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Ask SN: Music Recording on Android?

posted by LaminatorX on Sunday March 09 2014, @12:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the OK-Computer dept.

Ethanol-fueled writes:

"After many years of lambasting smartphone users during my tenure at "The Other Site," I finally broke down and got a recent-model Android phone, and I'm appealing to the musicians in the audience for help: Which apps for music recording on Android would you recommend? Any stories, bugs, or gotchas of which we should be made aware? Features provided, number of tracks, backing tracks, effects, etc.? I'd prefer Android-specific information but discussion of music recording on iOS or other mobile platforms, heck any digital recording, would be welcome. Cost is not a factor, but stability is very important.

I've done a good amount of recording using Cubase on PCs so I'm no stranger to digital recording over all, one of the reasons why I'm asking you all is because most 'reviews' online seem untrustworthy, the two I'd think I'd like best are full of bad reviews and I need the straight dope from a technical crowd.

Thanks in advance for your stories and suggestions!"

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Worchaa on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:32PM

    by Worchaa (447) on Sunday March 09 2014, @01:32PM (#13598)

    The two apps mentioned are multi-track pocket DAWs. That's cool but for recording you're going to be pretty limited on record quality and mic choices. If you find an external interface for your phone things will get better.

    Unless you have a compelling reason to compromise by running a mini DAW on your phone for recording, you should look into a decent handheld field recorder like these:

    Zoom H4n, Tascam DR-40.

    Both have fairly decent onboard stereo mics, accept external XLR inputs, can do stereo or 4-track recordings. I think they'll also accept line level inputs (at least I know the DR-40 will). They're drop dead easy to use and will give you great recordings out of the box. Of course, there are loads of other models/brands to look at as well.

    My $0.02... If quality and practical use are remotely important to you, get a field recorder with the features you want for recording, then dump the audio files into whatever DAW you want to play with: Android app on your phone, Cubase on the PC, or otherwise.

    Good luck !

    --
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  • (Score: 1) by zeigerpuppy on Sunday March 09 2014, @11:17PM

    by zeigerpuppy (1298) on Sunday March 09 2014, @11:17PM (#13730)

    I agree, I have been very happy with the Zoom H4N.
    Getting good quality recordings is about the whole signal path, I don't see how using an android device would help with this (although I did use a custom CF card and A/D converter with pocketPC years ago!). The lesson, it never worked reliably due to the bandwidth issues of pushing 96k 24 bit audio.
    Go with a device designed for purpose, while it may be possible to use an android device, the end result is likely to be inferior. The H4N is very affordable too.