Brand new PC studio on budget

[troy1974]

I hope this is the right place for this post.
I have been playing guitar and singing in various bands for over 20 years now and although I have recorded in professional studios I have never attempted this at home ( well apart from 4 track ).
After months of illness I have paid to have my loft converted, I have lots of gear up there, guitars amps, mics, etc etc everything I need really.
I repaired and moved my old PC up there thinking it could be brought back to life as a recording tool. I want to record direct to my pc hard disk through a basic mixing desk, being able to only record 1 track at a time really does not bother me.
Here is the problem:-
The PC is a Pentium 4 1800mhz 1gb ram and 80gb HD running XP pro it has a sound blaster live 5.1 sound card.

My budget is exhausted and I have no sequencing software or any experience of sequencing software.

Can anyone suggest any software I can buy (cheap) or download freeware that would suit a total recording novice with my low spec computer.



Many Thanks.

 

[Disease8]

Yes

Reaper its called its freeware but $30 to buy I think... It seems pretty good for basic recording and editing.. Threre's always cracked software but I don't know if you want to go down that route.. Why do yo only want to record one track at a time? Do you have no budget left at all? You could get a more pro sound card with two mic pre's for around $100-$120? I'm not sure about the converters in your Sound Blaster... If you don't even need pre's then get an even cheaper two channel card with just stereo line inputs but from a cheap pro company (Alesis, Behringer, M-audio) it'll sound better then domestic sound card....

 

[pandamonk]

Reaper its called its freeware but $30 to buy I think... It seems pretty good for basic recording and editing.. Threre's always cracked software but I don't know if you want to go down that route.. Why do yo only want to record one track at a time? Do you have no budget left at all? You could get a more pro sound card with two mic pre's for around $100-$120? I'm not sure about the converters in your Sound Blaster... If you don't even need pre's then get an even cheaper two channel card with just stereo line inputs but from a cheap pro company (Alesis, Behringer, M-audio) it'll sound better then domestic sound card....

Reaper is $50 to buy. A good freeware software is audacity. It's nothing fancy, but is great for learning with.

 

[Chili]

Krystal is free for personal use.

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/index.php?section=download

I have never used it, but reading up on the specs, it looks like it will get the job done.

I think your computer is adequate with the exception of the ram and hard drive. If you can get another gig of ram, you will be more comfortable running more tracks and plugs. The hard drive is small by today's standards. You can run out of room quickly when saving wav files. I suggest you get a 2nd larger drive dedicated for your audio work. Put your DAW application on the first drive, then set your directory paths in the DAW to the second drive.

Also, if you're going to use it strictly for audio, try to remove as much garbage as possible. No anti-virus, no internet, change all the window defaults, etc. This will reduce the load on your cpu and ram.

Here's a nice little write-up to help you set your computer up.

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ts/detail.php?Index=30058&Keyword=pc+optimizationfalse

peace.

 

[troy1974]

Excellent thank will have a look.