Sugesstions and advice needed: video and music production

[CmB]

Hi everybody, hope all is well. Like the title says I'm in need of advice on how to set up a home/amateur movie and music studio. This is intended to be a family hobby and I have several jazz and classical musicians friends and family and we thought it might be fun to do something like this.

I'm sorry I don't have a budget but think cheap under $2k to start. I'd love to be extraordinarily wealthy and splurge but honestly I'm looking at mostly freeware solutions and Linux. Are the Linux based production software complete garbage? I'd like to be able to combine 3D animation and live action footage as well as audio. Adobe will probably do all of that but are there any less pricey alternatives?

This project is intended to be along term thing and my view is that if you're doing something, might as well do it right so I really appreciate your tips and suggestions. Thank you in advance.

Chris

[EniGmA1987]

I dont know about video software, but I love Audacity for audio. It works in Windows, Mac, and Linux and best of all, its free :)

Audacity allows you to record multiple tracks at the same time and assign each track to an input. You can either use the line input from your sound card, or get a card that has a lot more inputs on it. Usually people go with M-Audio for a cheap good quality input card. I think they make one for a couple hundred that has 4 inputs and 4 outputs using 1/4" connections. Although for studio work you generally use microphones that have XLR connections on them, and a mic level signal instead of line levels.

Looking into how you want to get the audio into a computer would be a good place to start

[CmB]

Thanks for the quick reply. Is this the card you're talking about? http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/217906-REG/M_Audio_9900_50765_00_Audiophile_PCI_Digital_Recor ding.html That's not too bad pricewise. Can you recommend a sound card with the CLR connections? I googled soundcards with CLR connections and this thread came up lol. Sorry for being such a n00b. Thanks again.

[EniGmA1987]

Typo on my part sorry, it is XLR connections.

And no not that card, one of these:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/351647-REG/M_Audio_9900_50768_00_Audiophile_192_Audio_Card.ht ml

or these would work as well:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/196846-REG/M_Audio_9900_50755_00_Delta_66_PCI.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/393375-REG/M_Audio_9900_51076_00_Fast_Track_Pro_USB.html



That last one is probably the easiest since it has both 1/4" and XLR combo inputs, but the Delta 66 is probably the best for the money. Although with the Delta 66 you would need some sort of adapter to go from the XLR microphones to 1/4" to get into the computer. I dont *think* you will need a special transformer though to go from mic to line level, a standard XLR to 1/4" cable should work fine. But I wouldnt buy a bundle of the cables at first, just buy 1 to test if it works right or not and then buy more.

[In-Fluence]

There's some good advice there. I would make a point of saying that with the USB interface, you might find yourself suffering latency issues if recording live over pre-recorded tracks or playing softsynths, as USB doesn't have quite the performance a PCI interface does. A firewire one would be a better choice than USB, but they're a bit more expensive and there's less choice. The Delta 66 is good, but it doesn't have the preamps for mics etc which would really mean the need for a mixer, but this is the better way to go about this.

As for software, if it were me, I would use Renoise for the music (free for fully functional version and available for mac,pc,linux, £50 for fully featured version (i.e.ASIO, render to disk, rewire support)). It might not seem that easy to grasp at first, but I would recommend giving it a try, it's very well developed an stable (and supports the linux version of VST (Ladspa isn't it?)
For the video, Resolume seems to be the king of the game at the moment. It's just had a massive revamp, and takes advantage of 3Dhardware acceleration, VST support, DMX and MIDI routability and probably a lot more I'm yet to learn about. It's features could quite easily be linked to renoise so user-definable aspects of the music could be routed to affect the video (e.g. note C triggers video 1, C# triggers note 2). You could probably just write your music & videos in there, but I'm a little dubious if making the music in resolume would be as easy as Renoise. Unfortunately resolume isn't cheap, and not available for linux (sorry just realised lol) :)

Now, monitor speakers - My behringer truth B2031A have served me amazingly well over the past 5 years. Still as crisp as ever and real cheap. I'm sure you'd be able to get your hands on a pair for quite cheap now i.e. <£300 Or if you're willing, go for something more like the newer model with the ribbon tweeters :)

With all of this, I would really advise a mixer. It really does make life easier! :)

I could probably write a load more, but I'm on my way out, hope this helps :)

[EniGmA1987]

You might want to think about getting this:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/n8/

It has the computer interface you need via firewire, and also has the mic preamps you need. As well as both XLR and 1/4" TRS connections so you can use either connections to go into the system. It has a pretty sucky EQ section, so I would try to do most of your EQing once you have the track recorded in the computer via inserts in whatever program you use to record with.

