Going to set up my PC for recording, got some ?'s

C

Creepy Groovy

New member
Hey guys

First let me start by saying this seems like a great forum. I hope to learn a lot hanging out here.

Anyway, I'm planning on setting up my pc for recording. I'm a guitar player of 18 years with pro caliber ability, and I'm looking for suggestions on getting the best sound from my amp into the pc.

I've been reading all I can find on guitar forums about recording and these are some items I have chosen:

1)SonarXL. Seems to be the best bang for the $ out there for software right now. Has what I need to create the backing tracks I'm after.

2)Audiophole 2496 soundcard. Again, best bang for the buck.....?
Has to be better than the Soundblaster Live currently installed in my machine.

The biggest question I have now is how exactly do I record my guitar amp? The amp has a direct line out, would you run a line directly from this to the Audiophile soundcard or use a mic?

I am also a little worried about compatibility issues. Would this be a good combo? The rest of my hardware includes: 40 gig hard drive, 500 megs RAM, 450 watt power supply, AMD Athlon 1800+ processor. OS is Windows XP.

I'm ready to get started, just wanting to prevent some trial and error.

Thanks

Stu
 
Looking at your computer specs it's definately up to it. You'll get a lot of mileage out of it before you even have to consider to upgrade it. Some chipsets for Athlon computers may have some compatibility issues with some soundcards but since you're using an 1800+ XP, I assume that the chipset on your motherboard is recent and decent enough to have not to worry about it. Although it wouldn't hurt to check which chipset your motherboard is using anyhow.

Audiophile: Don't have one myself (still sub-par sblive here) but everyone who uses is, seems to like it a lot.

Sonar: Haven't used it myself. Can't comment on it.

To record a guitar amp:
mic -> mic preamp -> audiophile
Commonly used mic to record guitar amps is the well known Shure SM57, the choice of preamp is mostly determined by how much you want to spend on it. Prices start at $79,- for an M-audio audiobuddy and from there the sky is the limit.
 
Creepy Groovy said:
Hey guys

First let me start by saying this seems like a great forum. I hope to learn a lot hanging out here.

Anyway, I'm planning on setting up my pc for recording. I'm a guitar player of 18 years with pro caliber ability, and I'm looking for suggestions on getting the best sound from my amp into the pc.

I've been reading all I can find on guitar forums about recording and these are some items I have chosen:

1)SonarXL. Seems to be the best bang for the $ out there for software right now. Has what I need to create the backing tracks I'm after.

2)Audiophole 2496 soundcard. Again, best bang for the buck.....?
Has to be better than the Soundblaster Live currently installed in my machine.

The biggest question I have now is how exactly do I record my guitar amp? The amp has a direct line out, would you run a line directly from this to the Audiophile soundcard or use a mic?

I am also a little worried about compatibility issues. Would this be a good combo? The rest of my hardware includes: 40 gig hard drive, 500 megs RAM, 450 watt power supply, AMD Athlon 1800+ processor. OS is Windows XP.

I'm ready to get started, just wanting to prevent some trial and error.

Thanks

Stu
Click to expand...

Sonar in combination with the Audiophile seems to be a waste of money. If you truly need only to record 2 inputs at a time, you should just buy Home Studio 2004 instead.

The major difference between the 2 software titles is that Sonar can recognize soundcards with more than 2 inputs and record from them simultaneously.
 
Anyone else agree that I'll be wasting money buying SonarXL and the Audiophile soundcard? I don't see myself recording more than one instrument at a time, but who knows what I'll have needs for in the future. I may want to record more than 2 inputs at a time, who knows? I don't want to be limited. I will be forming some kind of group soon, recording/playing live.

Another question: I have had so many recommendations for the Shure SM57 mic, so I'll be getting it. While looking at preamps however, I see that there's a tube preamp available for 99.95 from zsounds.com. I'm trying to decide between the audiobuddy for 79.95, or the ART Tube MP for 99.95. Would the sound quality be that different with these two preamps? $20 isn't that big of a deal in the scheme of things.

This is what I'm looking at so far:
SonarXL $399
Audiophile soundcard $149.95
Shure SM57 mic $79.95
Mic Preamp $79.95 or $99.95

That comes to a grand total of 729.85, or 709.85. I pulled those prices from zsounds.com. My credit card can take the hit, and in October we Alaskans get the PFD = )
Someone else have any opinions on what I have decided on so far?

Thanks

stu
 
One more thing to consider is if you need midi, or whether you will record using audio only.

If you don't need midi, then Sonar might be more than you need. I use Guitar Tracks Pro which only has audio capability and is consequently a lot cheaper than Sonar. You still get multi-input recording capability, 32 tracks, a whole range of effects, dynamics processing, amp simulators and Fruity Loops for drums.

Check it out on the Cakewalk site.

Edit: Maybe this http://www.tascam.com/products/computer_recording/us122/index.php

would be worth a look also
 
Creepy Groovy said:
Anyone else agree that I'll be wasting money buying SonarXL and the Audiophile soundcard? I don't see myself recording more than one instrument at a time, but who knows what I'll have needs for in the future. I may want to record more than 2 inputs at a time, who knows? I don't want to be limited. I will be forming some kind of group soon, recording/playing live.
Click to expand...

Think of this... You can do a cross upgrade to SonarXL from Home Studio 2004. The interfaces from what I've heard are very similar, just that Sonar can record more than 2 tracks (ie one stereo input) at a time.

In do this, you will have more money now to get better other equipment then down the track you can do a cross upgrade when you need to.. when I was looking at it, it was only like $50 to buy Home Studio and cross-upgrade as opposed to buying SonarXL out right.

If you don't want to be limited you could spend much more and get a sound card that has 8 inputs and then buy SonarXL but that would cost much more.

Porter
 
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