Need advice, the whole set up

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nightpoison

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I just found this forum and I'm happy to find it. I need some advice. I'm new to the whole recording aspect of music. to be honest, I'm personally not musically inclined at all. That's my wife's thing. she's a classically trained singer.

well after working as a contractor in multiple studios over the years. She is now opening her own studio. one of the thoughts that we had was to offer recordings for her students. She won't be offering it for every lesson, just for milestones for either piano or vocals. So when a student reaches the point of having a solid grasp of a piano piece we would like to record it and hand it over to the student.

so that's why I'm here. We need to figure out recording equipment. Through my research I have come across what we need, well an idea of what we need.

1) computer - which we have and fairly good quality. Will be making some upgrades to the desktop to an SSD so there's no noise from a standard hard drive, and quieter fans.

2) software - I don't want free, but I don't want $500 software, as I've always been a pay for the quality you get, unless its actually better. I would like some suggestions on software we would need that's easy to learn/lots of tutorials and books on the software. pure natural recording, not looking for any synthesized sounds or anything like that. We will be working with max 4 individual parts. piano, maybe guitar, and two singing parts.

3) microphone - I know there's arange, but this is not professional recording yet, but we do want it to sound good. affordable price range. we understand the mic is very important. a microphone that would be good for classical sound. a mic that is good that won't pick up a ton of ambient noise.

4) piano - we have a Korg SP250 digital piano. its several years old, but she likes it and we won't be upgrading right now.

5) midi controller - I think that's what its called not sure. but the box that allows the digital piano to connect to the computer. I would assume we can use the same box to connect the microphone and a electric/acoustic guitar as well.

6)Studio monitors - mainly for track playback and obvious reasons.

7) accessories. I know I need cables, mic stand, mic screen and probably some other random stuff. not looking to get to involved in sound dampening or really crazy stuff at the moment.

SHORT TERM GOAL: just looking to learn the process on how to do home recording, offer basic recording to students, and make some home tracks for pet projects.

LONG TERM GOAL: we will be converting a workshop we have out back into a music studio. Its already set up as two rooms, plenty of space for a parlor grand and digital piano in the main room. the secondary room will be great for a desk with recording equipment. At that time I would like to take the knowledge I've learned over the next couple years and do some more serious home recording.

I hope I can get some suggestions on basic gear for now. I would like to keep the budget at $750 max. Ideally would like to keep it below that, but that's the max.
 
Software... Reaper. $60.

I don't know about your piano, but if it's a digital piano that makes a sound that your wife likes then I wouldn't be bothering trying to record the audio in the room (microphone/s), I'd be taking the audio direct from the machine and recording that instead - presumably, being a stage piano, it has audio outs. I'd also record the MIDI instructions. And then I'd probably throw away the audio you recorded (I doubt, really, it's that good) and have the MIDI instructions play better samples... which you'd have to buy. Pianoteq is one, not very CPU intensive, way to go.

Whether or not you can satisfactorily record the other elements (vocals, guitar etc.) to accompany your piano tracks depends upon a lot of factors.

Get a good LDC and a 2 channel interface which does MIDI (I have no particular recommendations in your price range, others will...) and some monitors and away you go. Will it be any good? Depends a lot on your ears and your room, on which topics there's lots of info hereabouts. It will pick up background noise, however... it's a microphone... that's what it does. Perhaps some other posters will have a particular dynamic microphone recommendation for you which may help that particular problem. I don't, but they do exist.

I'll let you work out how "pure natural recording" and a digital piano go together...
 
Armistice,

thanks for the advice. I'll check out Reaper. One thing I want to point out is that I had no intention of recording the piano live in the room. I always intended to use the audio out, I was of the understanding I needed a device to connect it to that will allow it to connect to my computer. The only audio I wanted to record through the microphone would be for vocals. I assume and electric and acoustic/electric could hook up to the computer in a similar fashion as the piano to record that audio as well.

I'll look into LDC microphones as well. thank you

Armistice said:
Software... Reaper. $60.

I don't know about your piano, but if it's a digital piano that makes a sound that your wife likes then I wouldn't be bothering trying to record the audio in the room (microphone/s), I'd be taking the audio direct from the machine and recording that instead - presumably, being a stage piano, it has audio outs. I'd also record the MIDI instructions. And then I'd probably throw away the audio you recorded (I doubt, really, it's that good) and have the MIDI instructions play better samples... which you'd have to buy. Pianoteq is one, not very CPU intensive, way to go.

Whether or not you can satisfactorily record the other elements (vocals, guitar etc.) to accompany your piano tracks depends upon a lot of factors.

Get a good LDC and a 2 channel interface which does MIDI (I have no particular recommendations in your price range, others will...) and some monitors and away you go. Will it be any good? Depends a lot on your ears and your room, on which topics there's lots of info hereabouts. It will pick up background noise, however... it's a microphone... that's what it does. Perhaps some other posters will have a particular dynamic microphone recommendation for you which may help that particular problem. I don't, but they do exist.

I'll let you work out how "pure natural recording" and a digital piano go together...
Click to expand...
 
Had look at the book for the SP-280 and I can see some operational difficulties?

