What did you start out with gear-wise?

[I was The Funk]

My first band recordings were done on our drummers Vestax 4-track with no eq and a bunch of radio shack dynamic mics.

 

That was when I was 15.

 

My first recording setup was a tascam 414 with an audio technica dynamic mic that I still have that our ex singer had left at our drummer's house.

 

I then stole an SM58 from my college to double my mic collection. Still use that mic too.

 

I recorded a TON of stuff on that 4-track. Most of it is useless.

 

My first real (ish) record was done on that 4-track. In a basement we did a stereo mic setup (with the AT and the 58) to get the guitars and drums playing live. We then overdubbed the bass (our bass player left and I had to play the basslines) and the vocals. Previous recording were done with lots of bouncing but the quality suffered so I stopped track bouncing. Occassionally I would bounce to stereo on a minidisc and then run that back into the 4 track leaving me two tracks for vocals.

 

that record was mixed to cool edit. Then saved as hi-rez (ish) mp3's which were put on napster so that my friend that actually owned a CD burner could downloaded them and burn them to cd. We had fans in Australia!

 

Within a year or so of that, I downloaded an illegal version of Sonar 1 and realized that my soundcard wasn't going to cut it. So I bought my delta66-omni studio setup and an Oktava 319. That was huge. I thought I was big time. Still use that omnistudio and the Oktava had fallen by the wayside until last week when I got it modded until it was badass by Michael Joly.

 

I illegally upgraded to Sonar 2.2 shortly thereafter and bought monitors, and made my first commercial release with that setup.

 

I've since actually purchased Sonar4 and 6 producer, and nice plugins as well since, so I made good to the people who helped me in the past.

 

My current setup has nicer mics and monitors, but is essentially the same thing as its been since I went digital.

[D Charles]

I had some kind of little portable reel to reel in the 60's as a kid. I think it was a True Value or Western Auto or something. Had the small (3 &1/2?) reels and a little mic.

 

I later got this half a ton Dokorder stereo deck with sound on sound. What a mess that was, but it would later become my mix down deck.

 

I finally ended up with a 2340 with the crappy stick shift that always broke. I wore out 2 or three of those, with my little Tapco mixer.

 

Then I stepped up to the big time with my Fostex 8-track and Mackie mixer.

 

Then ADAT and now computer yada yada yada.

[Kendrix]

A circa 1966 portable, battery operated japanese 1/4" tape machine.

 

Then my dad bought a high ened consumer Teac 2 track 1/4.

 

While I played with these devices recording radio shows and ambient sounds i did not use them to produce music. I still have some of the old tapes somewhere.

 

I began music production with a Tascam 8 track cassette-based portastudio and an SM57.

 

Dont let the government find out how addicting this is- they'll start sending us all to a 12 step rehab program.

[Geosync]

I don't remember the brand, a European portable that my dad picked up at a pawn shop, but the small speaker and the mic were the same thing !!. It was okay though, I was just 6 or 7 years old and I was hooked

 

I still like the organic analog approach to digital recording. Probably because of those days.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

I still like the organic analog approach to digital recording. Probably because of those days.

 

 

How do you go about achieving this now?

 

I record on Pro Tools now, so I try and get everything sounding great beforehand, using tubes, distortion (RNLA or the Neve Portico, among others), distance micing, and other things to create an interesting, hopefully organic sound.

[Geosync]

In recent years, I have done much too little recording. I moved to take the position at Yamaha and now I have a small bedroom setup. not my ideal in terms of size or acoustics. I take advantage of as much Yamaha gear as I can.

(no brainer there).

 

I purchased a new CPX900 Acoustic Electric that helps with the micing. Until recently, I had started using the AW2400 for preproduction tracking and songwriting scratchpad. I have an early dual G5 Mac that has had it's share of problems. noise, heat etc. (Getting a new mac very soon) Being a product manager for Music Production products allow me to work with prototypes before they come to market.

 

Our latest jewel,n12 Mixer that just started shipping has me really jazzed and fits my recording style to a tee.

 

It's so retro that I am actually considering recording vocal songs that have been collecting dust for years. I have been demonstrating it to a few folks and I am like a kid again playing with his audio toy.

