Help with recording

L

lghjokester

New member
hellow everyone i just signed up to this website looking for help, i am completley lost.

This is what i currently have,
Taylor T5-s Acoustic Electric Guitar
2 Computers, 1 windows XP , and 1 dell Pentium 4
I have a real crappy fender frontman 15g amp
Basic cables that go from guitar to amp
I also downloaded a program called audacity,

if anyone could please help me i have no idea what else i should get, mic/mic stand/different software/ i always see so many things in studios, where to plug mic / guitar into, do i need ("monitor speakers") or will my cpu ones be okay? or should i get headphones please HELP
 
You really need an audio interface. I have a cheapish one that is very good and came packed with Cubase (the multi tracker) a synth (Proteus, with drums and lots of pads and organs etc, a guitar modeller (amplitude) as well as other stuff.
So the interface is a USB self powered with input and output boosts, a pre amp in it for the mic, headphone plugs, canon mic plugs and normal input plugs all for 100 bucks. It's the E-Mu 0202. Well worth it.
Then learn Cubase. Learn mixing, vst and vsti, then move up in scale to the newer versions.
Honestly, once you've got that basic set up you can do almost anything. So, search for online shopping for some sort of interface. Other people will like different ones, Firewire etc. It's up to you. But, you need that audio interface come soundcard as the pc built in soundcards are not that good, with high latency, and less quality in the output.
 
My obligatory standard reply-for-newbies that I keep in Wordpad:

First off, immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $15
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07...ce&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance
(Wish I'd had that when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)
You can also pick up this book in most any Borders or Barnes&Noble in the Music Books section!

Another good one is: Recording Guitar and Bass by Huw Price
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Gui...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215734124&sr=1-1
(I got my copy at a place called Half-Price Books for $6!!)

And you can get a FREE subscription to TapeOp magazine at www.tapeop.com

Barnes&Noble or Borders are great places to start --- they have recording books and you can go get a snack or coffee and read them for FREE! Don't pass by a good recording book --- this is a VERY technical hobby and you REALLY want to start a reference library!!!

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics and have good tips:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/computermusic?entry=free_beginner_pdfs
http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/

21 Ways To Assemble a Recording Rig: http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

Also Good Info: http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.htm

Other recording books: http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html

Still using a built-in soundcard?? Unfortunately, those are made with less than $1 worth of chips for beeps, boops and light gaming (not to mention cheapness for the manufacturer) and NOT quality music production.
#1 Rule of Recording: You MUST replace the built-in soundcard.
Here's a good guide and tested suggestions: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm


Plenty of software around to record for FREE to start out on:

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net (multi-track with VST support)
Wavosaur: http://www.wavosaur.com/ (a stereo audio file editor with VST support)\
Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/
Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com/smm

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/ (It's $50 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)
I use Reaper and highly reccomend it...

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($25) and Harmony Assistant ($80) have the power of $600 notation packages - http://myriad-online.com
Demo you can try on the website.

And you can go out to any Barnes&Noble or Borders and pick up "Computer Music" magazine - they have a full FREE studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (November 2006 they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150, November 2007-on the racks Dec in the US- they gave away SamplitudeV9SE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)
 
Welcome to the board and welcome to the wacky (and often frustrating) world of home recording. Before going into any details of things you are going to need I suggest you visit the Tweakheadz website and do a little reading about what is available, what it does, and about what it will cost. Forget any notions of using computer mics and stock soundcards, they are only good for gamming and online chat. Decide what you want to be able to do, you can keep a home studio pretty simple and still get good results or you can make it a complicated set up depending on your needs and finances. The first thing to look for is a good interface, either USB or firewire (I prefer firewire.) Depending on what you choose you will also want to consider a good preamp and possibly a mixer. Good mics are a must have item (not nessassarly the most expensive but good quality.) A higher (faster) RAM card (1 gig or more) will also be a big help. You already downloaded Audacity, thats a start, I hope you downloaded the older version, the beta version still has quite a few bugs. You will likely want to move on to a better recording program at some point but Audacity is fine for learning the basics of recording and it is very simple to use. Invest in a good book or two on recording, Home Recording for Dummies is a good one to start with, I wish I had found that book a couple of years sooner than I did, It would have saved me a lot of frustration and a few $$$. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, and never be afraid to ask questions. Remember that even the best engineer was once as perplexed as you are now.
 
Check out a few other interfaces before you buy from Radio Shack. M-Audio, M-Box, Audio Buddy or something like these units. These are good starter units and include recording software which can keep you going for quite a while. You can try the Radio Shack unit if you like but I would think that for $30 you wont get very many quality features. Features to look for are, TRS and 1/4 inch inputs, line level and aux (line in) inputs, built in preamp, phantom power, and multiple outs.
 
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