A good basic digital recording book

  • Thread starter Thread starter cvd
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cvd

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Hi, I may sound like an idiot here, but I'm new to this, so bear with me. Heck, I don't even know what it means to mix down to stereo! I guess I'll tell you what i have, if that will help.
I have a Fostex FD-4 with a 250 meg zip drive. I'm also using an alesis SR-16 drum machine, and I'm using a POD to record my guitar and bass parts. Oh, I"m just using the guitar pod, if you know how to get a good bass sound out of that, lemme know. I'm not messing with vocals yet, so I won't worry about that for now.
What I plan to do is to record the tracks, hook the optical cables into my sound card(SBlive driveR), record, and then dump to CD-R. I did this with somehting I was working on, put it into my stereo, and it sounded like caca. But it sounds damn good through my headphones, so that just confuses me more.
Ok, I'm tired, and not even making sense to myself right now. I guess another reason I'm looking for recommendations is because a few of the books that I've seen seem to be for a specific type of recorder. Alright, I'll stop now. :)). thanks for any and all advice, and sorry if I sound like a jackass.
 
Hey CVD:
The best way to get a good clean Bass signal using your POD is to plug it into the Tube Preamp or the POD Clean on the Amp side, and using the Compressor on the Effects side.
There are a few books on Recording out there, but the best one I've found is called "using Your Portable Studio" by
Peter McIan.
This book is perfect for beginnerss, and is pretty in-depth regarding digital recording as well.
And don't beat yourself up, my friend.
There are no jackasses or lame questions in here.
DJ
 
Thank you kind sir. Another question I have, but I guess I need to figure out some other things first, but how can shit sound so good going through my headphones, and then when I put it on my home stereo, it sounds like ass? Thanks again for the advice, I think I'm gonna look for that book on Amazon right now.

chris
 
craig anderton has a good book on digital home recording
thats fairly up to date
 
Any fostex specific guide?

I believe they have them for a few of the other machines, so maybe they have one for the fostex. I've never seen one, has anyone else?

Thanks,

Chris
 
Hey Chris:
When you say you are hearing it through your headphones,
are your headphones plugged into your computer or your stereo. And when you are listening to it on your stereo, are you listening to it mixed down on a cassette or a CD?
DJ
 
Well, I played around with it for a bit with the headphones plugged into the 4 track, then when I thought I had it sounding alright, I hooked it into my optical connection on my sound card, hit record on the pooter, and then play on the 4 track. I take it I should have been listening to it on the pooter? Gosh, I have a lot to learn. Thanks again Mr. DJ

Chris
 
Opticals on an sblive? That is a new one on me. Sure ya don't mean the s/pdif, cvd?
 
Yes, it is optical. It's the sblive livedriver IR, I believe. It has all the inputs on the front of the pooter, for RCA, s/pdif, mic in, and optical. Now I just need to learn how to use it :)) So, should I listen through my soundcard whenever I'm recording onto the pooter? How will that work if I break down and actually get monitors?

Thanks,

chris
 
Ok cvd,
I was at the creative website and checked it out, I see what you are talkin' about, but they refer to these i/o's as beeing "optical s/pdif". Not sure what that means.
As I understand it, optical cables will carry 8 channels of stereo on one optical cable, s/pdif will transmit a left and right stereo signal on one cable. Anyway, I would back up and run a few tests, using the analog rca i/o's, to see if what you wanna do can be done this way.
 
If the optical cable can put out 8 channels of stereo, does that mean I need to do something else before I hit the record button on my sound card? Hmm, maybe that manual can tell me some good stuff, huh? :)
 
I learned boatloads just from this BBS. also browsed many other pages and sites too. Harmony central is good with reviews. Most of the books on the market piss me off because they were written in 1970 whatever... updated mind you but still.
I nabbed a couple mini books by Paul White that are pretty sweet. mainly a dictionary type deal but it helped.
 
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