How does you wife presently listen to the keyboard as she sings and plays?
I suspect over headphones, if via the built in speakers she will not of course be able to do this when recording, the sound is likely to be very poor quality and it would be hard to get a good balance of voice to piano with no option to change it post tracking.

Then, when recording a student both your wife and student will need a headphone feed and the student some "foldback" of their voice in all probability. This could probably be done with a multi-output headphone amplifier but a much more flexible way would be a modest mixer. My A&H ZED10 would be the very chap IMHO (just a suggestion! NOT seeking to sell it!).

For an AI I shall unashamedly recommend the Native Instuments Komplete Audio 6. It comes with Cubase LE6 but I would stay with the suggestion of the more user friendly Reaper* Cubase is the bizz' however if your wife want to get deeply into MIDI.

Mics are tricky because not all mics suit all voices. Perhaps the best option is to go for a neutral mic, the Rode NT-1 is said to be one such. I have a Sontronics STC-2 LDC and that too has very little "attitude". Can't hurt to get a Shure SM58 as well!

*That saves you around $450 on software so you can afford the mixer!

"1) computer - which we have and fairly good quality. Will be making some upgrades to the desktop to an SSD so there's no noise from a standard hard drive, and quieter fans."

From what I have read an SSD will give you faster boot times but little extra advantage in YOUR particular situation. 7,200rpm drives are not really that noise these days and you can silence them anyway. I would suggest that whatever drive you get for OS and DAW get a big, 2TB spinner to record to. I have recently bought a 2TB USB 3.0 Seagate drive for £60 and it is as the grave!

Dave.
 
well she currently plays through the speakers, but when we record I intentions of recording the piano part digitally to the computer first, then we would play it back through headphones for her to sing the part along with the piano piece. both the piano and vocals on two tracks and then sync them up.

with the student, I would do it the same way. If it was vocal, we would just do a vocal track with student listening to a precorded instrumental through the headphones. Piano, would just record directly to the computer.

I'll keep a running list of software for when we upgrade down the road, but I really like the price point of Reaper and the reviews and write-ups on it, seem to be what I'm looking for for now.

Yea, Mics seem to be one of those things that may be tricky. I have to do a lot more research on that, but thank you for the suggestions.

what should i be looking at regarding equipment to connect the piano, mic for recording?

ecc83 said:
Had look at the book for the SP-280 and I can see some operational difficulties?

How does you wife presently listen to the keyboard as she sings and plays?
I suspect over headphones, if via the built in speakers she will not of course be able to do this when recording, the sound is likely to be very poor quality and it would be hard to get a good balance of voice to piano with no option to change it post tracking.

Then, when recording a student both your wife and student will need a headphone feed and the student some "foldback" of their voice in all probability. This could probably be done with a multi-output headphone amplifier but a much more flexible way would be a modest mixer. My A&H ZED10 would be the very chap IMHO (just a suggestion! NOT seeking to sell it!).

For an AI I shall unashamedly recommend the Native Instuments Komplete Audio 6. It comes with Cubase LE6 but I would stay with the suggestion of the more user friendly Reaper* Cubase is the bizz' however if your wife want to get deeply into MIDI.

Mics are tricky because not all mics suit all voices. Perhaps the best option is to go for a neutral mic, the Rode NT-1 is said to be one such. I have a Sontronics STC-2 LDC and that too has very little "attitude". Can't hurt to get a Shure SM58 as well!

*That saves you around $450 on software so you can afford the mixer!

"1) computer - which we have and fairly good quality. Will be making some upgrades to the desktop to an SSD so there's no noise from a standard hard drive, and quieter fans."

From what I have read an SSD will give you faster boot times but little extra advantage in YOUR particular situation. 7,200rpm drives are not really that noise these days and you can silence them anyway. I would suggest that whatever drive you get for OS and DAW get a big, 2TB spinner to record to. I have recently bought a 2TB USB 3.0 Seagate drive for £60 and it is as the grave!

Dave.
Click to expand...
 
I suggested the NI KA6 as the interface to connect both mic and keyboard audio to the computer because it has two, independent line inputs.

Thus you can have a mic (or two!) plugged in the front and the line outs for the keyboard permanently or semi-permanently connected at the back. This will need two 1/4" jack to jack cables, guitar leads in effect.

Thus, if she wished you wife could play and sing with headphones (to stop kbd leaking into voice) on two mics and have 4 independent tracks of the proceedings. A bonus would be a MIDI DIN cable to the KA6 when she could also record the MIDI data.

The KA6 is also somewhat future proofed in having S/PDIF ins and outs. The digital input could therefore take a signal from a higher end mic pre and there are several with built in converters. One that commands a lot of respect is the Audient Mico.

I am confident that you will not find a better or more flexible AI than the KA6 for £200 and quite a bit but I will also stick to my musket and say, in THIS particular set of circumstances an AI will be very well complimented by a small mixer.

Just thought! Re mics: Could your wife contact any of the studios she has visited? Very often studio managers keep meticulous logs of who used which microphone. But! Be sitting down perhaps when he tells you the price!

Dave.
 
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