 

Sorry to ramble this nostalgia trip just pushed the right button with me

[offramp]

The first thing I can recall as having the capability to record anything resembling overdubs was a Sony RTR very similar to the one blue2blue posted; mine was all black. My parents had traded something to my uncle, for it. Not knowing any better at the time, I ran my guitar nice and distorted through it, only to discover, one day, that I'd basically fried the circuits on that channel.

 

After that, the next thing was my Mom's husband's Fostex 4 channel cassette deck and 8 channel mixer, circa late '70's/early '80's, which I used the {censored} out of. After that, a good friend of mine had purchased a Soundcraft 1624 board and 3M tape deck (1"-16 trk, I think? MM-56, is that right?) from England, and we built our first studio (this was '83-'84)Then I moved on to a Neotek Series IIIc desk and Studer 2"-24, then a Soundcarft 16-series board and Studer MKIV deck.

 

Now, I'm DP on a variety of Macs.

I have mixed emotions about this.

 

 

( analogue approach to digital recording )How do you go about achieving this now? I record on Pro Tools now, so I try and get everything sounding great beforehand, using tubes, distortion (RNLA or the Neve Portico, among others), distance micing, and other things to create an interesting, hopefully organic sound.

 

 

Sounds like you guys are on the same page..."get it right from the start".

[stage7]

Post after post of reel-to-reel and cassette recording goodness.... Part of me is jealous, but I'm a bit younger so I have a much different story.

 

My first recording was done on a laptop with some free multitrack recording software. I used an sm57 on our one mic stand, and a bunch of radio shack microphones duct taped to broomsticks and held in place with chairs and other furniture. This was all run through a peavey PA amp/mixer combo unit. Then I took the monitor out feed or something, ran it through some adapters, and plugged it into the mic input on the laptop. It was horrible.

 

Eventually I got a Korg D16XD.. 16 track digital all-in-one thing, real mics and preamps, etc. Hopefully some day soon I'll be able to move to a PC based system.

[TBush]

I started out on dad's Sony reel-to-reel and then in the late 70's it was the cassette-to-cassette bounce as described earlier. One of my friends had a Fostex 4-track and another had a Tascam 388 8-track that we recorded demos on (got my first recording contract with it!) and then it was borrowed ADATs and Tascam D-88's right up until 2000 when I took the plunge and went to HD recording with Logic/Windows. All that demo work helped tremendously in my learning to get things right at the source- of course I still occasionally mess up, but the extra time spent in mic placement and nuance came from not having an infinite number of tracks (like now) and being forced to record submixed drums onto just 2 tracks. It makes you commit...

[UstadKhanAli]

Yeah, I still have a habit of printing a lot of effects because of before, a good thing, I think. I can't stand having too many tracks to mix down, and if that starts happening, I start making submixes (one of the bonuses of digital recording is that you don't collect hiss when submixing).

[Geosync]

Ken,

 

I agree. The work flow for computer recording is so different than when we used tape (digital or analog). Much like writing changes depending on the instrument used, Piano , Guitar, wind instrument, paper.

 

The best approach is to try to incorporate the best of each within the limits of our equipment, environment and abilities.

 

When I started computer recording, I thought of the I/O outputs for OTB recording as track outs. I quickly begain to visualize the DAW mixer differently than the analog setup ..

Tape Track Out --> Mixer Channel In --->8 Buses--> Summing Bus--> 2 Track

 

With the DAW it's like this...

 

DAW Tracks grouped as Folders Then

 

Individual Tracks --> Group Fader-->Mixer Input--Stereo Bus--> Master Track

 

So the Hardware mixer is like the old analog busses. Even a small format digital mixer will have 12-16 digital inputs. That's like 12-16 buses in the analog days.

 

2 passes can yeild tremendous power and flexibility for me.

I now have the choice of software and hardware processing or unique combinations in the signal chain. Inserting external effects in the DAW and now inserting DAW effects into the hardware channel is pretty cool.

It's like the computer can become an effects rack after it's been used as the tape machine.

 

It's hard to divorce technology from the process. It helps me to think of each process and each part of the signal chain in analog terms because my development has it's roots in analog.

 

I try to remember that each piece is just a tinker toy to build my sonic machine ;-)

[TBush]

I try to remember that each piece is just a tinker toy to build my sonic machine ;-)

 

Same here, only I think in terms of Lincoln Logs or Legos... as long as it starts with"L".

[MrKnobs]

When I was a kid I had a little battery powered reel to reel tape recorder that I wore out doing goofy gags - like kids use YouTube for now.

