Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

amokrun · 2007-05-09 13:44:45

Within a month or two I'll be moving again - this time to live with my girlfriend in a rather large house. We are left with two rooms that aren't necessarily required for anything and we decided that both of us can do anything we like with one. I figured that I'd make a nice and quiet room with a japanese theme where I can play, drink tea and do zazen. Since we can put all the junk we have somewhere else, I can thankfully keep the room mostly empty apart from whatever decorations I want to add. I'm currently working on plans for a table made out of bamboo. Pictures will get posted once I have something to show.

Anyway, I was thinking about the possibility of having some simple recording equipment so that I could record my playing whenever necessary without the added trouble of carrying stuff around. Preferably I would like to only have stuff that generates no noise and put all the noisy stuff to another room. I'm fairly familiar with computers but my knowledge in audio equipment is pretty weak. I'd like to get some pointers from the people here who do this sort of stuff for living. What would you recommend that I should get for basic recording needs?

I'm not looking for studio quality here. You don't have to worry about me releasing any records or anything. I just want something where I can record myself to check for mistakes or to make recordings of some piece so that my girlfriend can more easily practice singing. Being able to do so in a nice environment is just an added bonus.

Apart from a small mic, what sort of stuff do I need? Would it be adequate to use a computer in the other end with a decent sound card or is there something else that would do the job better? I don't need any effects or anything added as I can do that later. All I'm interested in is the pure sound.

Let me know what you think. I'm open for any kind of suggestions so post away even if you aren't sure if your suggestions is relevant. This is all still very much just an idea that I have.

dstone · 2007-05-09 14:24:18

Sounds like you have a nice room planned. So why use a compter at all? It's big, noisy, wastes power, and ugly. (Sorry, Mac Mini excepted.)

An MD recorder with good stereo mic is cheap, virtually noise-free, tiny, and has plenty of storage.

Or the new generation of solid state recorders (by Edirol, Marantz, etc.) would be excellent, noise-free, maybe even easier to use, but a bit more than the MD solution. There have been threads/reviews of these devices on the forum.

With either solution you can walk the device to wherever your computer is and drag your WAV files into a sound editor for intensive work.

Good luck!

-Darren.

kyoreiflutes · 2007-05-09 16:14:07

Yeah, I'd personally recommend one of the new portable recorders floating around out there. There are some that are really good quality for very little money, and they make no real noise at all, compared to a computer setup. If you already use a Mac, iMac, or Mac Laptop, I'd recommend getting something like the Samson USB mic.

Let me know if you want specifics on recorders. I'm glad to give advice on such matters.

-E

geni · 2007-05-09 16:56:17

I personaly use Mac,
so I would sugest Softwares for Mac:-)
Garage band is a very cheap software (30$) or you can get Logic.They have a very cheap version for students.
You need a audio interface,where to plug the microphone.(I have a M-Audio)
And the most importand a nice mic.I have a AKG c3000B. Its ok for home recording.

Softwares is the way to go, because you can arrange ideas the you like.They are practical.

One thing to keep in mind is...better save and buy stuff that you can use it for a long time. because if you buy cheap stuff, you will have to upgraded later, when your taste:-) playing ,arraging skill will develop.

G

kyoreiflutes · 2007-05-09 17:02:06

It seems like what he wants is a clean, super-portable recorder for just the recording part, then he wants to be able to move the files to his Computer, am I correct? Then he can arrange them as he sees fit. Some will even do multi-track recording.

-E

amokrun · 2007-05-09 18:25:01

dstone wrote:
So why use a compter at all? It's big, noisy, wastes power, and ugly. (Sorry, Mac Mini excepted.)

Well, the advantage of using a real computer as opposed to a simple recorder is that you can get more than just recording sound into a single file. You can, for example, record several takes of the same thing and then arrange those into separate files which you can name on the spot. Or, you could use the same computer interface to actually play back sounds as well so that you could for example play a sound clip of some technique and then try to play it yourself. Repeat until you succeed.

