Anyone using an online audio recorder/DAW?

[RJVB]

Hi,

I'm playing with the idea of turning my Chromebook tablet into a digital recorder. These things have Android support but the more interesting free (or non-rental) recorder applications seem to be incompatible and I don't have enough space to install Linux on it.

So, online DAWs would be the way to go. A quick tour shows that most of these seem to have the recording of "just audio" as an afterthough, esp. if you don't want effects but do want control over details like bitrate and sample rate. I'll admit that I'm only familiar with Audacity so I get lost very quickly in the interface of more professional tools.

Suggestions welcome, please!

[RJVB]

I found this little overview: The 5 Best Online DAWs for Easy Music Creation | LANDR Blog

A quick try-out with SoundTrap confirmed the "getting lost" thing, and a sample recording of just ambient sounded like a bad feedback loop despite the fact I'd turned off my speakers during the recording. Plus, you can only download the audio you recorded as MP3 with the free plan - which wasn't abundantly clear before creating an account at all.

[MarkRhodes]

I use Reaper and think it's an amazing piece of equipment.
You can download it for free and use it a while.
I paid $60 for a lifetime license and think it's the best deal on a piece of musical equipment that I was ever offered.

[fep]

When seeing this thread my first thought was, what about latency? (Note, for recording a solo guitar/one track recording this wouldn't matter, I suppose).

in my experience 10ms of round trip latency is acceptable and 20ms is not (unless you direct monitor your input). With an online browser DAW it seems that 30ms might be ballpark of what you could expect (see article link below). If it was consistent, it could be workable if you are willing to use direct monitoring of your input instrument. This may require nudging the tracks to align them by ear as part of the after recording engineering process.

Would the latency be consistent from minute to minute or second to second? It seems with the internet traffic and whatever the various servers the data needs to travel through, the latency would not be consistent... but that's just an uneducated guess. And, if the latency wasn't consistent, wouldn't that 'warp' the timing of what is being recorded?

Some DAWS, like Reaper, automatically compensate for calculated latency to align the tracks. But Reaper is not a browser-based DAW. Perhaps browser-based DAWs have this feature?

Audio latency in browser-based DAWs - Ulf Hammarqvist - W3C/SMPTE Joint Workshop on Professional Media Production on the Web

[RJVB]

First, I already have Audacity on the computers that could run Reaper; that free solution has everything I need for the kind of recording I do.

Latency could indeed be a problem with web-based DAW but that would only be an issue for direct monitoring as long as all tracks are fed into the computer via the same audio interface. I do not of course know exactly how those web DAWs handle live audio recording but as far as latency goes it shouldn't be that different from MIDI input (usually more their focus). Modern browsers support web-USB, which I presume could be used here if you can get to chose from the various input devices from within the web DAW.

I don't monitor when I record, btw. I may do a soundcheck recording and listen to that when using a different kind of set-up but for the rest I really prefer to hear my instrument as I'm used to. Main reason for recording myself is in fact to know how I sound to others.

And a propos that: I learned about the Zoom H3-VT yesterday evening. I bit more expensive than I can justify spending too easily but it does have me intrigued! I've always been disappointed by how my "room-sound" recordings sound when using a single (LD) mic placed at a typical listener's position; this VR gadget sound like it could be a solution for that!

[Bop Head]

1. I would never put my basic tracks into the cloud.

2. I just wanted to write: "Regarding ZOOM there are cheaper solutions than the H3-VT (which is really interesting.)"

But now I see that it not much more expensive than many of their products that are a little bit more advanced than basic.

Resultats de recherche - Page 1 – Thomann France

You might even get good results with the stereo Hn1 which has an internal screw thread for a mic stand on the back. Have you experimented a lot already with the distance between mic and instruments? This distance determines the balance between direct and room sound.

3. BTW do you know Ecasound? I have not used it myself yet but I always found it interesting.

[RJVB]

I've never really been interested in the entry-level Hn1, nor did I experiment much with different mic positions in the room. After my initial disappointing results I took a better look at how to record various types of guitar and for now I've never felt like deviating from that. Mic pointed from slightly above at the neck join for acoustic flat-top, a bit further away when recording a resonator. Mic pointed from slightly below to the area just behind the treble side of the saddle on an archtop (sounds fuller than pointed at the neckjoin but I still need to tweak things as I find the result a tad bass heavy).

I have not heard of ecasound. What I find most intriguing about it is that there must be people who prefer a non-graphical interface for working with waveforms...