newbie question about DAW and mixers

[MrParrott]

I am a newbie to all of this. and was wondering what would be the better way to go.I want to start to use my computer to record with I already have N-Tracks installed (I have played around with it using midi files so I get to learn how it works) now I need a way to get sound from my guitars to my computer. I am looking into a Digital audio workstation (like the Omega Desktop Recording Studio) but have been told that a mixer would work as well. Would it be over kill to have a mixer seeing that N-Tracks already does that? Plus my computer already has firewire and usb 2.0 and I don't really want to upgrade my sound card just yet as we just got the computer a few months ago.
Thanks
Bruce

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by MrParrott

I am a newbie to all of this. and was wondering what would be the better way to go.I want to start to use my computer to record with I already have N-Tracks installed (I have played around with it using midi files so I get to learn how it works) now I need a way to get sound from my guitars to my computer. I am looking into a Digital audio workstation (like the Omega Desktop Recording Studio) but have been told that a mixer would work as well. Would it be over kill to have a mixer seeing that N-Tracks already does that? Plus my computer already has firewire and usb 2.0 and I don't really want to upgrade my sound card just yet as we just got the computer a few months ago.
Thanks
Bruce

Hate to break it to you, but you'll probably want to upgrade your soundcard. Here's why:

The purpose of the mixer in a PC environment is not necessarily to mix, it's for:

- mic preamps
- headphone amp
- signal routing/monitoring
- and sometimes, creating submixes (if you use more mics than your soundcard has inputs)

A mixer will send your mic inputs (increased to line level) to the line input of your soundcard, and take the soundcard output and route to headphones and monitors.

Thus your soundcard is still performing an important task: analog to digital conversion (A/D) on input, and D/A conversion on output. A cheap soundcard will do a bad job of that. Thus you will eventually have the desire to upgrade your soundcard

There are other solutions too, such as USB or Firewire devices that have preamps and A/D converters, but the total cost is basically the same as mixer + decent soundcard.