ADVICE FOR GETTING STARTED IN RECORDING

Question

I have just purchased a new IMAC 24 inch 2.4 core duo with 4 gigs of ram. I was wondering what a good setup would be in getting started in home recording, would a good audio interface such as the presonus firestudio, with garageband be good, or something like presonus firestudio, with logic studio, be better, or maybe apogee ensemble, with logic studio? We will be doing some song writing, and recording a band. Any help would be appreciated. Like I said totally new to this.

Answer 1

TCHADWELL wrote:
Hey thanks for replying, garageband is a pretty cool app. and I would not mind starting in that , what ever I start in to learn, I want to stick with that and learn it. How much of a learning curve will it be to go from garageband once I learn it, to logic? Audio quality is going to be important for song demos and ect.
The thing about GarageBand is that there's virtually no learning curve. It uses the same sound engine as Logic, but with a distilled interface that boils everything down to basics. Also, the latest upgrade to GB makes it less of a toy, and if you wanted to get started recording your band today you could plug and play into GB and do your thing with minimal technical distraction.
Logic has a bigger learning curve because it lets you control a million more things, but if you are motivated to learn it, that shouldn't be a problem. I actually enjoy learning and using Logic and you might too. Logic Studio also comes bundled with many extras that make it a terrific deal. You could always start recording in GB while you learned Logic, or just jump right into Logic if you were motivated to dive into the deep end first!
As far as interfaces go, as a practical matter, I think you would need to figure out if you're all you going to play and record together as a band, and if you have enough inputs for that. If you weren't going to use a separate mixer, the interface would need enough inputs to accommodate all the cables that were carrying signals from you instruments and voice(s).
The NRV-10 is very flexible for rehearsing + recording, although you would get better sound quality from either the Ensemble or FireFace. I would guess the Firestudio hovers around the NRV-10 in terms of sound quality. The truth however is that any of this stuff will likely sound good enough especially as you are just getting started. While it's easy for pros to wax poetic over master clocks and vintage pres, the fundamental technology has advanced to the point that any of these interfaces in the Firestudio range on up is going to enable anyone just starting out to get terrific results. And after you have some experience, and find that you have a specific need or want to lift the audio quality of a particular component, then there's a world of gear out there clamoring for your Benjamins .
So if it were me, I'd want to make sure that whatever I was getting was compatible with my system, could accommodate my inputs, and had sound quality that was good enough for my immediate goals. Also, as you are just starting out, I can almost guarantee you that you will need things that you don't yet realize you need. So whatever your budget is you should leave a little wiggle room for unanticipated expenses.