Hardware Recommendations for DAW?

[arc76]

Hi,
My main instrument is guitar,i recently bought a Steinberg Project Pack(Cubasis VST software and Project Card 20bit 2-in2-out analog i/o, s/p dif digital out).Shure sm-57,sennheiser e825s mics into a behringer 4 ch mixer.I am using a mesa triple recto and 4x12 cab.Korg x-3 synth for drums.

ok, Questions:
1)How do i get a good mic'd (overdriven sound)to my pc?
2)Hardware?mic pre?direct box/amp modeler?
3)I am currently using pc speakers to monitor,decent powered monitors without breaking the bank?
4)Pc specs for a solid DAW.Ram?HD size?processor speed?

Thanks,
Joe

[Evildick]

For 1&2:
If you have a fairly decent practice amp, I would recommend using that instead the mesa and the 4x12 cab. The overdriven sound that you want may still be achieved without knocking the plaster out of your walls from the mesa and cab.

As far as recording the guitar, I would the guitar to a direct box. Have one cable go to the amplifier you intend to use, the other into the mixer (say chan. 1 for example). Now mic the cone of the amp and send that to chan. 2. Now you can combine and blend both channel 1 & 2 to get the sound that you want.

For 3:
You can use just about anything to monitor, although eventually you will want to fork out the $'s on studio monitor speakers. You could substitute your computer speaker with home stereo speakers for the time being to make the mixes sound a little better and help with the clarity. The odds are, you probably have a set of speakers laying around the house that would be better to mix on than computer speakers but that's an entirely different subject. Check out www.prorec.com "Ten Powered Nearfield Monitors" article. It's a good read.

For 4:
-Are you going to use this comp solely as a DAW? (No Email Clients, Word Processing, Photo Editors, Anti-Virus...)
>>If so, a P3 500 should be more than enough for your needs, unless you plan to use a bunch of plug-ins with Cubase, then you may want to go for something a little faster.

At least 256MB of RAM as a minimum. The more the better, but there really shouldn't be any need to go over 512.

HD size really depends on how many projects you are working on. Off the top of my head, I would say a 30-60 GB 7,200 rpm IDE drive would more than fill your needs.

Hopefully this will get you started and give you a better idea of what direction you want your home studio to take.

Dick