Newbie Software Advice

W

Witterings

New member
Hi All,

I'm a complete newbie (1st post) so be gentle with me, and have literally just starting playing around with Audacity and am just about beginning to understand the basics. Are the paid for alternatives for home recording much better without spending a fortune and if so what are the advantages / extra functionality ie are they better for mixing and which ones are good at the lower end of the cost range ???

Also you often hear of drums referred to as "compressed" during the recording process which gives them a damper not so ringy sound as when they're played live. In Audacity under Effect and Compressor which brings up Dynamic Range Compressor, is that the tool people are referring to or do I need something seperate to that and again might some of the paid for alternatives do a better job ??????

Many thanks for your responses in advance !!!!!
 
Welcome to the site. You're in the newbies section, so no harm will come. :D

Just starting out?? Time to start reading then. If you've done any lurking on the board, then you might have seen suggested reading material. You need to define what you want to achieve with recording before buying any gear. This will keep you from buying the wrong stuff.

A good place to start reading is the Tweak's guide:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

I also suggest a book called Homerecording for Musicians for Dummies by Jeff Strong. Gets you going in the right direction.

As for your compression question, I'm not experienced with Audacity, but the compressor sounds like what you're talking about.
 
Witterings said:
Hi All,

I'm a complete newbie (1st post) so be gentle with me, and have literally just starting playing around with Audacity and am just about beginning to understand the basics. Are the paid for alternatives for home recording much better without spending a fortune and if so what are the advantages / extra functionality ie are they better for mixing and which ones are good at the lower end of the cost range ???

Also you often hear of drums referred to as "compressed" during the recording process which gives them a damper not so ringy sound as when they're played live. In Audacity under Effect and Compressor which brings up Dynamic Range Compressor, is that the tool people are referring to or do I need something seperate to that and again might some of the paid for alternatives do a better job ??????

Many thanks for your responses in advance !!!!!
Click to expand...



Hey man, check out http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/MAudio-Fast-Track-MKII-USB-Interface?sku=703669

This is what i started out with. It's very easy to use, PLUS it will get you into the books.

Only an idea if your interested.


CHEERS!!!!!
 
As far as software, Audacity is capable, but very limited. Reaper, on the other hand, will take an awfully long time to outgrow, is uncrippled share-ware, and will only set you back $60 or so should you decide to continue with it.
 
Here's a second vote for reaper. It almost convinced me to leave my analog stuff behind. ( I was using it because my recorder is down for repair ) I love it. Very user friendly and inuitive lay out.
 
Thanks for the replies, certainly the Reaper software looks interesting.

Someone I was speaking to last night said they think it may now be possible with the right USB interface that you can assign each channel to the software ie Channel 1 Vocals 1, channel 2 Bass etc then you all play together but it lays down each track seperately as though you've layered it and you can then edit each track individually.
Do you know if that's true and in which case what do you need in terms of mixer / software ????
 
That's typical of *any* multi-track software. The interface is what's going to make the difference at that point... You need an interface with as many I/O as you need simultaneously recorded tracks.
 
Massive Master said:
As far as software, Audacity is capable, but very limited. Reaper, on the other hand, will take an awfully long time to outgrow, is uncrippled share-ware, and will only set you back $60 or so should you decide to continue with it.
Click to expand...

+1,000

I actually downloaded Audacity a couple months ago specifically because someone was asking a simple question about it. I think Audacity is actually pretty clumsy.
 
Massive Master said:
That's typical of *any* multi-track software. The interface is what's going to make the difference at that point... You need an interface with as many I/O as you need simultaneously recorded tracks.
Click to expand...

I'm using the Behringer 1222FX mixer with their UCA 200 USB interface which I've downloaded and installed the drivers for.
There's an XLR input and then below that Line in and below that Insert I/O, is there where I should plug the mic into (it's XLR to jack input) as absolutely nothings going through if I do but they work fine in the Line in but not on Multitrack ????
I've checked the recording device and it say Behringer USB Audio ???
 
Witterings said:
I'm using the Behringer 1222FX mixer with their UCA 200 USB interface which I've downloaded and installed the drivers for.
There's an XLR input and then below that Line in and below that Insert I/O, is there where I should plug the mic into (it's XLR to jack input) as absolutely nothings going through if I do but they work fine in the Line in but not on Multitrack ????
I've checked the recording device and it say Behringer USB Audio ???
Click to expand...

