Audio Interface and DAW advice

A

Andriko

New member
Hi all,

I am looking at getting an inexpensive (£100 or less) audio interface, but don't know what I am doing (I've never used one before). The essential thing is that I can playback at the same time as recording a new track (which I think they all do?), and will be using an electric guitar for the most part (maybe an acoustic with a mic at some point).

The models that I am looking at are:

Behringer U-PHORIA UMC204HD or the Behringer UMC404HD


I am not sure if I will need 4 inputs, but the price doesn't seem much more, and might later on be useful. I've read something about it have a good pre-amp, so which seems a big plus.

I will be pugging the guitar straight into the PC, obviously, but as I've never done this, how does this compare to using an normal amp, and could I record via an amp? Or, is it quite straight forward to get a good guitar sound just through the interface and the DAW? Also, would I be able to plug effects peddles into the set up and so on?

As for DAWs - I don't know much about them either, and would prefer to not spend a bomb on one until I am more confident in what I am doing, but am I right in thinking that they allow 'synthetic' creation of other intrusments and tracks and so on?

Thanks for your help!

A
 
The behringher isn't a bad choice for a starter setup. I'm biased towards Cubase for software, but many people love Reaper, and of course the others.

Plugging a guitar in directly works fine, but of course doesn't let you record anything your guitar amp and speaker actually does to the signal -- for that you just use a mic on the speaker. My guitar rarely goes into an amp nowadays.
 
Your Behringer should come with a license for Tracktion OEM which is a DAW. Another free option would be Cakewalk by Bandlab.

Most interfaces come with some type of software. Focusrite usually has Protools First, Presonus comes with Studio One, Tascam and Zoom have CubaseLE, Steinberg has Cubase AI.

Reaper is free to try, $60 for a license.

I agree with getting as many mic inputs as possible, the day always comes where you want to use 3 or 4 mics and you only have two inputs. If you have 4, you'll want to have 6 one day. The UMC404 isn't really much more money when you look at it. Eat at home a couple of nights instead of going out for pizza and beer and you've saved more than enough money.

Depending on your software, you should have some type of amp simulator. A cheap alternative if you want to try is to get something like a Line6 POD. You can find used units on places like Craigslist. They make a passable guitar sound if you take your time.
 
Thanks for the advice guys, it's been very helpful!

One more thing that I forgot to ask - I run my PC Screen (well, the TV basically) through a hifi set up - would it be ok to connect the interface to that also? I don't see why not, but I just want to make sure that I won't blow up the speakers or something!

Thanks,

A
 
You can run line outputs from your interface to something like a CD input of a receiver or preamp and use your hifi.

I actually have my Tascam interface set up right now to go from my turntable/preamp to record old records, then I can feed right back to the preamp to play on my stereo system with IMFs transmission line speakers. I've been transferring some of my old albums to digital, things that can't be replaced with CD. Doing the transfers at 88k/24bit, I can hear absolutely no difference between the album and the digital transfer.
 
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