Recording with what I have

  • Thread starter Thread starter nanulak
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nanulak

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Hello all. This is my first post here. I hope it is in the right spot.

I am an amateur musician and I record by myself in my room. I came here hoping to get some advice on how to best record with what I already have and what is absolutely essential for me to pick up next.

I used to just jam and record with the internal mic on my Apple Powerbook, so I am not looking for a huge step in the professional direction just yet. I have this equipment to work with:

Shure SM57 mic
Roland SP 404 sampler
Line 6 DL4 stompbox
Korg microKORG synth
Electric and acoustic guitars
Asus PC laptop

There is a DJ mixer in the house as well that I have not tried yet.

What is the easiest way to get the synth, guitar, vocals, samples, etc. recorded and ready to be edited on the computer? And then with what program?

I hope there are some tips out there. Thanks for any advice :]

nanulak
 
Your going to need a mic preamp and interface (analog to digital). They make mic preamp / interface combos. Presonus makes an array of these. You should decide what your trying to achieve with this. If your planning on getting an entire band involved then that will determine the gear your going to need. There is different DAW software to choose from. Some are free and some are not. But there is a reason for that.

Use the search function. Keywords: interface, tracking levels, recording levels, mic placement
 
ez_willis said:
MOST of the time. you can download REAPER for free and it's as powerful as you will ever need it to be.
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No doubt it will do the job. But are the built in plug-ins going to be that great? I honestly don't know. I've never used reaper. But there has to be a reason it's free.
 
gcapel said:
No I've never used reaper. But there has to be a reason it's free.
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Reaper really isn't free, it costs $60. What some people do is download it and then don't buy the license after the thirty day trial period is expired. When the 30 days is up Reaper does not quit working, it simply boots with a temporary startup screen reminding you to buy your license. Some folks simply wait the 15 seconds for the screen to quit and then use the program. Reaper is a great program and worth sixty bucks!

KAE, Kristal Audio Engine, is free, and it's a damn good program. Just because a program is free doesn't mean it's a piece of crap.
 
Luca Brasi said:
Reaper really isn't free, it costs $60. What some people do is download it and then don't buy the license after the thirty day trial period is expired. When the 30 days is up Reaper does not quit working, it simply boots with a temporary startup screen reminding you to buy your license. Some folks simply wait the 15 seconds for the screen to quit and then use the program. Reaper is a great program and worth sixty bucks!

KAE, Kristal Audio Engine, is free, and it's a damn good program. Just because a program is free doesn't mean it's a piece of crap.
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Good point, but I never said anything free was a piece of crap. There has to be a reason it's free. That's all I said.
 
gcapel said:
Good point, but I never said anything free was a piece of crap. There has to be a reason it's free. That's all I said.
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i think thats the difference with DAW pricing, the plug ins, not the actual sequencer...
 
gcapel said:
No doubt it will do the job. But are the built in plug-ins going to be that great? I honestly don't know. I've never used reaper. But there has to be a reason it's free.
Click to expand...

Reaper rules. I don't know why they chose the honor system business model but it has earned them tons of enthusiastic supporters. It doesn't just do the job it kicks the job's ass. The built in plugins are pretty nice I use them pretty much exclusively now.
 
As has been mentioned, Reaper is NOT free.

What is free, however, is the version of Cubase or Ableton or PT-M that is likely shipped with whatever interface you buy...software is the least of your worries. And you have a long way to go before you should even need to worry about plug quality one way or another.

G.
 
gcapel said:
No doubt it will do the job. But are the built in plug-ins going to be that great? I honestly don't know. I've never used reaper. But there has to be a reason it's free.
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Well, it boots up, then pauses for six seconds while it asks you to "think about buying Reaper" before continuing to load. That said, for $60 for a personal-use license, it's totally worth it. I think I made it no more than a couple days out of the evaluation period before I was just so impressed I wanted to give them my money.

The plugins area mixed bag. The eQ is perfectly serviceable, and the compressor, while not as user friendly as some I've used for a good number of things, is also incredibly easy to set up for sidechain compression, which is awesome.

The reverbs were really where I was most disappointed, but even then it's not that they're awful as much as they're not particularly excellent, and if you spend some time working with them you can get pretty good results.

That said, the free copy of whatever comes with the interface you buy will most likely come with a set of plugins as well, and there's a whole bunch of freeware stuff out on the net anyway - I thought the Antress plugins were rather decent. And anyway, Reaper comes with a convolution 'verb, which I THINK you can load other impulses into.
 
gcapel said:
No doubt it will do the job. But are the built in plug-ins going to be that great?
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they are pretty freaking awesome to me. I have the waves mercury bundle and hardly use them. not saying waves is spectacular, but whatever.

gcapel said:
But there has to be a reason it's free.
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just to be clear, i said it can be downloaded for free. and like kcearl said, it's a quick countdown then it loads up fully. i liked the program so much and was so impressed with their business model that i willingly gave them the best $60 i've ever spent.

also, z32 put together a bundle of free plugins that are all available online seperately. it's conveniently located into one downloadable file though. it's in this thread at A&A.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
The reverbs were really where I was most disappointed, but even then it's not that they're awful as much as they're not particularly excellent, and if you spend some time working with them you can get pretty good results.
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you do realize that ReaVerb is a convolution reverb, correct? and you know all about that by RTFM starting at section 16.8, right? ;)
 
gcapel said:
No doubt it will do the job. But there has to be a reason it's free.
Click to expand...

gcapel said:
I never said anything free was a piece of crap. There has to be a reason it's free. That's all I said.
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The reason it is so easy to obtain (as opposed to being free) and so cheap to buy and left to the conscience of the user is that the creators know they've got a damn good product that will encourage tons of people to get into the recording game and they are willing to gamble that although some people will never pay for it, most people will actually be happy to.
An observation from across the pond; I think American people by and large respect honest confidence, especially when the possessor of it is willing to actively demonstrate it, not just talk. In England, so often that honest confidence is read as arrogance or quirky madness and is shot down in flames or ridiculed.
I don't use Reaper, but it's the only DAW that I know of that I've heard nothing negative about. That's pretty unusual.
 
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