ws - Where can you get a pentium III for $400? If I can get that, then I'm definatly for it. Also, can you name the type of mini disk that you're talking about as well and a good CDRW that is under $50?


rtgaa - Can you name some specific External USB CDRW that is only $50-$70?

rtgaa, lets see if I understood you. Lets say I bought a minidisk and an External USB CDRW and have Music Jukebox.

1.) I record my music on minidisk
2.) I transfer my music on minidisk to Music Jukebox
3.) After that, I transfer the music from the Jukebox program and make a CD using the External USBS CDRW

Let me know if I missed something. Also, can you give me a price on ALL of this stuff? Thanks.

You got the process down!

JukeBox to convert audio to MP3 or WMA format!

Then I use NERO to burn the MP3's to cd!


Pricegrabber.com

for prices!

[This message has been edited by rgtaa (edited 06-16-2002).]

You can check prices for PCs at www.pricewatch.com. With a PIII and Cakewalk you can do unlimited CD quality tracks with a good audio card...not to be confused with a multimedia card. You can also check EBAY out for PCs but make sure you know what the motherboard is...often it doesn't allow for addons.

I have no idea how well this works but this is an interface cable that allows you to convert audio from your tascam directly to digital on your PC.
http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua1a.html


How much money do you have to spend? That would help. I don't recommend minidisk but that is one way to go digital...that is why I mentioned it. Are you a soloist or band? How many recording inputs do you actually need? As a soloist, you can put together a top of the line system for a few hundred dollars...ok...it would be top of the line 2 years ago but we all know how equipment drops in price once we drive it off the lot.

[This message has been edited by WS (edited 06-17-2002).]

[This message has been edited by WS (edited 06-17-2002).]

[This message has been edited by WS (edited 06-17-2002).]

rtgaa - thanks.

ws - I'm a soloist. Well, if you don't recommend minidisk, then what would you do? I have a couple hundred to spend. It really doesn't matte to me as long as it doesn't hit into the thousands. Maybe $800 would do it. I only need 4-6 inputs. It doesn't need to be top of the line, just good. Of course, top of the line wouldn'tbe bad either.

I'm a soloist too. It is hard to recommend what to get without knowing your future plans. Right now, you can get alot of used equipment for next to nothing...they might not run on Windows XP because of driver issues. You might need an ISA slot for an older card and P4 motherboards do not offer ISA slots. The sound quality will be the same. Anything you get will be better than the cassette though. I had a Tascam 238s 8 track cassette which gave me a clean sound but I still had to bounce which degraded everything in the end. For a basic setup I would recommend a PIII (anything but faster the better)/128+megs of ram/8gig+ hardrive...you could use a PII and pick up a loaded 450mhz for under $150. Get a good Audio card (not a multimedia card). I still use my Card D+ (ISA). It was $1200 with the I/O daughtercard, used by major labels, and you can now find them for as low as $70. GINA/DARLA may not have the same quality AD/DA convertors but they are popular too. Other people will recommend good cards...just make sure it is an AUDIO CARD and not a (soundblaster type) MULTIMEDIA CARD You can get a CDRW for under $60 and the blank CDs/CDRWs are free from CircuitCity type stores (watch for rebates...I also had over 2000 megs of 133mhz ram sticks I got free from these stores)...Cakewalk Pro Audio 6.0 or higher(I've seen CPA 9.0 for $50...you might get someone to give you an older version)...Mackie 1202 (around $125-150)or (1202vlz much better)...

This will give you a min. of 16 audio tracks (up to UNLIMITED)and unlimited MIDI tracks. I had a Pentium I 150mhz that did all of the above...it just took forever to do any master editing of 24 audio tracks with Sound Forge.

If you are looking to the future than get a Pentium 4 (they didn't get many bugs out until 1.7) with 256+RDRAM (that is what the P4 is optimized for)and 60gig+ hard drive. I would do research to make sure any addons had drivers that would work with XP (or do a dual boot with XP and 98se). Make sure the motherboard supports addons. Get a great soundcard and then expand as you can. It will cost alot more in the long run, the sound won't be any better BUT there may be a piece of software that you have to have in 2 years and a PIII won't support it.

You might want to check out www.harmony-central.com classifieds. I just sold a 233mmx loaded with tons of software (CAkewalk, Sound Forge, Cubase, etc.) and a Card D+ for $200 just to give you an idea of what to look for.

If you want to check out some older reviews just type Pentium II, or Pentium III to find the difference. Again, Pentium II works great if money is an issue...just use older software...newer versions will not support it.

http://rhythm.harmony-central.com/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/search/?db=db&query=Pentium+II

I sell the Tascam CD-RW700 Uncle Dave suggests for about $450.00. It is great and easy to use when you just want to create a CD from an analog source or digital. Many of my customers just don't want to use their computers to burn audio CD's and many time, unless a good sound card is added to their computers, the sound quality isn't very good going from analog to digital inside the computer.
I also sell the Beheringer 1604 mixer for under $200.00 and you just can't beat this mixer for the price.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

Hmm, I just thought of a question. What has a better sound quality? Does the Tascam CDRW700 have a sorf of BUZZ once it's recorded directly from the keyboard? Same with the computer. Do I need a good sound card in order to get the sounds from my keyboard? Also, will there be any sort of BUZZ on the CD after the recording?

There should be NO buzz at all, in ANY type of digital recording. If you have a buzz ... it's being sent INTO the recorder - better check the signal path, cables, fans, hard drives etc ........ There is NO ROOM for noise in a digital domain.

Background noise does exist, even on digital recordings, but it's coming from whatever analog sources you have.

-tek