still don't know how much I can leverage that. The jackd server on Linux is very good for routing inputs and outputs all over the place, but it's complicated like hell even to a seasoned Linux user like me, I still haven't learned that, and I don't think Caustic can provide multiple individual channels except on dumped WAV files. If I route its output through the jack system, it's probably going to be the one channel only. It's not made for the desktop and it's not made to interact with other tools directly.

I have Caustic on two tablets, plus one or two other applications that might help a lot, so I would like to be able to combine several inputs. Don't forget there is my singing, it's an input too, and I am probably going to have someone over to play the guitar. Other instruments are not out of the question. I know some people. I am now preparing to wean off Caustic and embrace some other music authoring application on desktop.

When I posted here for the first time, I had no idea of equipment (obviously) and I also wanted to solve all the problems at once. Hence my original idea: get a mixing board, hook the whole world up to it, monitor on headphones, beam the output to the computer through an analogue cable (clueless, I know) and get busy. Now I see that having separate channels neatly arranged in a decent DAW will likely make a huge difference in my creation workflow - mixing board and musician friends be damned.

So my current plan is to buy an audio interface then a better recorder. For the interface, the jury's still out. Buying for Linux is never easy. For the recorder, I've been lusting after the Zoom H6. Too expensive for me, so I'll settle for the Zoom H5, it's a good compromise. I'd love to buy the Tascam DP-24, but that's really steep for me right now.

Thank you very, very much y'all again.