newby with laptop

J

jamesdolecek

New member
I'm wanting to get into recording using my laptop, so if i buy a small mixer can I just connect the mixer to my line out on my laptop? Also will my onboard audio card be good enough? I just want to record one at a time.so will this work? Not sure if this makes a difference or not but I have a new laptop
 
The soundcards that come with computers aren't really intended for the rigours of multitrack recording, much less quality recording. You need an interface. They come with 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 inputs.
What sort of stuff are you recording ?
 
and FAQ on the pros and cons of using a mixer in a home studio set up HERE.

Short version: you don't need a mixer and any mixer you could buy for an equivalent price to the Focusrite Scarlett mentioned above would do more harm than good to your sound.

Also, just to confirm what others have said, the onboard sound card in your laptop will be useless for recording purposes, with or without a mixer--they're noisy and lacking in headroom, designed with an emphasis on playback for videos and games. The inputs are almost afterthoughts, designed for Skype phone calls etc.
 
Like they mentioned, a USB interface like the scarlett would be perfect and budget friendly for starting off w/ your laptop if you only need a couple inputs. The I/O you need obviously depends on what all you're recording and other gear you want to run to the interface, but either way I would forget about using the onboard soundcard now if you really want to get into this. Here's an audio interface buying guide if you are going to investigate some other options besides the FR scarlett.
 
"any mixer you could buy for an equivalent price to the Focusrite Scarlett mentioned above would do more harm than good to your sound."

Don't think it is often I dissagree with you Bobbsy but the above is not really true.
A $150 mixer is actually likely to have better mic preamps than most AIs up to $250 and be infinitely more versatile.

This does NOT mean OP that you need a mixer! You definitely need an interface. And sorry to put you on to ever more reading but do look up "latency" and the problems it might cause you. If you conclude that it WILL be a problem you will need to stretch the budget a bit and investigate the Native Instruments KA6.

Dave.
 
The attached was sent to me by my son from France yesterday.

This was done in a bedroom using a fairly basic HP XP laptop, a fast track pro and an acoustic guitar with a magnetic soundhole pickup.

DAW was Adobe Audition 1.5 with which he has added a touch of reverb.
I send this to show what can be done with some very basic equipment but also would welcome (as would son!) any comments from the professionals here?

Dave.
 

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ecc83 said:
The attached was sent to me by my son from France yesterday.

This was done in a bedroom using a fairly basic HP XP laptop, a fast track pro and an acoustic guitar with a magnetic soundhole pickup.

DAW was Adobe Audition 1.5 with which he has added a touch of reverb.
I send this to show what can be done with some very basic equipment but also would welcome (as would son!) any comments from the professionals here?

Dave.
Click to expand...

Another +1 to the talent, being the most important factor in the goal of recording success. Well done 'son of Dave'. :)
 
ecc83 said:
"any mixer you could buy for an equivalent price to the Focusrite Scarlett mentioned above would do more harm than good to your sound."

Don't think it is often I dissagree with you Bobbsy but the above is not really true.
A $150 mixer is actually likely to have better mic preamps than most AIs up to $250 and be infinitely more versatile.

This does NOT mean OP that you need a mixer! You definitely need an interface. And sorry to put you on to ever more reading but do look up "latency" and the problems it might cause you. If you conclude that it WILL be a problem you will need to stretch the budget a bit and investigate the Native Instruments KA6.

Dave.
Click to expand...

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one then Dave. I don't know of any mixers in that price bracket that has even half decent mic pre amps (second hand market aside of course). This is not to say that all AIs have good pre-amps...they don't...but, with careful choice and advice you can certainly find them. (As an aside, I lament the discontinuing of the old Soundcraft Notepad 102 which was a lovely little unit and sounded good. However, you'd have had to purchase an interface anyway as it wasn't a USB device.)

As for flexibility, you have to be very careful. The routing options on many cheapie mixers simply aren't there--for example, most of the ones with USB connections only feed the main mix into the computer...and, stupidly, the output from the computer can only be routed to the main mix! Not all do this--but a significant number do--so you have to watch specs like a hawk and read the manual before buying anything.
 
"We'll have to agree to disagree on this one then Dave."

Ooo! Not agreeing to anything yet Mr Bobbs!
The pre amp circuitry in budget mixers and AIs is essentially the same, even that nice Soundcraft I am willing to bet* uses the almost ubiquitous 2 discrete transistors+op amp topology. To name names, Behringer mixers are often cited as "bad" but the ADA 8000 ADAT converter is used by many pros and uses the very same circuitry as the small mixers (and my defunct BCA 2000 AI. Berries pres SOUND ok but they can fail!) .

But mixers tend to have greater gain which can show up noise if peeps do not gain stage properly whereas AI's tend to limit gain to 55dB tops. I used a Bellringer 802 for 3 years afront a 2496 and got excellent results. That gave way to an A&H zed10 which IS better but only marginally so. (chosen mainly for 2 more mic amps and built in high Z inputs) .

There was a very well executed comparison done with a clutch of pre amps, budget to high flyers last year by SoS mag, and NOBODY could tell them apart!

Do note kind Sir that I am talking only about analogue mixers. NOT the usb jobbies, most of which are pretty poor in one way or another (tis the interface that is crap, the mixer part is usually fine. One exception is my ZED10 which is an excellent AI for 16bits but I never use it in that mode.)

Lest I am (again!) confusing the OP? STILL do not get a mixer! Get an AI. But anyone else that happens to have a decent soundcard (not a Creative SoB!) in their PC, a wee mixer makes abundant sense.

*Re Douglas Self. In fact virually all mic pres are variations of this circuit (unless they use an input transformer e.g Neve) regardless of price. There are exceptions . Grace do different.

