Getting started. What more would I need?

[mrbreeeeze]

Hey everyone. My first post here and I'm hoping I could get a little good direction here. I'll tell you what I have first then what I'm looking to do.

-A few guitars. Electric, acoustic and bass.
-Johnson J station w/ Left/Right 1/4" outs, MIDI Out & In ports, RCA S/PDIF out.
-Toshiba M400 Tablet Laptop w/ Intel Duo Core 1.83, 2GB ram, Firewire.
-A decent set of Sony headphones.
-Trial version of Samplitude 14
-J-Edit software for the J Station.


All I want to do right now is interface all this together and start hacking around in a quiet corner of the house. I'm not fussy about sound or anything like that, I just want to get my feet wet and start learning. I'll definitely want to throw a mic in the mix for vocals later so that has to be a consideration.

So how do I interface my J station to my laptop and the studio software and start laying tracks? I found a USB/MIDI out/in patch online for about 35 bucks but will this allow me to record or would it only act to interface the J station with the J Edit software? Is there another patch out there that is Firewire instead of USB? Maybe an inexpensive little mixer is what I need but then again, what would it need to hook up to my laptop. I'm betting there's a whole bunch of ways to do this so cheapest and easiest are top considerations. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks.

 

[tmix]

Getting the sounds in and out are indeed your next hurdle.
Unless your lap top has a spdif digital I/O you are forced to use the analogue 1/8 mini audio jacks of your souncard, unless you want to spring for a USB audio interface or a Firewire Audio interface.

You are correct in that the midi I/O on the J-Station is for the editing of parameters only, no audio path there.

Your Jstation is a decent Preamp for the E-Guitars and Bass and can be fed directly into the laptop through the soundcard audio in, but if you want to feed a microphone, you are forced to use a cheap computer mic, or buy something like a small mixer or 2 channel mic preamp to feed the sound card.

A second option is to buy a small USB mixer that has a few mic preamps built in and interfaces through USB, there are also Firewire versions for those interested in pumping 8 channels or more in and out.

There are a million variations of this plan, and a million offerings.
The simplest thing I would suggest is a decent small mixer with headphone outs for not only monitoring what is going into the computer but to monitor playback as well for overdubs. Get more channels than you think you will need. I suggest at least 6 to 8.

Samplitude is a wonderful program, I have used it for many years, but it does have a steep learning curve. If you run aground and get frustrated, try downloading Reaper, it is also a good program and is like 10% of the cost of Samplitude