Questions about home recording gear

Dick Wood · Post by **Dick Wood** » 15 Nov 2006 11:52 am

I am thinking about setting up a home studio for creating my own backup tracks to play steel against and also purchasing pre-recorded tracks to play with for practice.

I have zeroed in on a Yamaha AW4416 but I'm not sure what all else I will need to accomplish these various goals.

My questions are:

1.Does the AW4416 have all the recording software I need or should I consider some of the popular recording software like Protools,Sonar6 etc.?

2.Should I by a drum machine or something like BIAB or what?

This is pretty basic I'm sure so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 15 Nov 2006 12:43 pm

I have the Yamaha AW-1600 and recorded all the tracks on my site with it. I also have separate mic's for accoustic guitar, the steel amp and the guitar amp. I record the bass direct and the mandolin direct through a Keeley compressor. The Yamaha is capable of fast and precise track edits and overdubs and easily transports individual tracks or entire folders to and from a PC. I started out recording in 24 bits but now record at 16 bits to keep file sizes smaller. PC editing of tracks is nice but has not been necessary for me. All recording and mastering and CD burning was done on the AW-1600. This unit boots up in 20 seconds and shuts down in 10 seconds. There's 4 band EQ and compression full time on every channel. Just having the USB bus to PC connection is worth upgrading to the AW1600. You can even master on the fly by stopping at a point, adjust the levels, and restart the recording with no glitches. Also, as long as you record one instrument at a time and don't have to deal with a real drum set, no studio is necessary, just a decently damped room.

I went from Band in a Box to a drum machine and a real bass to get a real band sound for backup. It will force you to learn drum programming (most of my parts are programmed by hand, the built in patterns are not too useful) and bass playing. For me, it has increased my knowledge of music greatly to think about more than just the steel part.

Email me if you want to start a more detailed dialogue and I can describe my setup in more detail and discuss some techniques.

Greg

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Greg's Web Page
MSA/Steel King Sounds

Complete Songs Added 6/26/2006!

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 16 Nov 2006 8:56 pm

Here's a backup track I did tonight, 3 hours start to finish all on the AW-1600. Real bass (direct), DR-670 drum machine (custom patterns but simple to create), steel, accoustic rhythm. The attached .wma file sounds very close to the orginal .cda file from the CD burnt on the AW1600. It's a large file (5 MB) so if you don't have fast internet it will take a while to load!

The Other Woman Backup Track

Greg

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 17 Nov 2006 10:13 am

Dick, I have an AW2816, which is the less configured AW4416. These are GREAT machines but do have a slight learning curve.

The 2816 and 4416 use the OS2 operating system which is supposedly well know. The routing and availabe internal resouces are second to none. I doubt there is anything you CAN'T do with an understanding of the file system.You do not need any external software, unless you choose to get it.

The AW1600's are also very nice machines and can get the job done as well but the AW4416 and 2816 are the big brothers and offer more in the TOTAL package. I believe both are pretty good values now. The new model AW2400 replaces both of them and it won't be long before I start to hunt down on of those.

The flexibility of 8 live inputs and 16 channels is excellent for the small home studio. I use mine for literally everything, daily practice, listening to CD's, playing along with tracks, quick recording of practice sessions as well as full blown DEMO's.

Before I purchased the 2816 I read multiple reviews and they were right on the button.No complaints.

the one thing you may want to consider with any Digital recording is using an analog preamp( 12AX7 ) something or other. I use an inexpensive ART dual channel and it really took the digital edge off of the front end.

anyway, good luck, let me know if I can help.

tp

ps, most of my web tracks are from the 2816...

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TPrior Steel Guitar Homesite
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Dick Wood · Post by **Dick Wood** » 17 Nov 2006 1:42 pm

Tony and Greg, I appreciate your advice very much.

Recently my fiddle player had shown me his AW4416/preamp/mic setup and I was very impressed by the sound so I had to find a way to get something like it.

I went on Ebay and just found out today that I was the winning bidder for a Yamaha AW4416 so I will be getting it shortly.

Now I just need to get some of the outboard stuff and get to work.

Since I can play guitar and bass I have that part covered.I suppose BIAB would be the next thing I may get.

I'm sure I will have a bunch of questions for you guys down the road.

KENNY KRUPNICK · Post by **KENNY KRUPNICK** » 18 Nov 2006 7:34 pm

Greg, Your tracks sound good,and clean. Just out of curiosity,are you playing a Sho~Bud Professional guitar? It sounds like a Sho~Bud guitar you're playing.

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 18 Nov 2006 8:18 pm

Kenny,

All those track were done on my MSA Legend (wood body). The tone is a lot more like a Sho-Bud than many guitars. It is sharp but not at all harsh. I have learned a lot of NCS steel stuff lately but I always migrate back to the old stuff and most of that WAS played on a Sho-Bud!

Dick,

You made a great buy out on ebay and welcome to the recording club. It is HARD work but satisfying when you finally get some tracks down.

Greg