jm - The VS 2480 has a VGA out and I use a 24" widescreen Acer with it. The VGA out was one of the sell points for the VS as was recording 16 tracks simultaneously. Also, I use two 8 channel RBUS connections to interface between the Roland and a high-end PC which has Cakewalk Sonar. I'm older and grew up in an era of recording consoles. The Roland gives me enough of that feel that it's a comfort thing. The minimum Digidesign control surface which I would feel comfortable with is about half the price of a VS. The M Audio control surface I'd really like wholesales for around $5k. And then you buy the software. The less expensive control surfaces would just feel like toys to someone who has experienced "real" mixer boards. I figure it would be about 15 grand as a bare minimum in the Pro Tools world...until then? The VS is just fine.
my bad - i just went to guitar center and look at the pricing on your roland - that thing does alot more than my tascam - if my unit did what yours did i probably wouldnt be going back to pc recording. it would be cool if i could use my tascam as my interface though, rather than having to buy a new one. all in all, its a good machine though. i paid $1200 for it 3 years ago and now they are going for about $900. i was actually set to buy the boss 1600 and the sales guy sold me on the tascam - wav file compatibility was key - i still do all my mixing/mastering on pc and i like to create loops and stuff in acid so its nice to be able to dump stuff back and forth. tascams one big screw up w/ the 2488 was the inability to hook up a monitor.
Kinda. It depends on the style of music. For me, there is a HUGE tradeoff with time. When my band makes a CD, we probably spend 250 hours tracking and 40 hours mixing. To record in a GOOD analog studio with a GOOD engineer, that would mean close to $30,000 just for the recording, nevermind mastering, pressing, artwork, etc. In order to afford it, you have two choices: a. Record in the great studio, but limit your time to 50-60 hours. b. Record digital and do alot of the work yourself. I'd rather have the extra time to spend working on arrangements and parts. Some of the best parts for songs we've come up with while just messing around in the studio. Plus, there is no substitute for the editing you can do with digital. If a kick drum is SLIGHTLY off and enough to annoy you, you just move it a little. Nothing can substitute for the warmth of analog, but great preamps and great converters sure go a long way. Besides, most people's ears are getting more and more used to the way digital sounds. I read recently that something like 90 percent of all popular music recordings are done primarily on digital. We tracked our drums analog in a big studio. It was easier to set up in a big room and use all their great mics and pres. We then transferred the analog tracks to ProTools using some of the best converters you can get and moved that all to our DP system where we are tracking everything else. We'll then edit in ProTools and mix in DP. You can get some remarkable sounding recordings using digital and all the money you save on gear and studio costs just means hours and hours of time you can spend experimenting and perfecting things. I'll take that tradeoff any day of the week.
I have no argument with anything you posted. In the part of the music world where I live, playing blues and alt-country, analog is the way to go. If the music is more "complicated" (don't even know if this is the right adjective here), then digital makes more sense $$$ wise. I know lots of bands that do what y'all are doing...drums analog, everything else digital. Since the drums are the foundation of every song, it makes sense for alt-rock, metal, prog-rock and other similar forms of music where you are going to mix lots of tracks together. For my money, with a well-rehearsed blues band (well rehearsed being the operative term here) recording live in analog and then punching to fix things and overdubbing the lead vocal track is the best way to go. And the 90% figure you cited is definitely accurate, since most popular music nowadays is rap and pop.
No doubt. For a blues or a jazz band, there is no reason to be concerned with studio time. You go in and play.
