Seasoned Musician needs home recording direction

[rkearns10]

Hey Everyone!

This is my first post on the boards and I wanted to give you all a shout and give you some background on where I'm currently at:

I'm a serious musician who's played in a few bands and jammed and all that. I play brass instruments, percussion, and guitar, with my main focus on lead electric guitar. The Band I'm currently in has played some decent gigs around Buffalo, NY and we recently had a nice Gig opening at "Thursday in The Square" for Fitz and the Tantrums/Grace Potter and The Nocturnals.

Having said that, the direction of the band I'm in isn't really what I want to do, and I want to setup a home recording spot where I can basically put together a nice EP of my own work. I want to play rock, blues, indie, psychedelic kind of stuff. Another band member of mine recently purchased a Mac desktop, cheap pre-amp, and Logic Pro software for himself. I did some work with him on this software and this computer, and it seemed to work out pretty well with relative ease of production and computer competency (though expensive).

I want the type of computer software similar or identical to logic that will help me build songs from the ground up, with all those kinds of gadgets and tools and sounds available to really be creative, without having to worry about a computer crashing or sub-par software. I have electric and acoustic guitars, and would like to either plug them straight into the software and create different effects or distortions, and also record them externally with a microphone to get my real vintage tone I have as well. Also, I want to be able to record vocals, and possibly drums as well. Logic and/or any other potential software would provide other sampled instruments available that I could use beyond these basic ingredients.

So here I stand:
I have guitars, drums, and a voice.

I want: To record my own EP.

Would my best bet be to purchase a mac that could handle this audio programming load? (I only currently have a Toshiba laptop). Also, is logic pro a good way to go? I understand this is an expensive route, but I have recently been blessed with about 2 grand to spend. Aside from this, what else would I need to record external instruments? One mic for guitar, vocals, and drums? Or one mic for vocals and guitar and something separate for drums? A Preamp to plug instruments into? Any help would be appreciated!!!

 

[Steenamaroo]

OK...first up..don't spend anything............yet.

<phew> right,,so..2 grand. That's pretty much gone as soon as you go into a mac store, so we'll talk about that first.

If you really wanna mac that's cool; I just bought one myself, but,
What specs are your toshiba laptop?
I love macs but I'll be the first to say that they're overpriced and not essential. Most modern pcs will do.

Personally, I think your money is definitely better spend else where.

There are a million and one ways to go but for recording real drums, guitars and vocals, I'd recommend this.

Assuming your laptop will be fine, download reaper software for free. It does everything logic can in one way or another.
Get an 8 channel usb or firewire interface. You could get away with four, but 8 is more common. Presonus, maudio, etc.
Get monitors. If you have full range hifi speakers that you know very well you might get away with it.
Get some mics.

Re20 or sm7b would be nice cos they'll do vocals, bass, guitars, kick drum equally well..whatever you throw at it.
sm57 for snare.
Pair of overheads. Searching will be your friend here.
That's plenty of mics unless you have special needs (not like that!)

A lot of people put 8 or more mics on a kit on the assumption that more is better.
For me, Kick snare and overheads it's a much more controllable starting point.

You're gona need an xlr cable and stand for every simultaneously used mic.

If you wana record guitar amps with mics AND record a dry copy plugged in, you'll need a DI box per simultaneous guitar.

Hmm,,what else...
That's probably enough to go on for now right?

 

[gecko zzed]

^^^ What Steenamaroo says.

 

[stevieb]

I don't have the depth of knowledge about this that Steen has, but what he suggest sounds pretty good.