Audicity?

A

a_new_ending

New member
I'm recording through audicity a free program I found on the internet. I'm going through my mic jack on my computer. I was just wondering any suggestions. Keep in mind i'm new at this...
 
Yea you definatly need to upgrade to a better sound card.....this is where you have to decide in which way you want to do it. You can go PCI, USB, Firewire, Etc. Your sound card is often referd to as audio interface. You can still record with your standard cheap mic and learn some techniques but if you want a decent quality upgrade. Once you get a new sound card you need to check and see if it came with a pre-amp (which some do) and if not just pick up a decent one. This can be somewhat costly so just read around and learn what is best for your personal tastes and feel.
 
I've used Audacity quite a bit (I reccomend it often for learning the basics of digital recording) and it's not bad beginner software. One thing you can do without it costing you too much is to use a preamp and record through the line in on your pc. This will improve the quality of your recordings greatly. To keep it really cheap you can even use a cassette deck (recorder) as a preamp. Just connect the line/aux line out from the deck to the line in on your soundcard, you may have to make a quick trip to Radio Shack to pick up an adapter cable to connect them. This wont be as effective as a "real" mixer/preamp but it will give you a little better quality and more control than you have now. A couple of decent mics will also help. It wasn't too many years ago that I was in the same place that you are now, I added gear as the need arose or as I could afford it.
 
For now, I'm using my Yamaha MTX 4 track ( 6 input channels) as a mixer, with the output going to the line-in of the soundcard on my PC.
So, I recommend a small mixer connected to line-in as a cheap start-up, rather than buying pre-amps and other more expensive devices.

The key is what you soundcard has for inputs ( one stereo = most sound cards versus 4, 8 , 12, 16 inputs of better quality ones)
AND what your software can handle.
Some of the FREE software can only record one track at a time. Is that what you want ?

If you want to record , ex: guitar and vocals to separate tracks, you have to investigate what software / soundcard etc will work for you.
Then, you might want to record a few people, or need 8 or 12 inputs for a live band

I read a recent Canadian Musician article that Firewire is the best way to go, because you usually only have one FW device operating.
USB - once you have multiple devices, including printers, you can get bottlenecks.
 
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