For some monitors you could get something like these:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/BX5aDeluxe/

Or the Behringer monitors On-Fluence talked about, or some other monitors probably around that price range.
I dont really like Samson, but you could look into theese too:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Rubicon5a/

[CmB]

Wow, thanks for the advice! Great responses:). Okay, I think I'm going to go with the M-Audio Delta 66 [http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/196846-REG/M_Audio_9900_50755_00_Delta_66_PCI.html]. About the mixer, will this one do? http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Onyx1220i/. Cost is a major concern as long as I am footing the bill ;). For the audio software I'm liking the Renoise but I'm going to play with Audacity and see which works best for me. I'm going to take a look at the monitors in a bit. I'm going to see if a friend doesn't have some old school stuff he'll part with and once I get going maybe put some cash into new kit depending on my needs.

For 3D I'm looking at blender http://www.blender.org/. Can't beat the price and yeah I know adobe is probably better. I'm looking at cinelarra http://cinelerra.org/ for the video editing, Resolume just looks too expensive since this a hobby to start not a business venture. It'd be nice to make money but that's not the goal. How is this for a camera http://www.amazon.com/Canon-VIXIA-Memory-Camcorder-Optical/dp/B001OI2Z2I/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I36BN00O0L41SH&colid=1JED6B2OHGH7K. It seems pretty decent for the price range. Are there any better camcorders in this price range ~$600?

All advice is appreciated and wanted....and needed, lol. This is a long term project and I'll keep you filled in on the choices made. All the best,

Cheers

Chris

[Jamesrt2004]

you know imo I woul read homerecording.com forums and ask over there about mixers and stuff theres people there with professional studios and people with a few 100 dollars systems so good wide knowledge there to ask :)

and imo thos m-audio monitors = I WANT i would def go for them if i had the money for it..

[EniGmA1987]

That Mackie board looks pretty nice for you. For anything serious I would not recommend Mackie as their quality sucks, and the sound sucks. But for low end and hobby use they are great.

You mihgt want to ask around more, but I think if you have the ability to use firewire from the sound board into the computer, you can just use that and dont need to get an add-in card like the Delta66 to get all the channels into the computer.

[CmB]

you know imo I woul read homerecording.com forums and ask over there about mixers and stuff theres people there with professional studios and people with a few 100 dollars systems so good wide knowledge there to ask :)

and imo thos m-audio monitors = I WANT i would def go for them if i had the money for it..

Will do about the homerecording forums. I was actually going to ask what forums there are with the recording hobby. I think I'll stick with the yamaha, I'm not paying $600 for suck.

[MattiasNYC]

Will do about the homerecording forums. I was actually going to ask what forums there are with the recording hobby. I think I'll stick with the yamaha, I'm not paying $600 for suck.

KME,

before you spend on audio, I think you should write down what you want to accomplish a bit more in detail, and then develop that into the "how is it going to get done" issues.

I'll try to find time to re-read the thread more carefully, but instinctively it seems as if you could save a good deal of money here if you're "lucky".

If you're going to get the mixer with FireWire connectivity, I have to ask why you would want to get the M-Audio interface?

In addition to that I'd look into (carefully) which pieces of hardware come bundled with what software. I know some M-Audio gear comes with the ProTools "super-light" software, which may or may not be a good deal. Some other mixers come with Cubase (also some lighter version) which also might be a good deal. The thing about these bundles is that they'll offer you a better return on time-investment as you grow into the bigger systems (if that's your goal), for not that much money up front.....

Just some thoughts...

[MattiasNYC]

Oh, and as for forums, here are a few:

Gearslutz: Some really talented and fantastic people here, but also a huge amount of duds!
Cubendo: Also some great guys, but focused on Cubase / Nuendo
duc.digidesign.com: The user forum for Digidesign products, i.e Pro Tools

If you find a hardware with software for example, check out the forums for that software and see what people say and if they can help....

[D.Drona]

In the past that seemed to be a problem. However with the new systems Cube, PS2, XBox they have component cables which usally only looks good on projection screens. My advice would to A get the component cords, B Just be carfull that you dont leave it on pause for a long time so as not to burn it in, and C get a gamecube.

[CmB]

In the past that seemed to be a problem. However with the new systems Cube, PS2, XBox they have component cables which usally only looks good on projection screens. My advice would to A get the component cords, B Just be carfull that you dont leave it on pause for a long time so as not to burn it in, and C get a gamecube.

Umm, not to be rude but I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from. I have a Xbox 360. But this thread is about home video and music studio, as in content creation. :welcome: to the forums though.

@MatthiasNYC, you're definitely right about defining the goals here and TBH I'm still in the process of figuring out what I want to do so I would say this is the ideation and brainstorming stage.

To start I'm going to mess around with Linux and blender and cinelarra because animation and video is more my passion though audio surely is a component of many good video. Plus the stuff is free :)

Once I do a lot more research I will post back with stuff or not if no one cares, lol. This is fun so far in the learning process and thats what it's meant to be.

Thanks!