Amature Looking to Expand My Equipment[WARNING: LONG]

[Devlin Malcolm]

Hey everyone who is reading this,

I'm 100% new to this forum site, so hopefully everyone here is very helpful. But anyways, i've been playing instruments (including drums, acoustic and electric guitar, singing, screaming, very little keys very little bass guitar, and very little harmonica) since i was in 3rd grade, starting with drums, and i'm a junior in highschool and 17 years old. I started getting into engineering a little more than a year, and i worked with what i had as far as equipment. So i spent hours and hours on the computer just looking for studio set-ups, what software to use, what microphones for what instrument, audio interfaces/mixers, monitors(speakers), cables, acoustics and so on and i always found some useful things and then stuff that just didn't help at all, but what was bad about it was that i had no money, my parents stop supporting me with studio equipment cause they said it's too expensive and not worth it since i "probably won't make a career with it" because i'm not to fond of school, but i finally got a job (very low pay, 7.25 an hour at mcdonalds) and i'm going to start getting good equipment that has a reasonable price range for my low pay. So basically i just need help on what to get for good quality, or at least better quality than all my stuff.

I'm going to get a new computer because my laptop sucks ass. I don't have the money for a Mac anything, so i'm sticking with windows for a good while. To help you help me,
I have a Gateway Model-MD2614U Laptop
Processor-AMD Turion(tm) X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-72 2.10 GHz
Memory RAM-3.00 GB
64bit operating system on Windows Vista
This computer is about 5 or 6 years old and it is really messed up because my dad took it to iraq and it got damaged. So i need information and help on how to build a good reasonable price DESKTOP (not laptop) computer.

As a audio interface/mixer i use a Behringer XENYX 1204USB Mixer. Which seems to be great for me, but if you have any better ideas for one please let me know.

As a DAW, I use Cakewalk Sonar X2 Producer, and it's good software and all, but it seems to have A LOT of latency issues with my midi's and mixer, and i have tweaked sooo much and still havn't seemed to fix it, and on top of that it has many drop outs during playback and recording and pops and crackles do to buffering i guess. Not sure but if there is any better software I could use, that would be eligible with the custom built desktop, i would love to know.

As studio monitors I use my stereo speakers, not much to explain there but i need real studio monitors.

I only have 3 Microphones and their all dynamic microphones, I have a Shure SM-58, Shure PG-57, And a very low quality Samsung dynamic microphone. So for microphones i'm looking for a whole drum-kit set mics, Condensers for vocals, and some decent microphones that can be good for recording my/others electric guitar with the cabinet and, and some microphones for recording acoustic guitar straight from the sound hole.

As far as cords i think i could find some decent cords on amazon or something and i'll just buy whatever, unless you think cords are very important, if so please tell me. I have quite a few XLR to XLR, a few XLR to 1/4", and a few 1/4" to 1/4". And i have many adapters, 1/4" Male to 1/8" Female and 1/8" Male to 1/4" Female.

I probably also need an external hard drive. I have quite a few mic stands (boom mic stands), I have a pop filter, I have "okay" headphones but it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a recommendation (i've been using some generic headphones called jWIN)

I would also need some acoustics and bass traps, which will be very important because i'm moving my studio from my room to my garage until i move out and have my own place.

I think I covered everything, I'm sorry for making this soooo long and hopefully someone has the patience and time to read, research, reply, and help me because it will mean alot. You may also give me links to any equipment because i use my debit card so I can buy things online (preferably amazon)
If anyone replies, thank you for time

-Devlin

 

[wheelema]

I'm going to get a new computer... So i need information and help on how to build a good reasonable price DESKTOP computer.

I just scored a Lenovo i3 3.4GHz 4GB/1TB Win 8 desktop (no monitor) for $250 and there is NO WAY I could ever build up a computer for that price. The processor costs $130, and Win 8 $100 by themselves. To find those deals get a google.com account, use reader.google.com, and subscribe to dealnews.com RSS feed. Screaming deals like that come up once or twice a month (and other deals constantly), and they WILL sell out VERY quickly. My deal popped up on a Sunday morning and despite supposedly being good all week was GONE two hours later. If you're in a shopping mood you have to check it constantly otherwise it's pretty much a crap shoot. Patience pays.

 

[Justsomeguy]

As a audio interface/mixer i use a Behringer XENYX 1204USB Mixer. Which seems to be great for me, but if you have any better ideas for one please let me know.

As you want to record drums, i'd suggest looking at Audio Interfaces with at least 4 mic inputs. There are a plethora of them out there that are reasonably priced, and there's load of stuff on these boards about specific models etc so have a read, but things like the Tascam US-1800, Presonus Audiobox 44VSL, and Maudio Fasttrack Ultra all spring to mind.

As a DAW, I use Cakewalk Sonar X2 Producer, and it's good software and all, but it seems to have A LOT of latency issues with my midi's and mixer, and i have tweaked sooo much and still havn't seemed to fix it, and on top of that it has many drop outs during playback and recording and pops and crackles do to buffering i guess. Not sure but if there is any better software I could use, that would be eligible with the custom built desktop, i would love to know.

I suspect that the latency issues, pops and crackles, and drop outs are driver issues with the behringer mixer rather than problems with Sonar. If you're happy/comfortable with using Sonar then i'd be tempted to stick with it. However, there are plenty of DAW's out there, and Reaper is very popular around here as it's free to try for an unlimited amount of time, very cheap to buy, and does just as much as all the "bigger name" DAW's.

As studio monitors I use my stereo speakers, not much to explain there but i need real studio monitors.

There are some guys around here who create fantastic mixes just using stereo speakers. What is more important is properly treating your space, properly positioning your speakers, and referencing your mixes against commercial releases. In the long run, buying "proper" studio monitors is often an upgrade, but the cheaper and far more important factors are the three points i mentioned above; Acoustic Treatment, Proper Positioning, and Referencing your mixes

I only have 3 Microphones and their all dynamic microphones, I have a Shure SM-58, Shure PG-57, And a very low quality Samsung dynamic microphone. So for microphones i'm looking for a whole drum-kit set mics, Condensers for vocals, and some decent microphones that can be good for recording my/others electric guitar with the cabinet and, and some microphones for recording acoustic guitar straight from the sound hole.

With what you've already got, you could easily add only three mics to your collection cover the majority of bases; a Large Diaphragm Condensor (LDC) and a pair of Small Diaphragm Condensors (SDC). You could easily record drums with the SM58 in the kick, the PG57 on the snare, and a pair of SDC's as overheads. There danger with cheap "drum kit sets" is that the quality of the mic's are usually quite low and you'd often get better results on spending the same amount of money on fewer, better quality mic's.

Again, in terms of recommendations, there is a shed load of stuff on the boards (especially in the "Microphone" section) so have a read and do some research. in the SDC department, mics that often pop up are the Oktava MC012, sE1a, and Naiant. In the LDC's the Rode NT1a, MXL V67, sE2200a, AT2020 all pop up a lot for good reason

I would also need some acoustics and bass traps, which will be very important because i'm moving my studio from my room to my garage until i move out and have my own place.

I'd put this near the top of my "to do list" and if you have a look at the "Studio Building" pages there are a shed load of DIY projects that are very, very cost effective