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Home recording - 20s style.

Nic Robinson

Nic Robinson

Moderator
This isn't a request for advice about studio or microphone equipment, more a question about what could be used for the sorts of jobs which might have been done by a home cassette or DAT recorder back in the day.

i.e. the ability to record off the radio via digital input from a source such as my Rpi (volumio). Or from vinyl etc. via analogue.

I have a super old Marantz pro CD recorder and loads of CDRW discs which does the job very well. This also works well through my JVC's digital DAT loop. The only disadvantage is max recording time and the faff of ripping the disc subsequently. Plus, I can't imagine it will last forever.

A also have a wonderful old Edirol R-09 which I can wire to the analogue tape loop. But this does not have a digital in.

What I'm really looking for is something that gives me the best of both worlds. That is to say something which I can connect to the system which can record via analogue or digital in and record to something convenient like an SD card which I could grab and pop in my laptop later.

I wonder if the actual answer is a modern version of the Edirol - like the Zoom recorders...but is there an alternative I've missed?

Please nobody suggest 1/4 inch! :)
 
I’d assume something like this Tascam recorder would do everything say a Sony Walkman Pro would have done back in the ‘80s aside from play cassettes, and do it a lot better! It would probably do everything you needed plus has some decent mics for recording piano etc.
 
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I know...but I would dearly love something that was just there in the rack with buttons and stuff on the front and plugs and sockets on the back!
 
I was experimenting with digital recording for the fist time recently, just to get a feel for it. What worked very well was to play a track (ripped from CD) from an external HD that's attached to a Raspberry pi 4 via USB out into a cheapo Behringer DAC, take the optical output from there into an old (2007) Mac mini and record it in real time using Audacity.
 
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Very interesting. I set up something similar myself just recently. The blue box handles the analogue as well as digital format conversion and connects to the dac to interface with a PC. I can listen to FM or vinyl at my desk and have the analogue or digital output as well as play guitar. I'm loving it I have to say, I need a patch bay though... There is a "pro" version of the dac but this a little more versatile.

 
gavreid said:
Very interesting. I set up something similar myself just recently. The blue box handles the analogue as well as digital format conversion and connects to the dac to interface with a PC. I can listen to FM or vinyl at my desk and have the analogue or digital output as well as play guitar. I'm loving it I have to say, I need a patch bay though... There is a "pro" version of the dac but this a little more versatile.

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Looks good...but I would dearly love something stand-alone and single box which I didn't have to attache to my laptop to make the recording.
 
I use a RME Babyface pro fs for recording analogue and digital. I do also have a zoom l-20 which I use for recording bands. This will record 20 simultaneous tracks to SD card. Total overkill for what you want but the smaller zoom models work well as fo ones by TASCAM etc. Recording to a computer gives you a lot more flexibility though but you can transfer from an SD card to the computer if you need to.
 
mark.king said:
I use a RME Babyface pro fs for recording analogue and digital. I do also have a zoom l-20 which I use for recording bands. This will record 20 simultaneous tracks to SD card. Total overkill for what you want but the smaller zoom models work well as fo ones by TASCAM etc. Recording to a computer gives you a lot more flexibility though but you can transfer from an SD card to the computer if you need to.
Click to expand...
The RME looks a nice bit of kit. Probably overkill for my purposes...
 
Nic Robinson said:
The RME looks a nice bit of kit. Probably overkill for my purposes...
Click to expand...

I've been extremely impressed by RME I have to say. Two channels must be easy compared to the big stuff. The only downside for me is spikes on the ring from the fridge etc..
 
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