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Hi Folks. This probably fits a "recording" topic, but since it is an "opinion" question I will post it here. I started experimenting with recording during my high-school years using stuff I could find at garage sales... which included a "demagnetized" head Sony tape deck with crackling outputs, Radioshack mics, bad cables and other fine relics. I was in and out of my music hobby. Last few years I decided to finally settle on the most convenient concept of home studio, that would be mobile, yet powerful and will not put me on bread and water for a few years. Overall, I am very happy with my setup and amazing software that is available either reasonably priced or free. If I have to name one single thing that I am not happy with, it would be audio latency. Especially when recording vocals. I know, I know... there are ways to deal with it, such as using a button in Cakewalk that disables all FX from audio engine and a few other "tricks", but I am greedy and like to have all fun plugins and synths turned on, so I can hear whole picture when recording vocals and change things as I see fit on the fly, not post production  (As most of you probably know that having a small buffer will make system unstable) This "latency" thing never happened with analog setups... This is not a nostalgic cry for vintage gear, just observation. Curious to know, if somebody would be willing to share a single most annoying thing with digital (computer) recording. P.S. A positive thought on my issue. I am guessing that with Audio 48k/24bit, as a standard...which stayed like this for quite some time now and with introduction of USB C (gen2)/ Thunderbolt 3 ports that is becoming THE port of choice, latency issue will become a non-issue relatively soon. I assume ASIO protocol will evolve too...
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This one is easy: clipping.
If you do analog recording, going over the limit on a VU meter might even be useful. But any digital distortion sounds dreadful.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Chris
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We couldn’t do it back in the 70s.
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We couldn’t do it back in the 70s. Yeah, me too! I started out back then as well with a Sony reel to reel. Then went to four track cassette. What a long way we have come!
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Hi
Yes indeed had a lot of tape recorders in my time being in the hi fi trade including Ferograph, Vortexion, Brenell, Sony, Akai (with cross field biasing) and finally Revox. All great in their own right.
It is sad to think that I have just spent nearly£400 on a valve guitar amp because I love the analogue sound, but should I want to record it I will have to do so in the digital domain. Never mind I have some tape simulator plugins in Cakewalk.
There you go, I buy more and more powerful and faster PCs to improve things like latency, then get more and more plugins and add on bits and slow it down again.
Just go round in circles, but that’s life.
Mike
BIAB2021 UltraPlus,AsusN55S1Tbssd, W10/64,Akai EIEpro Yamaha CVP405,SquireStrat, CoolsoftVMidSynth Novatation Impulse61 Ctr kbd, Cwalk blab Kontakt http://mikesmusic.byethost16.com/
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Yep. Two track SONY tape deck in the mid-60s, four track TEAK with SOS in the early 70s.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Since I use hardware synths, I don't have that latency problem.
My first tape deck was a Wollensak 3M and the last a Teac A3440.
Digital recording is much, much easier. Especially for editing and multi-tracking.
The most annoying thing to me is constant software updates, relearning where everything is because they moved and renamed functions, and eventuality that a new OS will render my DAW obsolete.
As Matt mentioned, going up to +3 on the VU meters in the tape days gave some nice saturation and kept the signal higher above the noise floor. Going a little higher than +3 increased the distortion but gradually so depending on what you were recording, you wouldn't hear the distortion. Going over 0 on a digital recorder immediately injects painful distortion and a need for a re-do.
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Hi again Rustyspoon
Just had another thought re recording vocals without having to worry about Latency.
One answer would be to make your backing track on your main all singing dancing pc and software.
But record your vocals on another dedicated PC set up to just record vocals with some single program for just that purpose . (Do not put more programs on this pc than required to make recordings)
You would need to listen to your premade backing track via headphones from your main pc, while you do this of course, making sue that none of the backing sound gets into the clean vocal recording a vocal booth or bay made from soft board would help to keep out any other noises.
After that take the clean vocal to the main machine and sync up and mix.
This way you would be using your vocal PC just like a tape reorder and it wont suffer latency from having to handle the backing software and its plug ins at the same time,
as recording vocals.
Mike
BIAB2021 UltraPlus,AsusN55S1Tbssd, W10/64,Akai EIEpro Yamaha CVP405,SquireStrat, CoolsoftVMidSynth Novatation Impulse61 Ctr kbd, Cwalk blab Kontakt http://mikesmusic.byethost16.com/
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I have to agree with Matt. Clipping drives me crazy. If you come from a tape background it just makes it seem so much worse.
Keith
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Back in the late 60s I removed the erase head from my reel to reel and could do an overdub once maybe twice on each track. Quality suffered but it was an experiment.
