any help appreciated

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dani Pace
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Dani Pace

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Although I've been a musician for more years than I care to admitt, I havent had a lot of experience with the recording end of the business. I recently moved and now have the space to set up my own studio, a 15 ft. X 24 ft. room with 10 ft. celing. My recording equipment is old and I've only got a couple of decent mikes but I want to get the most out of what I've got. Eventually I hope to upgrade to better and more modern gear but for the present money is a bit of a holdback. Any advice on getting the best results out of ancient equipment (till I can get better) would be appreciated. I know back in the 60s and 70s people were useing some of the same type of gear that i presently have so maybe I should try to achieve that "60s garage band" sound, if anyone is old enough to remember some of that old obsolette stuff please advise and dirrect me on my journey to understanding recording.
 
What do you have to work with and what problems do you need to solve?
 
Simply spend some time on this BBS and read-read-read
You will surely learn from it.
Like Tex said.....Be more specific with your questions as well.
 
The stuff I'm working with is an old Akai reel to reel, like i said its old but still works well and records clean. A not quite as old JVC cassette deck. And believe it or not a Silvertone dual cassette deck. I've been useing Audioteck and Soundtec mikes for vocals and Radio Shack mikes for instruments. I'm mixing on two Crate pa mixing boards, a 4 channel for vocals and a 6 chanel for the music. Pretty crappy bunch of stuff but it's all I've got to start with, almost anything I add will be an improvement. I guess I need to eliminate a lot of noise (hums,buzzing and hiss) first then move on to the next step. My final goal will be to get a master tape clean enough to load into my computer and burn it to CD, I know I've got a long way to go, thanks for helping.
 
If you have a computer, have you thought about recording direct to the hard drive? The signal will be cleaner, even with a cheap Soundblaster Live or Audigy soundcard. You could get a basic multitrack program for not too much money. Digidesign is giving away a basic version of ProTools Free. You could download it from their website.
Editing is much easier in the computer also.
 
Dani Pace said:
The stuff I'm working with is an old Akai reel to reel, like i said its old but still works well and records clean. A not quite as old JVC cassette deck. And believe it or not a Silvertone dual cassette deck. I've been useing Audioteck and Soundtec mikes for vocals and Radio Shack mikes for instruments. I'm mixing on two Crate pa mixing boards, a 4 channel for vocals and a 6 chanel for the music. Pretty crappy bunch of stuff but it's all I've got to start with, almost anything I add will be an improvement. I guess I need to eliminate a lot of noise (hums,buzzing and hiss) first then move on to the next step. My final goal will be to get a master tape clean enough to load into my computer and burn it to CD, I know I've got a long way to go, thanks for helping.
Click to expand...

If you have a soundcard to record into your computer I would definitely recommend mixing your multitrack into your computer instead of cassette tape. The hums, buzz and hiss will have to be solved on a case by case basis, so just tell us how and what you are hooking up and the problem you are having, then me or someone else may be able to help out.
 
O.K. You guys got me thinking ( do it all on the puter and skip the analog stuff, right? ) I'm new to the concept so I'll need to be walked through the process one step at a time. This is what I'll be working with...Compaq Presario 6000 Pent 4 processor, with a Soundblaster Live sound card, Roxio easy cd creator 5, don't know what kind of cd burner whatever came in this thing.
Other gear... Kawai FS650 stereo keyboard, Optimus 990 MIDI keyboard, Ibanez bass amp with mono line out, Fender Princeton stereo chorus guitar amp/with stereo and mono lines out, DOD FX7 guitar processor ( I don't know how much od this I'll need because the puter has a lot of effects built in ) various vocal and instrument mikes ( not sure how these will work for recording but they work pretty good for live performance,) a variety of guitars both electric and acoustic, electric bass, and a drum kit plus a couple of mixer boards, thats about it. Now where do I start?
I've got the puter turned on, What do I do next?
P.S. I've got all the adapters except the MIDI to the port on the sound card, guess thats the next thing I should buy.
 
How many instruments do you want to track at once?

If you want to multitrack, using say Pro Tools Free through a Sound Blaster, it will allow you to only record 2 tracks at one time ie, 1 stereo track. Plus Pro Tools free is limited to 8 tracks. I know it has a good MIDI editing component (well it was much better than what I was using before I tried it out).

In saying this, you could use your mixing boards say to mic a Drum kit and then record the Drums onto your computer as a stereo track.

I guess it just depends on how much control you want to have over your mixes.

I recently bought SONAR & a Edirol DA-2496 (8X8 Audio) to record onto my computer. This will allow me to record a full drum kit and have say the kick on one channel, the snare on the other, hit-hat on another and a stereo overhead track... If you were to record it using a Sound Blaster, you could only record that as 1 stereo track.

What am I recommending? Well I don't know... just giving you some things to think about.

