How out of date is your home recording setup

[zekmoe]

I look at my own setup with both pride and sadness. Proud that for its era, I got decent gear for a hack. Able to record band jams, mix 24 tracks, got a few mic pres and outboard compressors. Even some mix down to a computer.
However, it's all Adat, DAT, Emu sound card to sound forge running on a Windows 98 machine(!). Sadness in its power compared to modern digital rigs:



I don't dare sell it as it won't get me a good meal in return. However it still performs well for what I intended, record myself and the boys, play around with the mixing a bit, and send them out CDs or files of our efforts.
How out of date is your recording setup? It's not like guitars and amps, which get better with age...

 

[Member 995]

Logic 9 running on a ~10 year old Mac. Not ideal, but functional for what I do.

 

[DanR]

Wow. This is a perfect thread for me. While I have a fairly new laptop with a modest 2 input USB interface with Reaper installed, my go to recording system consists of a Korg D1600 Mk I that was probably made in 2001. I have 4 channels of outboard preamps and compression and I will continue to use that system until it dies. My recording quality is only limited by me, the user, and I am very comfortable using what works for me.

 

[mixwiz]

20 year old Alesis hd24xr. I tried the box for awhile but I like this better. For what I do, 24 tracks is more than enough.

 

[geek-mo]

If you can still capture, store and edit tracks of sound, it's probably not out of date.

 

[pbmw]

Mine is also mid 90's gear
Mackie 3208 with a 24 ch expander
I have a bit of outboard gear also.
I've been running this into Reaper through a Pro40.
I'm also not as comfortable in the box so I've bought an HD24 as well which should arrive Monday.
Looking forward to it.

 

[Motterpaul]

From what I read here a lot of people still use hardware recorders - ADATs or whatever. It is weird that the modern market for user interfaces is not nearly as diverse as it used to be. One used to be able to buy all-in-one interface-transport-control surfaces for use with any DAW that are like my 2002 Digi003 Console, but for some reason they stopped making them (I guess they just didn't sell that well). Only Avid still makes new ones and the cost is outrageous. Hence the value of my older Digi003 going up in recent years.

I much prefer having a transport control and faders for mixing - but I still do most of my work in the box because of the plugins and automated mixing available in a DAW. I really did like the days of mixing consoles, and even tape, especially for big sessions where you might have 20 mics going at the same time. But you can't beat the advantages of having automated mix recall, especially with plugins.

 

[tucsonsound]

I have 3 different recording rigs, all still set-up and functional in the control room.

1999 - 2006:
PowerComputing PowerCurve 601/120MHz - upgraded with a Powerlogix G3/350MHz/512k processor overclocked to 440MHz
- Mac OS 9.04 (hackintosh was once licensed and endorsed by Apple, for all you youngsters...)
- Formac UW-SCSI controller card with external UW to ATA adapter case
- MOTU PCI-324 card with 2408 and 1224 interfaces
- MOTU AudioDesk 1 DAW
Alesis Adat XT (sample-locked via Adat sync to PCI-324 card)
Apple PowerMac 8100/80AV
- Mac OS 7.5.5
- Lexicon NuVerb card (AES i/o to 1224 for Lexicon 300 reverb goodness)

2007 - 2014:
Apple MacBook Core Duo 2.0GHz 13"
- Mac OS X 10.6.3
- Avid Pro Tools 9 DAW
M-Audio ProFire Lightbridge interface
Mackie SDR24/96 hard disk recorder (interfaced over lightpipe for 12 i/o at 96k)

2015 - ?:
Apple MacBook Pro Core i7 2.5GHz 15"
- Mac OS X 10.10.5
- Apple Logic Pro X DAW
- Avid Pro Tools 12 DAW
- MOTU AudioDesk 4 DAW
MOTU 16A interface

As you can see I get the seven year itch when it comes to upgrades, so check back with me in 2022. My second Adat went down in '99 so I ran to the store to plunk down $1000 for the original 2408. It was rock solid from day one running as Adat master and flying tracks off tape to the Mac. Adding the 1224 for 24 bit recording was an ear-opening experience and I avoided the Adat conversion from there on out.
Made the jump to Pro Tools when Digi accidentally released the version of M-Powered with 32 i/o enabled (7.3.1.) I loved the portable firewire-powered form factor of the M-Powered/MacBook rig that interfaced with the stand-alone hard disk recorder in the studio.
I decided to try Logic Pro X when Avid announced their subscription plan last year. I went back to MOTU for the thunderbolt interface, awesome sounding conversion, and a new version of AudioDesk that could open the '99 - '06 projects came with it. I decided to go ahead and update Pro Tools in December so I could open the '07 - '14 projects as well on the new Mac and found it left the old PT9 iLok license fully functional.
So currently all three DAW set-ups are available, but I can open any of their projects on the new rig, so it may be time for some retirements...