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All this goes to what I've been saying for years and it's from personal experience.
You have to become that total computer nerd who is the one all your friends and family come to with their computer problems. That's just the start. Next you have to be immersed in digital audio because just knowing a PC and Windows in/out/backwards does squat for digital audio because that is probably less than 5% of the users of PC's and nobody understands it other than folks on forums like this one.
The folks who do digital audio well are full time pros in the biz. Studio owners, recording engineers, all those folks. Us users who have jobs, family obligations and all that happy stuff struggle all the time because we'll maybe spend a weekend on it, start to figure stuff out then life happens and we don't do it for two weeks and have to basically start over.
In spite of what we read in the blurbs about all the recording gear, DAW's, plugins, etc it's not easy and never will be. We need to remember there are full blown college courses in nothing but digital audio music production and they assume you're already very proficient with Windows and computers in general. In a related note, I read recently things to never put on a resume when applying for a job. One was to say you know Windows and Microsoft Office very well. Don't bother, it's now assumed EVERYBODY knows that. I know some here really do know all about that but lots of users here are at a pretty basic level when it comes to Windows.
For many of us it's like trying to learn a serious trade by watching some online vids and messing around with it 5 or 6 days a month. Ain't gonna happen fast that's for sure.
It's the old cliche: Everything's easy once you learn it.
Bob
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I often run my DAW Logic Pro X with multiple instances of Neutron 2, Nectar 2 and various Waves fx loaded - and also with BIaB open, Safari open, notes/messenger, etc., all with no latency issues. Why? Likely because I run 32 gb RAM. It’s cheap and took me about 10 minutes to install on my Mac. FWIW. Bud PS my recording started in an Atlanta studio in 1965 and continued off and on (more off than on ) until the present.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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I often run Logic Pro X with multiple instances of Neutron 2, Nectar 2 and various Waves fx - and also with BIaB open, Safari open, notes/messenger, etc., with no latency issues. Why? Likely because I run 32 gb RAM. It’s cheap and took me about 10 minutes to install on my Mac. FWIW.
Bud
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Yes, that much RAM is needed to run all those programs concurrently and well. But RAM isn't going to determine recording latency; that's a different solution.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I often run Logic Pro X with multiple instances of Neutron 2, Nectar 2 and various Waves fx - and also with BIaB open, Safari open, notes/messenger, etc., with no latency issues. Why? Likely because I run 32 gb RAM. It’s cheap and took me about 10 minutes to install on my Mac. FWIW.
Bud
...
Yes, that much RAM is needed to run all those programs concurrently and well. But RAM isn't going to determine recording latency; that's a different solution. Guess I thought more RAM = more buffer. Bud
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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<< For many of us it's like trying to learn a serious trade by watching some online vids and messing around with it 5 or 6 days a month. Ain't gonna happen fast that's for sure. It's the old cliché: Everything's easy once you learn it. >>
Exactly. That's why nearly 100% of the artists with any analog recording experience would immediately see an improvement in their recordings if they inserted a physical mixer/console into their recording chain. They would also enjoy an immediate 'freedom' from the enslavement mentality of a DAW and the enticement of the unlimited tracks that can be 'color coded' and bussed to a bus routed to a master bus that's so saturated a entirely different and additional software program has to be run to control clipping.
Anyone can learn the mechanics from front to back and beginning to end of any analog or hardware multitrack recorder in a day. With a DAW, if you learn how to split a track, do it once and come back tomorrow, can't remember the steps to do it without having to look it up again. Multiply that by a thousand techniques to get an idea of where you'll technically be a week into recording with a DAW versus running an analog mixer/console into an audio interface; with zero latency to boot... using on board effects with actual knobs and circuits that affect the sound authentically rather than simulation and zero load on the PC CPU... Bob (Jazzmammal) nailed it.
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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I can run most audio software pretty well, including several DAWs. But when I record, I want to be 100% in performance mode so I use a pro studio and let an engineer work all the tech stuff out. It helps to understand fully what he is doing so our discussions and edits go faster, but it isn't critical.
And when I serve as a producer, then knowing both the performance aspect and the tech is a bonus, to facilitate communication between the artist and engineer.
I do come with a step ahead of most folks, having taught both computer science and music, but I concur that learning a DAW to a level you can produce professional results is no easy task.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Charlie that's an interesting comment. I don't do recording for CDs. I just play live. I use RB like an 8 track recorder. All the mixing and effects are done in the mixer.
8 tracks to 8 channels from RB,1 channel for vocals,1for bass and 2 for harmony. Total of 12 chanels.The only thing I use in RB is limiters on the 8 ports
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac® users: Build 904 now available!
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