Porter
 
Start by running the output of your mixer into the line input of the soundcard. Plug in a mic or guitar to the mixer and see if the level is enough to get a good signal into the computer. Open your Windows or Creative mixer and make sure the line in is not muted. For recording, make sure the line input or "What you hear" is selected in the Windows mixer. To get there, open your mixer window and go to options>properties>recording.

You could record a little sound through the Windows sound recorder just to see what you get.

Add a program for multitrack recording and you can start to lay down one track at a time. If you want to record more than one musician at a time, you can either assign each instrument a separate mono track (limited to 2 mono tracks with the Soundblaster, or do a stereo mix and send that into the Soundcard.

Add midi triggered samples or soundfonts if desired.
 
If you want to get into it in a big way, there are many more options for soundcards that will allow you to record more than two channels at a time, and at higher sample rates for more headroom and clarity.

But for now, you'll find the Soundblaster OK to learn with, and much better than some of your old equipment. 25 years ago I had a studio with the old Tascam 8 track reel to reel, using the 1/2" tape. If only the equipment of today was available back then! I would have saved a bundle of money and gotten way better results.
 
Dan DA,
You sound like you have been useing some of the same gear that I am trying to use now. Thanks for the advice and the website, I think I may have gotten some useful info there. Since I have the SB Live I'll take your advice and learn how to use it before upgrading to a better card. OK next step, I'd like to lay down a basic track or two, something simple, maybe a guitar, should I use a preamp with effects into the line in? Should I go in mono or stereo? Please be patient with me, I'm new to all this digital stuff.
Thanks
Dani
 
Try going from your mixer to the line input of the soundcard. It will probably have a high enough signal. If you have a preamp you can use, you can try that, instead.

If you are using stereo effects, and want to record a "wet" signal, use a stereo input. Some people prefer to monitor a wet signal, so you can hear what your guitar will sound like, but record a dry signal. That way, you can add effects on playback, in context with the mix. In that case, recording in mono will save hard disk space. This is assuming you are using a recording program that will allow you to lay down multiple tracks.

If you just want to record solo guitar to how it works with your computer, record in stereo with effects.

Do you have a recording program to use?
 
Dan,
I tried recording from cassette into the puter on the SB recorder, that was a total waste of time. It played through the speakers and sounded really good and the rec. level meters were bouncing in the yellow with an occasional peak barely in the red but when I tried to play it back I got nothing. I went to the help section and under troubleshooting they told me to up the volume so I did, got the same result again except I got a few rattles out of the bass parts on playback. Needless to say I'm getting frusterated!
I'll try preamping the guitar in and see what happens, maybe if I keep trying long enough I'll get something.
thanks
 
Dani,
If you were getting a meter reading, the problem is not the level. It's probably that you need to select the input in the software mixer. Look at your system tray (lower right corner of your computer screen). Double click on the speaker icon. That should open up the mixer. Make sure you double click, as a single click will only give you the master volume. Once you have the mixer open, go to Options>Properties>Recording. You should then have the recording mixer. Select "What U Hear" or Analog Mixer, and try recording something again.
Dan
 
I forgot to mention - with digital recording, you never want the signal to get into the red. Unlike tape recording, where some saturation could have a nice sound, digital saturation just buzzes horribly. The signal to noise ratio with digital is so good that you can keep it in the green and still get plenty of gain.
Dan
 
Dan,
Thanks again, like I said I'm new to the didital side of recording but I'm going to keep trying till I get somethimg going. I'll try your suggestion and let you know what happens. I'm learning but I've got a long way to go before I'm ready to send you a CD, to show you what you have taught me. Thanks, Dani
 
Success at last. I've now figured out how to put my tapes into the puter and locate the files and bring them up on the Easy CD Creator 5. I'm ready for the next step, do I just hit record or are there some other steps to go through? I'm slow but I'm learning.
thanks for all the help so far. Dani
 
Dani,

I think you lost me. I thought you were trying to record your instruments into the computer through a multitrack recording program.

But your last post sounds like you are taking your already recorded songs and putting them on CD. If that's the case, when you open Easy CD Creator, choose to make an Audio CD. Select the files of the songs you want to include, and burn the CD. It should be playable in any CD player.
 
Dan
I figured that since I allready had some pretty good stuff on tape that I'd go ahead and try to get the hang of transfering tape to CD. Once I get this under control and feal fairly confident with it then I'll be ready to move on to recording and mixing directly on the puter, also for now it's easier to record on tape, I dont have the puter set up in my studio. I have another puter which I plan to upgrade and use in the studio but for now I'm learning on this one. I'm trying to learn things "one thing at a time," all the possibilities and options are a bit overwhelming and sometimes confusing to me, like I said "I'm slow," and I've got a lot of catching up to do. Thanks for your patience and all your help, try to hang in there with me and eventualy I'll get this figured out.
Dani
 
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