Simple and economical recording set up for guitar

[beginner]

Okay, I need:

1. A decent sound card. (Soundblaster Live or Audigy for around $40.00 on Ebay)

2. A Behringer UB802 Mixer. ($50.00)

3. A Rolls DB25 or similiar direct box ($30.00)

Will this do it? Remeber, this is just a hobby, something I am doing for fun.

I already have the software. It is Magix Studio Deluxe 2004. Is anybody familiar with it? It seemed to be working just fine, right up until I fried my soundcard. LOL

[Phyl]

Your set up sounds fine if you are recording guitar and are planning on going direct from the guitar, or amp, to the sound card.

However...

You are going to learn the hard way - as I did - that recording guitar direct is vastly inferior to recording the sound of your amplifier using a microphone. Recording a clean guitar direct usually yields somewhat okay (yawn) results, but recording a distorted guitar direct will give you thin, buzzy, incredibly annoying results.

Direct boxes, the low end ones anyway, suck the life out of a guitar. The lack of a real guitar amplifier in the signal chain also affects the sound.

My recommendations: forget the sound blaster, get a low end PC interface with microphone inputs and phanton power, and buy a microphone.

You didn't mention whether you are using an electric or acoustic guitar. A Shure SM-57 is a good choice for electric, it will also work for an acoustic but acoustic instruments tend to sound better through a condensor microphone. Condensor microphones need phantom power.

[kjam22]

Or.... you could just plug your acoustic guitar straight in, add some low mid eq, then tell everyone that you used a mic somewhere along the chain..... and get a very common sound.

[jcnoernberg]

i started out with a laptop (any computer with usb would probably do for starting out), my mixer, and the M-Audio Transit: a pretty decent cheap USB interface, (lists for 99, for it for 79 at a local shop). Oh yeah and some microphones of course. We miced the whole band (drums, bass, guitar, vocals) at once and did it all on one track, came out pretty decent... hope it helps..