Computers do use a fair bit of power, agreed. In my experience big and ugly aren't necessarily so. Take couple of big (10+cm thick) bamboo staves, cut the sides open and glue them together. Put in some screws or something to hold all the parts together and drill some holes into the back for the cables. I'm betting that would look quite nice and odds are that it could be by far smaller than most computers are today. I have assembled all my computers from parts. Like my friend says, the best things in life aren't for sale on stores. :-) As far as noisy goes, I was actually thinking of putting the machine itself to another room and just taking the necessary parts there so that any noise would never enter the room. Water cooling is of course possible and reduces the noise to almost nothing in any case.

dstone wrote:
An MD recorder with good stereo mic is cheap, virtually noise-free, tiny, and has plenty of storage.

The only problem I have with this solution is that although it should work fine for basic recording, I have a feeling that eventually I would want to add something to the chain and not be able to do that. For example, take the scenario I mentioned earlier about recording short clips. I have a whole bunch of short clips that demonstrate a certain honkyoku phrase. I made a custom setup that lets me play any of these repeatedly so that I can compare my attempt with the real deal. Although that has nothing whatsoever to do with recording per se, I find it very useful to have all related functionality in one place.

I'll have to consider this option though. It might be a perfect idea temporarily until I can build something really nice. Laziness is a flaw of mine when it comes to projects like this. Maybe some day I'll learn to get things done as soon as I think about them. Until that day quick temporary solutions are the way to go. :-)

amokrun · 2007-05-09 18:29:04

kyoreiflutes wrote:
It seems like what he wants is a clean, super-portable recorder for just the recording part, then he wants to be able to move the files to his Computer, am I correct? Then he can arrange them as he sees fit. Some will even do multi-track recording.

Well, sort of. I'm perfectly fine with recording directly to my computer because I can always toss the machine itself to another room and avoid the noise factor that way. Of course, if I can find a stand-alone recorder that does a good job for cheap there is nothing stopping me from doing that. Right now I try to listen to all ideas so that I have some knowledge to start with once I begin working on this.

Still, you are right in that I'm mostly looking for a recording setup rather than something to arrange/tweak/modify my sounds with. I have some minor computer music background and what I don't have I can make myself as far as computers go. The only problem is getting the sounds into the system.

mrosenlof · 2007-05-10 01:59:03

The Marantz PMD-660 is a pretty good for this sort of thing, especially with one of the modifications by Doug Oade (www.oade.com) which he will unfortunately for amokrun, not ship outside the US.

The Fostex FR-LE2 (some name like that) is extremely new, but is getting some pretty good reviews. I would let more reviews accumulate before buying one, but some like to be first.

The Edirol 0.9 and M-Audio microtrack have their fans also. These first two take XLR microphones which I consider a major plus.

I have found that for recording shakuhachi, a relatively modest microphone is pretty decent. Something like a Shure sm-57 will do a fine job.

Being portable is a great advantage at times. No moving parts of these solid state recorders makes them totally silent.

If you already have a computer -- likely if you're a regular on this forum -- you can get Audacity for free and either record directly on your PC, or copy files from a solid state recorder and edit/mix very easily.

My preference is a machine designed to be a recorder and use the PC for editing, storage, making CDs either for friends or archive.

Minidisc is great unless you consider a computer to be your ultimate destination, in which case, it's OK, but less than optimal (latest models from Sony are better than older non-sony models for transfer to PC - and support for anything but windows is poor or none).

caffeind · 2007-05-10 04:40:52

The Zoom H4 might be worth considering too. It can be used as a USB soundcard and it has two xlr inputs on it. This would give you the convenience of a portable recorder, and some phantom powered mic inputs for recording onto a computer. Its got a lot of extra stuff on it too, like reverb, metronome, tuner, etc. that may only be of average quality, but could be useful things to have for some people.

I use a HiMD recorder with an external a/d converter for portable recording (can do 44.1/16 so the quality is ok), but md is going the way of the dodo, especially with Sony choking the functionality of the format. These solid state recorders are much easier to transfer files to and from, and the quality is good.

amokrun · 2007-05-10 05:36:27

These are great pointers everyone. Thank you!