Is this the mixer you have??

http://www.behringer.de/EN/Products/1222FX.aspx
 
Chili said:
Is this the mixer you have??

http://www.behringer.de/EN/Products/1222FX.aspx
Click to expand...

Yes it is, I was literally just coming in to repost as I've spent a while going through Reapers manual (initial setup which includes number of inputs / outputs and it only sees 2 of each) and with my little knowledge I'm beginning to wonder if whilst there are 4 I/O sockets (I didn't know what an I/O socket was this morning had to google it) that's actually not relevant as the interface goes to CD line in / out so therefore you could only actually record 2 lines at one time anyway ??????? Or have I totally misunderstood it.
Sorry if I seem dumb but literally this is all totally new to me and it's SUCH a huge amount of information to try and take in and absorb at 1 time. I'll go and get some books that's I've seen people recommend and it's obviously not something you can learn over night which in itself becomes frustrating when you've suddenly discovered this amasing tool and you know what it can do but you just can't understand / use it :confused:
Again thanks for the reponses, I know what's it's like as I've flown RC Planes for ages and again the learning curve is horrendous but I always try and help a newbie if I can as I know how overwhelming it can be to start with.
Lets face it if it was easy and didn't frustrate the F*-k out of you we'd be bored with it in 5 mins and looking for the next fix :D
 
Right. That little UCA thing is your interface to the computer and can only record 2 tracks at a time. If you want to record more than that, then you need a different interface. However, if you're just doing it by yourself, then more than likely, 2 channels is adequate. You definitely want to use Reaper instead of Audacity. It's worth the money.

yeah, if you don't know what an I/O socket is, you need to do a lot of reading. :rolleyes: Like I posted earlier, the tweak guide is a good online source, but be sure to pick up some books.

good luck, have fun and welcome to the site.
 
I've managed to get it working and sound coming though fine. If I open a new track and go into the options for In you can select mono input which then offers In 1 or In 2, if I select In 1 for the 1st track and then open a second track and select In 2, I thought it would record whatever's plugged into channel 1 on the mixer to track 1 and whatever's plugged into the 2nd channel onto track 2 but it records both to both and you can't seperate them out.
I mentioned earlier that some of the channels have the XLR input then underneath that Line in and under that INSERT I/O do I need to take the feed out of here for each channel ????
If so why would they give you phono jacks for the UCA and the instructions tell you to plug it into the I/O for the CD/Tape.

As well having been playing around with Reaper, when you've recorded your 1st track do you then just open a second and make sure you dis-arm the 1st before recording anything else, it seems that you could easily record a bad track over a good one by mistake if that makes sense ???
Thanks again !!!!
 
Witterings said:
If I open a new track and go into the options for In you can select mono input which then offers In 1 or In 2, if I select In 1 for the 1st track and then open a second track and select In 2, I thought it would record whatever's plugged into channel 1 on the mixer to track 1 and whatever's plugged into the 2nd channel onto track 2 but it records both to both and you can't seperate them out.
Click to expand...

You are doin it right. Go to your mixer and pan the first channel hard left and the second hard right. With a mixer, you plug a mic in, and if the pan is set to center, then you get equal amounts of that mic on the left and right channel. Panning will isolate one channel to one side and the other channel to the other side. Multitrack recording isn't really what most of the small format mixers was designed to do, so this is a way to work with what you got.


Witterings said:
As well having been playing around with Reaper, when you've recorded your 1st track do you then just open a second and make sure you dis-arm the 1st before recording anything else, it seems that you could easily record a bad track over a good one by mistake if that makes sense ???
Click to expand...
exactly right.
Also though, unless you select and delete a track, I *don't think* Reaper over-writes the original if you accidetnally forget to disarm a track thats already recorded. To be honest with you, I've been using Reaper for a couple years, and its never been an issue.
 
Also, you *can* get a signal from each channel by using a 1/4" cable clicked half-way into the insert jack on each channel. This will take an unbalanced signal pretty much directly from behind the mic-pre in most mixers, which means it bypasses the eq, pan and aux sends (not really a bad thing). This would be useful if you had an interface with more inputs and you wanted to record each individual channel separately. To do this with your current setup, you'd need (2) 1/4 ts -to- rca cables.
 
Thanks guys really do appreciate everyone's input / help !!!! Have managed to get it to do what I hoped it would do in the immediate future !!!!!!
Think I've 5 years of reading of learning / reading though to get to grips with the rest :D
At least I won't be able to say I'm bored for quite a while :p
Thanks again and I'm sure I'll bump into you again as I post other inal newbie queries in the not too distant future :o
 
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