not too experienced, needs advice

S

solarchaos

New member
Hi, i play bass in a band and for some time i've kinda been in charge of recording (only problem is we have a low budge). We have a drummer, a bassist (me) and a guitarist. The guitarist and I sing and we have a makeshift PA system. I have a dell pentium 3 500 mhz with 256 mb ram, win 2000, a sony 4x cd burner and a sb live value sound card. For our first recording, my friend gave me some advice, and i we purchased two cassette recorders with built in multi directional mics. We put them in opposite ends of the garage and hit record simultaenously. Then i fed both tapes into my comptuer and mixed them. The only problem was the tapes would somehow get desynched and the only way i could fix it was to insert silence on one of the tapes. I recorded the songs as wav files and burned them to cd. The quality was pretty good but the silences caused it to sound like it skipped. We tried one tape player but u couldn't hear all the instruments and vocals balanced.
So, i figured i have these two tape players and a computer and i got an idea: i have a cable that would enable me to plug both tape players into the line in jack of my sound card and then i could just use the microphones and record on the computer as wav file and burn it. I have not tried this yet and i was wonderin if anyone had any tips or suggestions that would make it go a bit smoother if anyone has done something like this before.
 
Solarchaos,
I do not know what kind of cassette recorders you are using, but I would try to find a way to keep them out of the loop. You will get much cleaner recordings going direct to your pc.
The pc you describe is turbo charged recording studio in disguise - let it do all the work. With the right soundcard and software you have the tools to do some real burnin.
 
the only reason i was using the casette recorders is for the multidirectional mics. do u have any suggestions for cheap mics i could buy? or not necessarily cheap but what is the lowest cost way to get the sound into my computer? would u recommend a certain kind of mic please? and how much would it cost?
 
Shure SM's

You should get some shure sm 57 for drums and guitars, these are cheap and great sounding mics. I myself have a VERY low budget and have also some cheap AudioTechnica and (believe it or not) a Kenwood mic, but they can handle the job better than the ones you mention.

I also recommend greatly n-track, it's a very powerful, low-priced and easy to use program to record multitrack.

PS. I wish I had your computer ! :)
 
john, its just a joke, my friend made up the javascript code and gave it to me, i think its kinda funny. anyways. does anyone have any not so expensive ideas for mics and a way to get them into my computer?
flapol, which model audiotechnica mics do u use? and what do u record with? do u use a mixer or 4 track or somethin? i download n-track and it looks pretty cool i have some other new software that i downloaded that i want to experiment with, again if anyone has any recommendations for microphones to record with and a way to get them into my computer i would be very thankful!
 
Im amazed you even tried the tape decks.
For what its worth on cheap mikes.
Musicians friend has some cheap nady mikes.
Starpower I, list $65.00 going for $9.99 Vocal mike.
Starpower Ix, list $84.99 going for $19.99 Instrutment mike.

You may want to check out ebay etc.
You need a small mixer if you plan on recording live.
Heres a link you might be interested in.

http://www.musichotbid.com/

Duckhead
 
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