Please help! Just bought first mic..

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Bryan Medina

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Hi my name is Bryan and this is my first post. I'm 21 years old and for a while now have been singing tom jones, engelbert Humperdinck ballads at a few friend and family gatherings. I've decided to make some recordings at home for the first time. I just bought a Shure Sm58 mic. I have a pretty powerful laptop. Besides these things I don't have any of the other required recording hardware. I must admit that I know almost nothing when it comes to recording.What hardware am I missing to complete a decent home studio? What would be some affordable options? Thanks
 
First thing you will need is an audio interface - take a look here: USB Audio Interfaces | Sweetwater.com

Then ...
DAW (recording software)
Monitors (speakers for mixing)
Closed back headphones (for listening to prerecorded tracks while you record with the mic)
 
jimmys69 said:
Pretty much any will do for your needs.

Post your laptop specs.
Click to expand...

These are my laptop specs:

Acer Laptop Aspire E5-772G-76ED
Intel Core i7 5500U (2.40 GHz)
8 GB Memory 1 TB HDD
NVIDIA GeForce 940M
17.3' Windows 10 Home
 
Ah! The dreaded F'abt Windows 10. My Native Instruments KA6 ran perfectly on it 3 months ago. How it would perform after the latest round of updates (some call them Win 11!) I do not know and I no longer have a W10 equipped PC.

The Alesis i02 Express would serve you well as the best budget AI extant (have you got/tried yours with Ten Bobbs?) but FHS get a solid agreement WHATEVER AI you buy that it WILL work on W10 and WILL be refunded if you discover a problem.

Geeez! Some here like myself will probably be suffering deja vu? Five years ago we were giving out the same caveat, i.e. don't assume ALL AIs will work with ALL PCs/OSs. With coming of W7 that largely went away but BANG! It is back big time!

Dave.
 
I'm one of the lucky ones...no problems at all with Windows 10 and I can confirm the iO2 ASIO drivers work fine with W10.

Indeed I was using an SM58 combined with the iO2 for a long recording session yesterday.

As others have said there are lots of USB Audio interfaces that will work fine but the aforementioned Alesis is excellent value for money these days. FYI, I have some much more expensive stuff I can use for tracking but have been impressed enough with the Alesis that I now tend to use it for all the simple stuff.
 
ecc83 said:
Ah! The dreaded F'abt Windows 10. My Native Instruments KA6 ran perfectly on it 3 months ago. How it would perform after the latest round of updates (some call them Win 11!) I do not know and I no longer have a W10 equipped PC.

The Alesis i02 Express would serve you well as the best budget AI extant (have you got/tried yours with Ten Bobbs?) but FHS get a solid agreement WHATEVER AI you buy that it WILL work on W10 and WILL be refunded if you discover a problem.

Geeez! Some here like myself will probably be suffering deja vu? Five years ago we were giving out the same caveat, i.e. don't assume ALL AIs will work with ALL PCs/OSs. With coming of W7 that largely went away but BANG! It is back big time!

Dave.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dave appreciate your suggestion. Just went ahead and ordered it with Amazon prime, should get it in 2 days.
 
Bobbsy said:
I'm one of the lucky ones...no problems at all with Windows 10 and I can confirm the iO2 ASIO drivers work fine with W10.

Indeed I was using an SM58 combined with the iO2 for a long recording session yesterday.

As others have said there are lots of USB Audio interfaces that will work fine but the aforementioned Alesis is excellent value for money these days. FYI, I have some much more expensive stuff I can use for tracking but have been impressed enough with the Alesis that I now tend to use it for all the simple stuff.
Click to expand...

Nice! Hopefully I have the same results as you with the same hardware! Pretty cool to find someone that has used same setup and hear such good results. Can't wait to record a power ballad and see how it sounds! Thank you
 
Bryan Medina said:
I'm 21 years old and for a while now have been singing tom jones, engelbert Humperdinck ballads...
Click to expand...