 

[pima1234]

I also have a D1600, and the only things I miss are USB and an SD card instead of hard drive. D1600 is a good recording tool, for sure. I bought some outboard mic pres, and that helped a lot.

With the Tascam DP-24SD, I greatly miss the CD burner. It just made things easier.

But, computers are better, more flexible, and more powerful.

As others have noted above, I'm also using Reaper. It should be plenty sufficient until I get Logic Pro and some plugins.

Wow. This is a perfect thread for me. While I have a fairly new laptop with a modest 2 input USB interface with Reaper installed, my go to recording system consists of a Korg D1600 Mk I that was probably made in 2001. I have 4 channels of outboard preamps and compression and I will continue to use that system until it dies. My recording quality is only limited by me, the user, and I am very comfortable using what works for me.

 

[Jahn]

held on with an apogee Duet as long as I could, until the firewire macbooks were gone. switched to an apogee Quartet, and will stick with that until USB is gone.

i have to say, the Quartet really sounds good!

 

[zekmoe]

It's funny but I still consider an HD24 when I see them for sale, even though all it would buy me is no tape, more space in the rack, and quicker start and stops. I don't use mine enough as mentioned to really worry about it. I really do the live recording thing more than the one track at a time, so I'd need 16 tracks to be happy. I have 3 Adats (orig and XT). I almost sprung for a 24 track Studer Adat thing I saw locally once. It looked awesome though probably had real hours on it.

 

[bwgintegra]

Logic 9 running on a ~10 year old Mac. Not ideal, but functional for what I do.

Same here, haven't did much recording with it but hope to get more into it.

 

[Multicellular]

I modernized my whole rig, but it wasnt exactly a happy thing. I decided to go back to grad school in the early 2000s and both needed the money and needed to pack myself into a smaller place.

I guess looking back on it, I actually got out of the hardward heavy setup at a good time. Prices for some of the pres, comps, rack effects I had have dropped.

But I have a very clean setup now, 8 channel Focusrite, with added 8 channels, much better mic locker, just a few pres, fast computer, monitor controller, Reaper and the vst effects stomp almost everything but the preamps now.

 

[fetchzee]

Ummmm....a Tascam M-312 running into ONE ADAT XT for a whopping 8 channels of multitrack goodness...

 

[champion ruby]

Well out of date.

Tascam M520
Teac 3340s
Revox A77

Sold my interface, monitors etc. but soon to have a Motu 16a and back recording in the box. I print all Comp, delay, reverb etc. on the way in and never mix itb.

 

[SteveO]

I was pretty content with everything I have until the latest version of OS X, which no longer supports Firewire. So I'm locked into Yosemite for now, but already contemplating a complete hardware upgrade (computer, interface, and external drives). I pieced together my current system over a couple of years, and have reached the point that there are things I would have done differently if I knew then what I know now, so the thought of starting from scratch is kind of appealing. Except for the financial part of it...

 

[dcbc]

Bah. I'll slump lower than all of the above.

12 Channel Peavy Mixing Console into an Aardvark 24/96. Still using the last version of Cool Edit.

Better to know your gear.

 

[pima1234]

So far, so good with Reaper, a Yamaha AG-06, and my AX8 (I have a few decent mics and some good mic pres).

At this point, I'll only use the Tascam for location recording, until I get a Macbook Pro.

 

[CactusWren]

Guess you guys don't want to hear about my Tascam 4-track with cassettes... . Seriously, my mother still had that some 20 years after I moved out. What IS this thing, she asked?

I have been thinking hard about a Macbook Air. Being able to use it for a DAW, word processing, email, maybe even do the backing track thing at gigs--seems very attractive.

 

[jmoose]

If you can still capture, store and edit tracks of sound, it's probably not out of date.

Yup. Lots of old tape machines and consoles still out there working every day.

At one point in recent history people considered old Urei LA2As and 1176s, RCA gear junk and you couldn't give it away...

Exception would be digital gear. If you can get the tracks out to another format and talk to the rest of the world no problem. If not it is indeed obsolete and you should probably cut loose and move onward. Reliability issues aside of course! Anyone want an ADAT edit card? Think I still have it somewhere...