All right, I will go over the standard-ish setup most people in homerecording situations seem to have.
The Rode NT-1A is a decent place to start, although I would search the mic forum and do some research on a different condenser for around that price range (200, i believe). You can probably get something better for the price, perhaps a little less harsh-sounding.
The mic needs phantom power (if its a condenser, short answer), and a preamp to push the signal up to line-level. We will discuss this momentarily.
Next in line you need some kind of analog-digital converter to get that line-level signal into the digital realm, to record on your computer. You will also need some sort of recording software. If you are using a PC, REAPER is a very good program to start with... Hell, to work with in general. If you have a Mac, there is Audacity, but it has some inherent problems, such as the fact that you cannot use plugins to process audio as it plays back (will explain in a bit**).
So, after you have your mic, you can go one of two routes - you can buy a preamp that is just a preamp, such as an M-Audio DMP-3, which I like very much, especially for the price (~160USD). Then you would need a separate interface that connects to your computer via USB or firewire, and plug the line-level output from the preamp to the input on the interface. Then in your software, you would enable a track to record, and set the input to whatever channel on the interface you had previously run your mic & pre into.
Your other option, which is cheaper and simpler in terms of connecting everything together, is to get an interface that has mic preamps built in. The only one I've used that has all these features and works well is the Presonus Firebox:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/prod...bit96kHz-FireWire-Recording-System?sku=184133
Its a little more expensive than the 100 dollar "starter" interfaces that
might have mic pre's built-in, but chances are the preamps are going to be garbage, or they may be none-existant. At which point you would need to buy a separate preamp anyway, so let's stick with this recommendation for the moment.
This particular one worked well for me because the Firebox has decent preamps, and comes with Cubase LE, which will get you started and on the way to making some decent recordings. Of course, I don't know how many instruments and other things you plan on recording. If it's JUST vocals over some canned drum loops or something, you probably don't need something this complicated.
On to monitors. Most will tell you, and I agree, that monitors are a very important part of the recording/mixing chain, because they reproduce (or should, anyway), an accurate representation of what has been recorded. On any sort of realistic budget, you aren't going to get amazing monitors. Honestly, for the moment, I would say get a decent pair of full-covering headphones, and use them to monitor tracks already recorded while you layer new stuff, and then perhaps a little ways down the line, worry about buying the monitors. Just my opinion though, as it is how I started, and investing wisely in other parts of the chain first, verses buying everything cheaper to accomodate the purchase of monitors, was a good plan on my part.
So to sum up, you could do something like the following, which takes into consideration what I discussed above:
Rode NT-1A or Studio Projects B-1 -> mic cable -> Presonus Firebox -> firewire cable -> computer -> Cubase LE.
There are many other ways of going about doing this, but this is one way that will yield decent results. Without any sort of room treatment, you are working against a lot of factors, but its a place to get off the ground.
**Audacity for the Mac**
Most audio recording / processing programs use "plug-ins", which you insert on a track or send tracks to for certain audio processing. Most of them process the audio in realtime, as you play the track back, so that you can make adjustments, etc.
Audacity does not have the capability of having plug-ins installed. It has its own built-in processing, such as compression, delay, reverb, etc. These effects have to applied to a track before you can play the track back, and once you apply the effect and save, the effect is there and it cannot be removed. Since this is the less common way of doing things, if you are on a Mac, I highly recommend you use a different program, even if you have to invest a little more money. This is why, since I have a powerBook, it was wise to invest in the Firebox, since, for 300 bucks, I got the interface with decent mic preamps, as well as Cubase LE, which is a stripped down version of a very good, professional program.
, has anyone got a diagram of the sorta layout that it is?
