PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here Hard Disk Recorder or Mac Laptop ??

Greetings every one,

I hope y’all are doing fine today. I need some feed back and advice on a scenario here. At my church, I work with a small choir of about 10 singers, an electric guitar player and myself on a Yamaha Clavinova. We usually rehearse approximately 5 songs at our once a week rehearsals. I use the onboard drums on the Clavinova because it is pretty loud enough and so, I use it for time keeping during rehearsals to play along with. Here is what I want to do. I would like to record my weekly rehearsals, song by song, in a multi track way, where I can be able to go back and do some editing track by track. So let’s say, I want to add some extra keys, or maybe the guitar player would like to overdub some guitar rhythm parts or maybe I need a singer to come in and redo their vocal take on a particular song. Or I may need to adjust the volume on any one of the individual tracks. I know that this depends on a lot of things but I was thinking of purchasing either a Mac Laptop or a hard Disk recorder. In terms of a Hard Disk Recorder, there are 2 in particular that I have been reading up on interestingly. They are the KORG D888, which can be checked out at http://www.musiciansfriend.com/document/korg/d888_digital_recorder?doc_id=100894, and then there is the ZOOM HD16CD from Samsung which can be checked out at http://www.zzounds.com/item--ZOMHD16CD.

So my question can be summed up in this way:. Mac Laptop? Korg D888? ZoomHD16CD? Which one do I get? Which one would ya’ll advise me to purchase? Also, what about my interface? Now, at my house, my mini home studio includes a Yamaha Motif ES7, a Lexicon Omega USB-audio/ Midi interface, 2 good studio monitors and a Compaq Pressario Desktop PC running Windows XP with 1.8 Ghz processor, 1 Gig of Ram, and hard drive space is approximately 65 giggs. In terms of software on my PC currently, I have Cubase Le, Band in a box 2007 and Power Tracks Pro Audio 12. I use Audacity for some editing also. I want to be able to take home a wave or whatever format file of my rehearsal from my church to the house and do further editing and sweetening like I said earlier so that I can do quality rehearsal CD’s to hand out to my singers.

I am at the valley of decision at the moment. I would luvvvv to hear from y’alll PLEASE. I do await your feed back.

The Korg D888 with its 8 ins and outs.

Trax

Hey Muzic Tech man

How you doing bro? I do trust that you are doing well. Thanks for your reply. So you are saying that the Korg D888 is what I need to purchase huh? Have you worked with it at any time? It sure looks like a solid piece of equipment capable of doing great things. I too, I kinda like the 8 ins 8 outs idea as opposed to the ZOOM HD16CD only stereo outputs.

Le me ask you another question. What about the Mic Pre amps on the Korg D888? Don't you think I might have to purchase a separate pre amp for Mics if let's say I would want to hook up 6 or 7 mics to the D888 at once so as to give me a biger boost and warmer sound for the singers's mics? If so what Mic Pre amp would you recommend?

Reply soon again. Your help is great.

Jah,

I have a Tascam 8 channel digital recorder here, not the Korg. How many mic inputs does the Korg have? You will probably need to run several mics through a mixer and then into the Korg?

I recorded our Worship team singing around two mics, in a horseshoe type position. We did a few practice takes, until everyone was singing at about the same volume level etc...before pressing the record button. I had the women on one side and the men on the other. It came out ok. But, the next time I do something like that, each person will have their own mic or track. Each track will yield better mixing control for the final mixdown.

I am not a sound engineer, just a home hobbyist. You may want to seek professional advice on that topic.

Trax

I'm getting a little late here, but I'll pass along something a Korg rep told me- "If you want to play with your computer, get into computer based recording. If you want to play music, get a dedicated hard-disk recorder."

Of course, I chose computer based recording. Was it worth it? Probably. But, the learning curve is long and steep. And, it likely will not be tolerated that well by those around you.

Good luck.

I think that a Korg Dealer will tell you what he needs to, to sell a ..... you guessed it a KORG, A computer software dealer will sell you ... once again compter software. Go figure. Imagine a Korg hard disc recorder salesman saying " man why buy this thing, it won't do half what that other system does, you'd be crazy to buy this!" The point being, it is subjective. In reality it comes down to need, it you record audio from guitars and vocals, maybe a real bass, and occasionally a keyboard sound or two, i bet hard disk recorders are easier to use. but if you want to edit, alter audio, and owrk with midi and VSti plug in that kind of takes the hard disk recorder out of the game. there are far more options in computer based system. Anyone need a widget, i got the best and only option on the market!

Figure out what the need is and buy accordingly

Hey There Rightboon & Robh

Thanks for y'all feed back re hard disk recorder versus Laptop/ software recording. Okay, so let's say I decide to go the hard disk recording way.............which one of these 2 hard disk multi track recorders would y'all recommend...........The Korg D888 or The Zoom HD16CD from Samsung? Incidentally, they both are going for the same price ($699.00) The question being what exactly I would like to accomplish..........well to record my Tuesday evening Praise Team rehearsals so that I can go back afterwards, and carefully balance all the track volume levels, mix, edit if possible and then make quality rehearsal Cd's to ofcourse ensure that each team member gets a CD in maybe 2 day or 3 days time. The Praise Team is comprised of myself on Yamaha Clavinova, an electric guitarist, and about 9 to 10 singers. I use the drums on the Clavinova by the way.

Hit me back y'all !!! Any advice, feed back and or information here would be ireee !!!

Thanks much, man !!!

Thanks for y'all feed back re hard disk recorder versus Laptop/ software recording. Okay, so let's say I decide to go the hard disk recording way.............which one of these 2 hard disk multi track recorders would y'all recommend...........The Korg D888 or The Zoom HD16CD from Samsung? Incidentally, they both are going for the same price ($699.00) The question being what exactly I would like to accomplish..........well to record my Tuesday evening Praise Team rehearsals so that I can go back afterwards, and carefully balance all the track volume levels, mix, edit if possible and then make quality rehearsal Cd's to ofcourse ensure that each team member gets a CD in maybe 2 day or 3 days time. The Praise Team is comprised of myself on Yamaha Clavinova, an electric guitarist, and about 9 to 10 singers. I use the drums on the Clavinova by the way.

Hit me back y'all !!! Any advice, feed back and or information here would be ireee !!!

Thanks much, man !!!

I do a lot of live remote recording using an Akai DPS16. That unit is out of production having been replaced by the DPS24. It has 8 analog inputs with 2 of them being XLR with phantom power. It also has a high/low switch for input 8 for recording a guitar/bass directly and a stereo digital input. Most of what I do is with bands that I'm also playing keyboards with so there's no way I can be messing around with a PC and all the configuration stuff on a live gig. The recorder is pretty much stupid-proof and that's what the Korg salesman is talking about and I agree with him. Turn it on, plug in your mic/instruments, set the levels and hit the record button. Even though it has a full function editing suite built in including effects, I put everything into my PC and finish the project mostly using Adobe Audition but I made a concerted effort during the last beta test to use Power Tracks for one project and discovered it does pretty much everything Audition does just a little bit differently. I personally like the visuals and workflow of Audition but as to function, they're basically the same which is not bad considering Audition cost around $400 and PT is $50.
Having said all this, if you are only doing this at rehearsals and have time to set up your laptop then sure you can do the same thing with a audio interface that has enough inputs. At a rehearsal if the laptop crashes, you're not stopping the show while it reboots. You already have Power Tracks and it's perfectly capable of recording 8, 10, or more audio tracks at once and everything is now already there in your project ready to finalize. The cost is a lot less than buying a HD recorder and there should be no difference in sound quality.

Bob