confused newbie starting PC home studio

[MikeRB23]

I'm a 15 year old with dreams(hopefully reality of starting a PC based home recording studio. So far the only thing I have is a PC with a PII 350, 64 megs of RAM, 8 gig HD, and I just ordered a Gadget Labs 8/24 sound card. I'm a little confused about other things I need...I read in the gadgetlabs manual that I'll need a mic pre amp for my mics, and a mixer. But I was very confused at the setup of their diagram with the mixer, instuments, and sound card. Do I get a mixer and run my guitars etc. through the mixer, into the sounnd card, and then where?
I was also looking at getting the alesis monitor one speakers with the RA100 amp, but I was confused as to what output on the card i connect those to? Basically, I was just wondering what other things I need, and the setup of mixers/sound card/etc...any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Thanks,
Mike

 

[Cliff]

Well first I want to say that you have a way bigger allowance at 15 then I ever did. Other than that, you will need a mic preamp to get a good sound but depending on how many things you want to record at once, you might be able to get by with a stand alone preamp like the Art Tube instead of a mixer. However, to answer your question about how things are hooked up. You would probably want to mic your guitar (for acoustic), (amp for electric) and that mic would go into a preamp which would output directly to the soundcard. For monitors, I assume you could just use outputs from your card but I would think you would want to use the monitor outputs of your mixer, assuming you have one. Also you might want to check out the Yamaha NS10's. Everyone seems to prefer them over the Alesis. Also you would benefit from an extra 64 Mb of ram.

 

[Rev E]

MikeRB23,

It's great that you're getting into recording so early in life. I'll suggest another thing. Since you're so young, you may want to try being an apprentice (or working) in a studio in your city first. You could probably do this a few afternoons after school for a few months. This would give you some experience in this field. Plus, you'd be able to ask all sorts of questions and learn by watching and doing. Just call up a few local studios and ask if they need any help or if they could use an apprentice. Tell them that you want to learn about recording very badly. If they don't have a paid position, ask if they would let you help for free. If they say yes, go there and learn all that you can.

You seem to have the money to get the gear, but less of an idea about what to do with it ("the basics", like signal flow, amplification... the science of audio). Do it for free first and when you start spending your (or your parents') money, you'll have a very clear idea about what you're doing.

Rev E

 

[kile]

mike is actually 40 and owned his own studio, too bad he didnt know what to do with it all, he's a moron...