I got a good deal on a slightly used zoom H-6 on ebay a few years ago, which is a 6 channel recorder and USB audio interface with onboard mixer and monitoring. Used it mainly for recording acoustic drum kit, and more recently as a stereo mic for video calls.
The Zoom H-6 is pretty versatile. It is a bit awkward to use with a chromebook as sometimes it doesn’t connect properly… restarting the interface and then the chromebook syncs it all up again. On Windows or Linux as a multi-channel recorder or stereo mixer it is great. Onboard compression and limiter, and phantom power are handy for the drum stuff.
The LCD screen on the H6 is handy, although if you have the mic on a stand as an X-Y overhead then looking at the screen is a bit inaccessible.
As a portable stereo recorder the H-6 is great. Battery powered with 4 additional XLR/TRS inputs multi-channel recording, or stereo mixing. headphone monitor out etc.
I recently got the NUX mighty plug, which has built in USB audio interface for recording and monitoring.
The NUX built in DAI is a quick and easy way to hook up the bass to the PC. I have only used it a couple of times so far… but it works well as part of a very small setup. Bass, headphones, NUX, USB lead and a laptop and I’m ready to go.
Using EVO4 by Audient, Reaper is DAW. I love the compact size of the EVO, which hides some significant ability - don’t be fooled by its cleanness. And Reaper is amazing! I don’t have any sound experience to speak of, and it’s been an easy - and well supported! - way to learn. Lots of user support in the Cockos forum, and great tutorials available on YouTube.
Those are awesome and will last you forever,I wouldn’t even bother with new interface for another 10 years…it’s made in Germany so you know it’s worth whatever you paid for it.
Both of the Zooms I’ve had (U22 and current U44) came with a serial number for the low end version of Albeton. I wouldn’t say that it “came with a DAW” it was just a partner deal.
I played around with it for awhile, but chose to stick with Reaper.
It just depends. Universal Audio (UA)who make the Apollo DAIs have their own called LUNA…I only mention Apollo because they are considered the “premium” DAIs on the market (the 2 port ones are like $800!). But in that case I’d probably use a different DAW…LUNA might be good, I don’t know. UA does have a lot of great plugins too.
Apollo is indeed expensive, and I’ve heard they are very good.
But let’s be realistic…
This is a group of aspiring bass players, not aspiring studio engineers. Only a subset of this group even records at all, or is even knowledgeable about such things.
With that said, the low to mid range DAIs are adequate for just about everyone here. For my purposes, the Zoom U-44 with Reaper suit me just fine.
For sure. It was just a DAI that has a DAW with it. Ex lead guitarist had one and it was indeed very nice and recorded well…was it $700 better than the one I have? No. Lol. But some people just like premium stuff.
I second that. with today technology, any “real brand” DAI with decent converters and preamps is enough. to be honest, I would have no problem at all recording an album with my Steinberg DAI, and it’s only about $200. I’m sure those Zoom or Behringer works perfectly fine too.
about Reaper, it’s absolutly not less good or capable than Logic, Cubase or any other DAW.
They recently just updated it to include StudioOne 5, which is cool because you don’t have to buy the add on for 3rd party plugins anymore. For my modest needs at home it is great. My drummer has the more highlevel studio with the pro version, so any serious band recording we do there.
Considering I paid $99 for mine…everything is expensive!
But really here is a real example.
This is recorded on (but then mixed and mastered by a pro) an 8 input Presonus that was $400
This was recorded (mixed and mastered by same guy) in a pro studio with $300k worth of recording equipment
The latter definitely sounds better, and it happened in a night, while the one we did ourselves took forever (we were learning too). But as far as radio worthy quality? The $400 equipment (plus some mics and stuff) came out pretty darn good!
