Basic questions - please help

[jmorrisonbc]

Hi,
I'm creating a very small studio at home to record and master acoustic/electric music I'm writing. I just purchased a PC with a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz processor, 512Mb RAM, 80 Gb hard drive, a CD burner and no sound card.

I understand the sort of soundcard that I'm looking for, the more analog imputs the better....BUT...I'm very confused when it comes to connecting mics to the computer through a small mixer.

I have heard people say they run mics through a pre-amp, compressor etc into a mixer, then into the stereo input of their soundcard....but if you take three mic tracks and end up with one cable into the soundcard....haven't you mashed three tracks into one?...won't this keep you from playing with the three tracks on the virtual mixer of your computer's software?

I thought that you would want to do as little as possible to the sound before it hits the software? (other than pre-amp and compression)....please someone explain.

Finally, could someone clarify a typical moniter set-up in a small studio? I had planned on running self-amplified speakers directly out of the soundcard, but if I go with a small mixer, should I run soundcard-mixer-speakers instead?

Thanks

[Barometer]

Welcome to the board.

My understanding is that you will need to preamp your mics otherwise no signal to the soundcard (they need power). Some mixers come with mic pres, but I think you have to check the quality of the pres for your particlular mixer. You don't HAVE to compress before the computer, but I have seen alot of guys here talk about that. I don't cause I don't have a hardware compressor and things still seem to record fine. I have line out for 4 channels of my mixer, plus monitor sends and stereo sends, so I can hook up multple tracks to my Delta 1010 without "smashing" them to one track. You need to find a mixer that can accomodate a multiple out kind of setup. One with only stereo outs will not help ONLY IF you intend to record multiple tracks at a time. If you're alone it shouldn't mattter, you're going to single track in that case.
I'm not sure about yoiur monitor situation. If they're powered I would assume you could run them directly out of your soundcard. I run the 1 and 2 outs of my Delta 1010 to two tracks on a PA and output through monitors there. Hope this helps and I'm sure someone will come along with better info than me