I just want to know how did this all come about...and why? :)
If you said you were 61 or 71 and covering these guys, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. :D ;)


I actually always liked Tom Jones...he still has a great voice, though he's gotten more into retro Blues/Country lately compared to the Pop ballads he was doing back in the '60s & '70s that made him famous....but I still like some of those old hits. "It's Not Unusual" is a classic.
 
miroslav said:
I just want to know how did this all come about...and why? :)
If you said you were 61 or 71 and covering these guys, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. :D ;)


I actually always liked Tom Jones...he still has a great voice, though he's gotten more into retro Blues/Country lately compared to the Pop ballads he was doing back in the '60s & '70s that made him famous....but I still like some of those old hits. "It's Not Unusual" is a classic.
Click to expand...

Well as a kid I wasn't much into music. One day at the age of 14 I asked my mom if she knew about any good singers that were worth listening to. She mentioned Nino Bravo, a Spanish romantic balladeer of the early 70's. Instantly I was amazed to find that such a voice existed on Earth. This brought to me the curiosity of finding some other great voices. I found that when Nino Bravo began his career he was referred to as the Spanish Tom Jones! So that's when I found about and started listening to the great Tom Jones and his contemporaries. Immediately I started trying to belt out these songs.
As a kid I had a bass/low baritone voice but through the 6 or 7 years I've been singing these songs, I've developed a tenor range. Although I don't imitate them, I have been told the color of my voice is very similar to these artists. The words in their songs and their vocal renditions have made me fall in love with this style of music. :)
 
miroslav said:
I just want to know how did this all come about...and why? :)
If you said you were 61 or 71 and covering these guys, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. :D ;)


I actually always liked Tom Jones...he still has a great voice, though he's gotten more into retro Blues/Country lately compared to the Pop ballads he was doing back in the '60s & '70s that made him famous....but I still like some of those old hits. "It's Not Unusual" is a classic.
Click to expand...

Warning: Absolutely blatant name dropping to follow.

One of my very earliest jobs in TV (before I moved to London) was with an Edmonton (Canada) TV station that had grandiose ideas and decided to do a short series of big names in concert with the Edmonton symphony. They imported big name directors, sound recordists etc. for the actual production but I was one of a couple of sound assistants stringing mics, applying gaffer tape, etc. then manning the multitrack recorder that was being used for audio.

If you watch this very blurry upload, I'm the guy diving out of frame in the lower left hand corner at 13 seconds in. I thought everybody was supposed to get 15 minutes of fame, not half a second! Tom Jones - Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra 1975 - Dailymotion-Video
 
Bobbsy said:
Warning: Absolutely blatant name dropping to follow.

One of my very earliest jobs in TV (before I moved to London) was with an Edmonton (Canada) TV station that had grandiose ideas and decided to do a short series of big names in concert with the Edmonton symphony. They imported big name directors, sound recordists etc. for the actual production but I was one of a couple of sound assistants stringing mics, applying gaffer tape, etc. then manning the multitrack recorder that was being used for audio.

If you watch this very blurry upload, I'm the guy diving out of frame in the lower left hand corner at 13 seconds in. I thought everybody was supposed to get 15 minutes of fame, not half a second! Tom Jones - Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra 1975 - Dailymotion-Video
Click to expand...

Wow that is awesome! I saw you in the video lol. How did it feel to hear Tom Jones live in his best years? By the way Once I receive my Alesis interface in the mail today, I plan on recording "I who have nothing "and "I'll never fall in love again " both songs performed by Tom Jones.
 
I was doing some research on a mic preamp and came across a few Youtube vids of a guy about your age (about 22 I think) also doing older covers. Thought he did a pretty fair job on them with some really basic gear which he does list.
Check a few out.....
Stanton Nichols - Random Readings
 
Bryan Medina said:
Wow that is awesome! I saw you in the video lol. How did it feel to hear Tom Jones live in his best years? By the way Once I receive my Alesis interface in the mail today, I plan on recording "I who have nothing "and "I'll never fall in love again " both songs performed by Tom Jones.
Click to expand...

