Ultra basic computer recording question

[Jon Light (deceased)]

I am a complete novice. My experience consists of making stereo wav. recordings of cassette tapes.

A band I'm in has a permanent rehearsal space with an WindowsXP rig with protools. I've brought in a bunch of old analog gear (8 channel 4 bus Tascam mixer, some rackmount outboard stuff, mics).

We've been recording rehearsals as stereo live-mixes----frankly I have no idea what they are using as an interface into the computer.

MY QUESTION: what is the absolute bottom feeding cheapest piece of gear that can allow us to track 8 channels from the board into protools instead of the stereo mix we've got?
I'm asking from a standpoint of honestly having no idea what this is all about. Is there a $30 Hasbro Mr. Machine unit or am I looking at a starter kit at $300? Since this is talking about rehearsals (and maybe demos?), I am not looking at sound quality--just utility.

[Richard Durrer]

I run a 32 channel board and record the band at the same time using a PC. Alas, I can only get the stereo feed to the PC, the same as you.
However, I did some research and found that you could record all 8 channels by using an 8 channel Presonus Firepod and a splitter snake. The Firepod gathers the 8 signals and reduces them to a FIREWIRE interface for the PC. The splitter snake is a Y adapter that splits the signal at the board into 8 for the regular board and 8 for the recording section. I found that any house mix I do is not suitable for recording of quality because the room + live sound adds different sounds that you don't want in your recording. Using ProTools, you can save the tracks and go back and edit them and adjust them.
The bad news is, the Firepod is around $800, and splitter snake, I am guessing at $200.

[John Roche]

Jon you could try an alesis-8 - firewire mixer. It will give you everything you need to do great recordings.
I use the 12 channel in the studio, I can record 12 instruments at the same time if need be ,each channel is then recorded to a separate track in stereo or mono,
guitars can be DI for greater separation. I use it with Adobe Audition 3 , I have other recording software Cubase, Sonar and others but I found Audition to be very stable and user friendly. The 8 firewire retails for around $300 but shop around someone may sell one cheaper on Ebay......
http://www.gigasonic.com/alesis-8-firewire-mixer.html

[Chris Tarrow]

Afraid that Alesis mixer (or any other third party interface) won't talk to Pro Tools, so you'd also have to pay for a software package, Adobe Audition is $349.

If you want to stick with Pro Tools, the cheapest box that will give you 8 inputs is the digi 002, have been seeing them secondhand for around $500.

Not sure it will get much cheaper for an 8 channel interface and software I'm afraid.

[John Roche]

The mixer comes with Cubase (SE version included) and will work with Audacity (free )

[Jon Light (deceased)]

Thanks guys. I've got my answer---can't be done super cheap. That was the only way I was going to do this. Since it is just basically a practice tool it's not something I'm going to invest $$ in. (Especially for a band with an uncertain future).

[Randy Reeves]

John. take a look at this material.maybe something in here can help.

http://www.tweakheadz.com

[Bent Romnes]

Randy, that is the best site so far. For one like me, who has so many questions, this looks like a great site to start out. The online guide is also great. It will keep me in reading for a long time.
Thanks!
Bent

[Randy Reeves]

I am glad that site may be useful. it does show what one can buy , that's for sure. it helps demystify a bit, but does not have all the how to answers.
I found " Recording for Dummies" handy. at least it defined some terminology.