Yamaha,
Sony, Tascam, and a couple of other companies have recently brought out 4-track MiniDisc
Recorders. These cost under $1000, making them an inexpensive way to get started
recording your own music. There are also some 8-track MD recorders out for under $1500. MD
recorders offer much better sound quality and editing capabilities than cassette
multitracks, but their sound quality is definitely not up to true "CD quality"
(16-bit word length, 44.1 kHz sampling rate, with no data compression).
You could record on location with four microphones and the MiniDisc recorder (the mic
inputs are built in), mix down your four channels on the MiniDisc recorder's built in
mixer, record the mix into your computer, master it in your favorite digital audio editor,
and finally burn a CD of the completed project. The result will be waaay better than what
you can get out of a 4-track cassette recorder! Unfortunately, MiniDisc recorders use data
compression to fit more audio into less storage space, which results in
"insignificant" data being dropped from the recording. Similar to the newly
popular MP3 format, MiniDisc recordings will often sound like something is missing, like
maybe the reverb is less discernable or a "subliminal" background vocal has
disappeared from the mix. MD's might be good enough for homemade demos, but it's probably
not the way to make your CD master.
There are also
several stand-alone hard disk recorders available for $2000 or less. The
new Korg D-8 sells for about $1000. The Roland VS-880EX (c. $1700) is an
all-in-one, eight track hard disk recording system that has become quite popular. The
VS-880EX gets very good sound quality from its 20-bit Analog-to-Digital and
Digital-to-Analog converters, but recording time is limited by how much hard drive space
is installed. The new 'EX' version of the VS-880 features the ability to record
simultaneously from its six balanced 1/4" mic/line inputs and two S/PDIF digital
inputs. Roland also makes a 24-bit, sixteen track hard disk recorder called the VS-1680
(c. $2500) which can record eight analog inputs at once (two balanced XLR and six balanced
1/4" jacks). These hard disk recorders do come with fairly extensive Digital
Signal Processing (DSP) capabilities built in. One such
processor can even mimic the sound of a Neumann U87 mic using the input from a garden
variety Shure SM-57! If you like hard disk recorders, make sure you get one that has an
external SCSI port for adding extra SCSI hard drives or an Iomega Jaz or SyQuest SyJet
removeable drive. Storing 8 tracks of 24-bit audio will use up 64 MB per minute of
music...
However . . .
|
And Then
Came Digital...
