I have been doing that for about two years now. I have a Mac G4 with a
Midiman Delta 44 sound card and I plug the record outputs of my mixer
directly into the machine and record to hard drive. My only frustration has
been that a CD is limited to 79 minutes whereas with tapes I used to be
able to get close to 2 hours by recording straight through both sides.
However some advantages of doing stuff on the computer that I see are that
I can do mastering directly on the computer. If there are any big mistakes
I can smooth them out, I can do editing, put on effects, etc on the
computer (though I don't do that very often).
Some of the disadvantages are that I used to record to tape and then listen
to the tapes in the car. My car doesn't have a CD player so I can't listen
to my mixes there anymore. And the biggest disadvantage for me is that if I
am spinning and like what I am playing I can't just hit record on the tape
deck - I need to go into the computer room, turn on the computer, load up
Peak and hit record. Kind of ruins the moment for me.
Unfortunately my computer room is now located two floors up from my tables
so I can't record to hard disk anymore so am looking into getting a
Minidisc or stereo CD-Burner so I can still do my mastering on the computer.
Most of my mixes are for my ears only and I record them and listen to them
at work. Occassionally if I like a mix I will post it as an MP3 to my web
site (www.skooch.com) and if I really like it I will "officially release"
it and send copies out as demos. Most of my personal mixes are just me
grabbing random records and playing them or just playing whatever I feel
like playing as opposed to a planned out set.
Eric
At 10:08 PM 12/11/2002 -0500, Lee Herrington IV wrote:
hi folks. i'm just curious to know if other members have made the move
from mixing down live 2 a tape deck to mixing down live 2 a hard drive...
then to a CD. i know it's helped my creativity a great deal... as long as i
have disk space i can screw around with whichever tracks i care to. later i
can save or delete the end results. in additon, it's nice to create a 79
minute cavalcade of electronic soul as opposed to only 45 minutes for one
tape-side. just looking for any thoughts or opinions.
to those of you who actually "play out" to a crowd on a regular basis, do
you make mixes solely for your own listening enjoyment? what are they
like... freer? less restricted?
peace,
lrh
