Anybody here use other (GASP!) mixing equipment besides your BR?

[dwardzala]

Newbie here - just found this forum when 64 went trolling on the yahoo mailing list.   

I bought my BR600 a little over a year ago.  I record mostly covers and my first two songs were recorded and mixed entirely on the BR - I converted them to MP3 using Audacity.

However, I bought Guitar Tracks Pro 3 shortly after that and now I record all my tracks on the BR, use some of the effects (I tend to like to record wet - especially guitar parts and vocals), but I apply reverb and (especially) eq and mix va GTP3.  I then export to Audacity (I"m too cheap to buy the GTP3 MP3 converter) to convert to MP3.  To date I have left my tracks (mostly) unmastered.

Anybody else do something similar or have similar experiences to share?

[guitarron]

i use sonar and project 5-audacity too

[Kody]

I do that exactly....record mostly covers that is lol!!  No seriously, I use Audacity alot.  Especially for converting WAV files to MP3s.  It works real handy to cut off the beginning and end of tracks recorded on the BR.  I also use Mackie Tracktion 3...gotta love the GUI plugins!!  Welcome to the forum!!  Feel free to upload some of your work~ Everyone's very supportive here!!

[Tony]

I seem to have fallen into a pattern of using the BR Rythym Editor to build the drum track, Micro BR for the guitar and bass and Garageband for keys and anything I can squeeze out of the synth instruments on the Mac.  Garageband for all the end stuff like normalising. And then I start again because I never seem to finish anything.

[AndyR]

At the moment, I'm forcing myself to do it all on the MBR, because I feel that working to its technical restrictions helps keep me focussed and seems to make me concentrate on the music/creativity...

However, I am starting to consider exporting WAVs for final mixing in Cakewalk. I used the WAV Exporter to get all the separate tracks out of my "If we should sing together" projects (two MBR song projects) last weekend, with a view to a remix - it came to 1.5Gb of WAVs!!

I had to delete it all again - the remix can wait - I'm going to have to do something about my laptop's hard-drive if I'm going down this route

[Greeny]

I'm really becoming reliant on Audacity to mix individual tracks and make little edits to songs. I've just mixed and mastered a new version of 'Heart of Gold', with three separate contributions, and used Audacity to change reverb, echo, volume / balance and do a final mix. It's a pretty wicked tool when you use it as an extension to the BR (where I create ALL my music).

[Frank53]

Pretty much all mixing and "mastering" is done on my '900. I do use Audacity for little things like trimming lead-ins, adding fade-outs, adding a little gain if necessary, etc. I occasionally use Har-bal for spectral analysis and EQ tweaking, if something sounds strange. That's about it. Nuthin' fancy. 

[Bluesberry]

I used to do everytning on my microBR.  I now own a BR-1200 also and between the two of these devices, I use these for everything.  The only thing I go on my computer for is to download a MP3 to this site and listen to all the other music.  I really like the idea of keeping everything in the one machine right to the end.

[SdC]

I also have a BR600. When it's hooked up in "studio 1" (the study) it receives it's line-in signal from a 12-channel mixer. I've hooked up my various mic's and guitar boxes and synths to that, so I don't  have to mess about with cables during a recording session.
It just takes a second to unplug the BR and take it into Studio 2 (living  room) or whereever, and I plug in a guitar directly (I often start writing a song this way then take it to Studio 1  to finish the rest)

I do all mixdowns and mastering on the BR itself (so far)

[64Guitars]

I had to delete it all again - the remix can wait - I'm going to have to do something about my laptop's hard-drive if I'm going down this route

Consider getting an external USB hard drive just for your music. They're fairly inexpensive and it's safer to store your music on an external drive. Your computer's main drive is constantly being accessed by the operating system and is more likely to eventually fail than a secondary drive that is used much less frequently. Also, if you ever have a serious virus infection or system crash and have to reformat your computer's hard drive and reinstall the operating system and programs, your music files on the external drive will most likely be unaffected. And you can easily move your music files from one computer to another by simply unplugging the USB cable from one computer and plugging it into another. It's also great if you upgrade your computer. No files to copy!

You can buy complete external hard drives, ready to plug into your computer's USB port:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hard-Drives-Storage-Computer-Peripherals/b?ie=UTF8&node=10391531

Or you can buy the hard drive and the external case separately and put it together yourself. This is what I always do (I currently have 7 external drives). I like Vantec cases because they don't have a noisy fan in them. Instead, they have an aluminum case which acts as a heat sink to dissipate the heat generated by the hard drive. Cases are available for 3.5" and 2.5" hard drives. The 2.5" drives and cases are nice for laptops because of the smaller size. But 3.5" drives are less expensive and still very portable.