His voice really was amazing...and very powerful...live back then. However, I have to admit I only heard some of the rehearsals live. I was stuck in a mobile unit with a 24 track recorder for the actual performance.
 
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Bobbsy said:
His voice really was amazing...and very powerful...live back then. However, I have to admit I only heard some of the rehearsals live. I was stuck in a mobile unit with a 24 track recorder for the actual performance.
Click to expand...

That's still awesome! Wow too bad there aren't many vocalists today anywhere near the talent of what Tom Jones possessed. Well today I hooked up the Alesis iO2 Express with the Shure SM58. It came with Cubase 8 but I was not able to record with that software. I'm guessing there's something Im doing wrong. But to rule out a faulty mic or interface I downloaded Audacity and I was able to record my self! :) it was fun! But I did notice that I will have to learn to use this mic or at least learn to use a software. My high notes were to powerful and they sounded explosive and I had the mic at least 6 inches away from my mouth.
 
Good, getting there Bryan!

Two things about recording. In audacity you have level meters handily marked with a -18dBFS (Full Scale) point on them. You need to set the input gain on the i02 such that your average level runs at that -18 mark. If you voice still peaks close to "0" dBFS, back the gain off even more, recording at -20, even -25dBFS will do no harm (run at 24bits and 44.1kHz).

Mic technique: You will see singers pull away from the microphone for the belting notes. You CAN learn this but it is more of a live "PA" technique. You could just back off, physically and gain wise if the results are still "peaky" you can use a compressor when you come to edit.

Cubase is a bit tricky to setup (but worth the effort! Excellent software and free of course!) but you will find plenty of tutorials on the Web.
If it keeps doing head in try Reaper or the demo of my fave', Samplitude Music Studio 2016.

Dave.
 
Sigh...I did a nice reply to Bryan on my phone but I see it was eaten and disappeared without a trace!

On Cubase, ecc is right that you need to spend a bit of time in the tutorials. Most DAWs require you to manually set up the drivers you want to use and the input/outputs of your chosen interface (in your case the Alesis). You then have to route the two Alesis channels to your chosen tracks on Cubase. I don't have any Cubase experience but it has a very good reputation. It'll be worth taking time to head up the learning curve.

On the mic, assuming you have it on a stand rather than hand holding while you record, try putting it a bit above or below your mouth so it's angled at about 45 degrees when it points at your mouth from about six inches away. That should help--then if you set your levels as ecc suggests some compression on the vocal should sort things out.
 
ecc83 said:
Good, getting there Bryan!

Two things about recording. In audacity you have level meters handily marked with a -18dBFS (Full Scale) point on them. You need to set the input gain on the i02 such that your average level runs at that -18 mark. If you voice still peaks close to "0" dBFS, back the gain off even more, recording at -20, even -25dBFS will do no harm (run at 24bits and 44.1kHz).

Mic technique: You will see singers pull away from the microphone for the belting notes. You CAN learn this but it is more of a live "PA" technique. You could just back off, physically and gain wise if the results are still "peaky" you can use a compressor when you come to edit.

Cubase is a bit tricky to setup (but worth the effort! Excellent software and free of course!) but you will find plenty of tutorials on the Web.
If it keeps doing head in try Reaper or the demo of my fave', Samplitude Music Studio 2016.

Dave.
Click to expand...

Thank you I will definitely try dialing the gain back on the Alesis interface. I noticed I used it all the way up and I was peaking at red level 0db very much. The only thing is that I think that if I lower the Gain on the interface I will barely hear myself on the recording. I'm guessing that's where the DAW comes in handy right? How would I now raise my voice volume after lowering gain on the interface? Would I raise the gain on the audacity software?
 
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