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jamstunes

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Greetings!

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer. I'm new at everything about recording except how to play my mando and sing. I've asked the same question in a variety of places but I can't seem to get the same answer twice. I guess it is the vastness of the quantum field of possible outcomes that is "home recording".

I want to record one track at a time up to 4 tracks and merge them into a .WAV. I would very much like to do this on my existing dinosaur of a computer: HP Vectra P3-700, 64M Ram, XP, SB-Live sound card. I'm purchasing an ADK condenser mic and a Behringer UB802 preamp.

I'm not interested in super HQ because I can't afford it. I'm mainly doing this as a practice aid and motivator to expand my talents on my other instruments and spark new ideas for my songwriting. I have alot of friends that don't have time to get together so I want to send them CD's of licks and songs and harmonies I'm working on so they can practice them.

What do I need to do (at a minimum of time, complexity, and expense) to make this happen??
 
You're running XP with 64M of memory?!? :eek: Wow! I think that XP takes almost that much memory all by itself; it's a wonder you're able to open any applications at all. Seriously though, XP is quite the memory hog, and I would think that memory would be the weak link in your computer setup. If you could upgrade to AT LEAST 256M, I think you'd be a much happier camper for it. :)

Anyway, after that, I would think that some of the cheaper multitracking software programs would do the trick for you. You could check out programs like N-tracks from fasoft.com or manning1's (surprised he hasn't chimed in yet ;)) favorite Power Tracks from pgmusic.com which are around the $60 range.
 
I've had XP running with 64MB of RAM before and while you can use it, to run any decent program it needs to do a fair bit of swap thrashing so yeah, upgrade your RAM and don't look back. You will be able to record 1 track at a time no problems, and run some effects, but nothing over the top. Then go with a cheap multitracking software like guttadaj said.
 
jams. to use an analogy - trying to run recording software on such low memory is like trying to drive a car 200 miles with little gas. isnt going to happen. 512 ram is the minimum i would recommend. peace.
 
Okay - I got a consensus here

Thanks alot - I think it's safe to say I need memory. When I bought this machine used I was looking into expanding the memory but it uses some weird kind of chip that was a whopping $90 per stick. I'll look into it.

Thanks again.

Jamstunes
 
Okay - I got a consensus here

Thanks alot - I think it's safe to say I need memory. When I bought this machine used I was looking into expanding the memory but it uses some weird kind of chip that was a whopping $90 per stick. I'll look into it.

Thanks again.

Jamstunes
 
Okay - I got a consensus here

Thanks alot - I think it's safe to say I need memory. When I bought this machine used I was looking into expanding the memory but it uses some weird kind of chip that was a whopping $90 per stick. I'll look into it.

Thanks again.

Jamstunes
 
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