I'm almost always working within a tight budget, and forced to make something out of nothing, or very little. This can make for good creative inspiration. I'm a big fan of working with what you have and making the best of it, rather than going and finding the "perfect" solution, which usually ends up being anything but perfect. Now maybe it's the "budget" talking, but I've always been able to make it work. This brings me to my current situation.
I like to be able to record live drums. In an age where it seems to be becoming a thing of the past with awesome sounding drum synths, and software, why spend the time in studio working with a live kit? The tuning, the microphones, cables, stands, drummers? Why bother? Well call me a purist, or maybe it's because I am a drummer and can mic up a kick and play the part quicker than I could program a drum machine. But honestly I really love recording drums. I love having the ability record multiple simultaneous tracks on my laptop like I only could have dreamed about even 5 years ago. For me to be able to record drums in a way that I deem worth while, I need at least 8 tracks. Obviously 8+ is always nice. I've had setups in the past which have given me 16 tracks live off the floor. Mind you I never had enough microphones to make use of all 16 at one time, I did however record some awesome sounding drums with that rig.
Since then I have downsized somewhat and have gone more portable. As I mentioned I need at least 8 simultaneous inputs to make drum recording worth while, and I found a great,
inexpensive, and portable solution. A while back I picked up an M-Audio 1814 FireWire interface. I know this is now an older model, and in fact I don't think they even make this model anymore, but I love this thing. Why they would discontinue it is beyond me? Right off the bat I'm blown away because of the 8 line inputs. Plus 2 mic pre's on the front, which can't be used in addition to the 8 line ins, but still very versatile. I wouldn't say these are top of the line preamps or anything, but they get the job done. Then this thing gives me 4 line outputs which is awesome for when recording drums and running some scratch tracks at the same time to play along to. There are 2 headphone outputs, which come in extremely handy and I can even send separate mixes to each pair of headphones.With these features alone I'm sold, but then they add on the ADAT Lightpipe. If you're not familiar with Lightpiping it's great. You take your old Alesis ADAT and then run a single optical cable from your ADAT to your Lightpipe unit, in this case my M-Audio 1814. Now I can expand my inputs to 16. What? 16 inputs with this tiny little unit? Yes indeed. The downside is that you have to haul your ADAT around, and either a second mixer, or a 16 input mixer. I currently don't have an ADAT, sold it about a year ago, but what I'm most excited about with this is that I can go and rent an ADAT and then use the Lightpipe feature on my M-Audio 1814 and transfer all my old ADAT tapes to my computer and then an external drive for backup. I can then toss those bulky old ADAT tapes! If I choose I can then go and remix those old tapes, finish some old projects, add some additional tracks that I couldn't back then, or just store them. Options, that's what I like. I hate being limited by my equipment, and I hate having to upgrade every 6 months.
Like I said, you have to be flexible and work with what you've got. No matter what gear you have, how new, how old, how many tracks, how few, it doesn't matter. Make it work! I specialize in creative solutions for recording within a limited budget and I am always happy to share my ideas.
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