Dave.
 
Ah, a discussion! Bring it on!

I'm the proud owner of 4 ADA8000s. I have and do use them professionally but...and a big but...I still think the pre amps are rubbish. Turn the gain up beyond about 3 o'clock and the noise makes them unusable. However, I can get away with them for live work, especially as (when I was doing lots of theatre stuff) all my radio mics had line outputs anyway--and the rest I could use with "non money channel" mics that I knew would be happy with very low gain settings.

If the ADA8000 uses the same pre amp circuitry as Behringer mixers then I call rubbish on them too--and my experience with them bears this out. I could get away with them if I kept the gain nice and low but woe betide me if I had to crank them up.

Now, I also have a cheap M Audio Mobile Pre which I use for a lot of mobile stuff. The mic pre amps are nowhere near Rupert Neve (heck not even near Rupert the Bear) but I can still crank them up all the way with no audible noise. The Mobile Pre is my only stand alone interface now (my "big" interface is a digital mixer) but my experience with previous AIs is similar to the Mobile Pre. I'm sure there are rubbish AIs out there as well but, in my experience at least, $150 spent on an interface will get you better quality than the same money on a mixer, if only because of the money the manufacturer has to spend on useless toy EQ sections, useless toy effects units, cheap faders rather than cheaper pots and so on.

I should say that I definitely WAS talking about mixers with USB out since, without that, the OP would have to buy a mixer and an interface anyway.

Finally, a point of agreement. Yes, if you have a decent sound card in your computer a mixer (probably more than $150 though) makes eminent sense. However I challenge you to name a single computer that comes with a decent (much less good) sound card! Until you get into the specialist AI market (PCI or external) they just don't exist!

Apologies to the OP for diverting your topic...David and I agree that you need an audio interface, not a mixer. We're just discussing why! :)
 
Well all I can say MrB is that you have been a bit unlucky, four times!

I have used our Berry 802 with an SM57 on moderately picked acoustic guitar and the biggest problem is our envoirenment, blasted wildlife mostly!

The only review of the ADA8K I trust, SoS, certainly does not put the pres in Neve territory (they cheat anyway and use a traff!) but they, as I have found with the mixers and the BCA2000, a cap mic solves most problems.

Re "proper" soundcards? Plenty of total recording noobs are nonetheless very computer savvy (we actually have an ex PROGRAMMER amongst us forfend!) so fitting an EMU or an M-Audio card would not be a problem (it ain't anyway) and as I have said, and will stand by, makes for a very versatile setup.

"Toytown eq? Well, $1k api a channel it ain't but that Soundcraft only uses the common TL072 +3 pots jobbie betcha betcha! And we all know that unless you can drop a LOT of money on outboard, software FX are best.

NOW! I think we need to agree to differ?

Dave.
 
Recorded with Scarlett 2i2, 1 AT 4033, $250 Ampeg amp, Cubase 5, off the shelf cheapo gateway PC from best buy. Depending on your point of view it either speaks for or against the quality/results you can get with a $99 interface (open box @ best buy) and a relatively inexpensive microphone. Please don't accuse me of click harvesting, as it's a dropbox link :-)

 
ecc83 said:
Well all I can say MrB is that you have been a bit unlucky, four times!
Click to expand...

Story of my life. Actually I knew what I was getting into and, as hinted at above, had specific needs for them that I figured they'd by okay for. Noise aside, they're more than 8 years old, were used a lot before I retired, and have never given me a glitch or hiccup.

Re "proper" soundcards? Plenty of total recording noobs are nonetheless very computer savvy (we actually have an ex PROGRAMMER amongst us forfend!) so fitting an EMU or an M-Audio card would not be a problem (it ain't anyway) and as I have said, and will stand by, makes for a very versatile setup.
Click to expand...

Yeah but to split a rather large hair I was referring to the sort of sound cards included when you buy a computer, not something specialist you install for yourself. Once you buy and install an EMU (may they RIP) or M Audio, a mixer may be the way to go--indeed, it's how I went back in my analogue days. However, besides mic pre quality, don't forget that I also mentioned routing flexibility. To be much use you must have convenient ways to set up control room monitors, headphone mixes, studio PA, etc. (and also turn some of that off easily in feedbackable situations). That's the second area where the cheapies fail to perform.

"Toytown eq? Well, $1k api a channel it ain't but that Soundcraft only uses the common TL072 +3 pots jobbie betcha betcha! And we all know that unless you can drop a LOT of money on outboard, software FX are best.
Click to expand...

Mea Culpa. I forgot to mention that the application I had for the Soundcraft notepads was one where the EQ was largely irrelevant--self op rooms where journalists could lay down commentaries over pre-edited video for themselves. They worked well and sounded good for that. It's worth saying that, personally, I rarely use board EQ in the studio anyway--but it's an essential live tool for me. I keep forgetting not everyone does both!

NOW! I think we need to agree to differ?

Dave.
Click to expand...

Well, at least we agree on something! :)
 
One thing I do like about using a mixer/soundcard is that I can roll off the bass to simulate a HP filter, a function hardly ever seen on AI pre amps. Regardless of the general quality of an EQ circuit, CUT never hurts nuffin!

BTW Bobbs, you could probably silk purse those Berry pre amps by replacing the front end transistors. (or a Cloudlifter or three?)

Dave.
 
I apologize if i repeat what someone else has already said..But u don't even need a mixer, instead you can just purchase a 2channel interface for under $100. It will come with a USB cable to connect to your laptop. U can hook up your instrument or mic to the input of the interface. You can then either use your laptop speakers for monitoring or get some headphones. Done..
 
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