It seems that most people consider recording directly to a computer to be quite functional solution. It was my original plan as well but I wanted to know what kind of ideas I'd get from here. Now, apart from the microphone which naturally makes a huge difference in the sound quality, what else should I keep in mind when recording to a computer? For example, does it make a difference if I'm using a $10 sound card from bargain bin or a $1000 sound card from some hifi store - assuming that I'm using it just to record?

If I'll go the computer route, I figured that I would put the actual machine into another room and just connect everything to it so that I could have some small display somewhere in the recording room. It should be easy enough to hide behind something so that it's not constantly visible. A remote control might be more subtle than a real keyboard/mouse combination since this doesn't really require a whole lot of buttons. Having a real display would allow for browsing clips - mine or others' - and playing then back at the spot. It's just a matter of writing few pieces of software to tie it all together in a reasonable way.

Once again, thank you everyone.

nyokai · 2007-05-10 08:20:43

amokrun wrote:
For example, does it make a difference if I'm using a $10 sound card from bargain bin or a $1000 sound card from some hifi store - assuming that I'm using it just to record?

Yes.
It is best to get a system where the analog to digital conversion is done OUTSIDE the computer -- in other words, where you plug your mics into a box and the cable from that box to the computer is digital (generally firewire these days), not analog. You don't want to do AD conversion on a card inside the computer -- it's way too noisy a place, electrically, to keep analog signals clean. Most cards with onboard AD conversion are TERRIBLE this way.

As for capabilities of the interface, you can probably save some money by settling for a max of 24 bit 48K instead of 24 bit 96K or 192K. For what you're doing, 44.1K is what you'll use most of the time. Make sure the interface box has XLR inputs with phantom power.

mrosenlof · 2007-05-10 10:24:44

There are devices called something like USB-preamps. They have microphone inputs and look like USB audio devices to your computer. The ADC is in the box. You can pay almost as much or as little as you want for one of these things.

Here's one:

http://www.rolandus.com/products/produc … rentId=114

I have no idea how much this thing costs.

Larry · 2007-05-11 12:09:38

I record directly into my computer using a seperate AD converter (Zefiro Inbox, 20 bit, 44.1K, ~$300) then run digital S/PDIF into the sound card (Sound Blaster) with a optical cable. This way the AD is outside the computer and the transfer is bit accurate. The recordings come out very clean and quite (as long as I move the mics out of the room).

For a portable device, consider the M-Audio's MicroTrak 24/96 (~$250). It comes with a stereo mic and records onto compact flash which you can transfer to a computer with a card reader.

Check out these sites.

http://www.core-sound.com/microtrack_2496/1.php

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/M … -main.html

The M-Audio site has a sample sound clip using the included mic.

Portable field recording is one of my biggest hobbies, so feel free to ask any questions.

Larry

Caligium · 2008-03-05 20:12:39

Use Audacity for editing sound. And use either low or high pass filter (one of the effects) to clear out the breath noise.

For getting rid of background noise try putting egg boxes on the walls.

And then put bamboo over the egg boxes, it will make the room look nicer, and it reflects the sound (I think) making the room sound more peaceful.

Last edited by Caligium (2008-03-11 21:12:46)

Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

#1 2007-05-09 13:44:45

Building a recording "studio" at home.

#2 2007-05-09 14:24:18

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#3 2007-05-09 16:14:07

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#4 2007-05-09 16:56:17

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#5 2007-05-09 17:02:06

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#6 2007-05-09 18:25:01

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

dstone wrote:

dstone wrote:

#7 2007-05-09 18:29:04

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

kyoreiflutes wrote:

#8 2007-05-10 01:59:03

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#9 2007-05-10 04:40:52

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#10 2007-05-10 05:36:27

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#11 2007-05-10 08:20:43

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

amokrun wrote:

#12 2007-05-10 10:24:44

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#13 2007-05-11 12:09:38

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

#14 2008-03-05 20:12:39

Re: Building a recording "studio" at home.

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