 

When I was a teenager and playing in bands, I had a nice Sony reel to reel with both sound-with-sound and sound-on-sound. This meant that you could split the left and right tracks (recording on one and listening to the other) or you could simply turn off the erase head and record tracks right on top of each other.

 

Looking back, I made some amazingly complex recordings with that Sony machine, it's a miracle the mixes were decent.

 

Or maybe I only remember them that way.

 

Terry D.

[offramp]

 

First, a mono, horizontal reel to reel. Tube. We'd record our comedy skits on it. I wish I'd saved those.

 

 

Oh, that reminds me...before the Sony reel to reel, there was this Panasonic all-in-one home stereo type of thing...turntable, AM/FM, and cassette player/recorder in it. It was damned cool. My friends and I used to take the supplied microphone and do goofy {censored} with it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I still have that cassette of the one day we spent what seemed like all day recording things. This would have to be between '73 and '75.

[stereocoyote]

I would record on a mini cassette recorder, following my friends as they walked around the museum where they played acoustic guitar and worked as security.. the acoustics were amazing... I still can't replicate that sound... tho the hiss sux.

 

My first 'ok-let's try to really record' stuff was a Tascam 4 track and a Nady mic, I burned them out in a year on some ridiculous projects...

 

My first DAW was a Phonic firewire Mixer, SM Pro Audio 4 channel preamp, a few SM 57's, a samson drum mic kit, MXL 990 and an averaged size brian (mine) with no idea on what the hell to do with it all..

 

I jumped in and that was about $5000 ago... I know a little more now, and have better gear...

 

but no more connections to get into the museum after hours...

 

legally at least...

[Dejavoodoo]

 

And like an idiot I sold it.

[Magpel]

I got serious about recording with a Yamaha MT2x four-track. I will ALWAYS love that box. Before that, it was a boombox to boombox stuff.

 

I recall a great interview with Tom Petty in which he said that, even with a richly appointed and staffed pro studio in his house, he still writes most of his songs late at night, at the kitchen table, whispering so as to not wake the kids into not one but two boomboxes--gotta be able to do one overdub, you know...

 

I thought is was the most precious thing I'd ever heard--not that he prefers to write and demo in the simplest technical way possible--who doesn't?--but that that SECOND boombox is required. To me it is proof positive that arranging is not a secondary thing, like production and marketing...some basic sense of parts--a lead line here, a vox harmony there--is integral to the composing process of even our most universalist/traditionalist rock songwriter, Tom Petty.

[ChromaLord]

Chronoligically:Owned only

Panasonic mono cassette with varipitch

Tandbergh cassette decks

Tascam Porta Studio 4 track cassette w/ dolby and vari speed

Akai 12 track tape cartridge

Otari 1/2" two track reel to reel

Tascam 8 track reel to reel

Panasonic and Sony DAT

Tascam DA88 system (4 of em!)

Tascam CDW5000

Pro Tools 3

MOTU Digital Performer/ TascamCDW 2000

[birdyyellow]

everyones talking about how they started out on tapes and cassettes; i started out on a 2 track mobilepre. lol. thats what i get for being 18. missed that whole analog experience.

[blue2blue]

 

A for real line from Mr. Van Vliet?

 

 

That's the quote, yeah, more or less. It's at the end of "Golden Birdies" from Clear Spot. Below is how it's quoted on the quasi-official Beefheart site.

 

Those little golden birdies look at them And the mystic Egypt tossle dangling down Old sleeper-man shish, don't wake him Up one hand broom star was an obi-man revered throughout the bone-knob land His magic black purse slit creeped open, Let go flocks of them Shish sookie singabus Snored like a red merry-go-round horse And an acid gold bar swirled up and down, Up and down, in back of the singabus And the panataloon duck white goose neck quacked webcore, webcore

http://www.beefheart.com/walker/lyrics/clear/goldenbirdies.htm

 

 

This is strictly a guess, but a year or two after Clear Spot came out some buddies and me did a Fear and Loathing-inspired trip to Vegas and, in some lost, forgotten parking lot I saw a bar -- or something -- called the Singabus... Now, I can't tell you for sure that the poem is about a bar in Vegas... but it's all I've got to go on.

[Bang]

Yamaha cassette 4 track. And i had some pretty bitchin recordings on it too! I did one song with 18 tracks and did the ole BOUNCE. I was proud of it.