getting started

[flash2ace]

ok i guess to make this simple i need to know how you guys would hook up instruments in my situation (stereo cable or not stereo cable) i have sonar 1.01 and i only have a 16 bit card made by riptide which has a terrible latency problem. it will run some real time affects at 8 but most at a minimum of 16 and it makes my comp lock up when i try. so ive given up on internal effects for now and am using external or just adding effects once recording is done. but what my question is if i wanna hook my keyboard up directly to my line in on my comp do i use a stereo cable, i dont understand midi and dont care to try ans attack that one wright now, so im recording in audio only for now, and what about guitar they are a mono signal, i went to radio sahck and they sold me a adapter that splits the mono signal into left and right and my stero cable plugs into this and then i have a 1/8 inch adapter that is stereo into my line in, but what in wondering is is this all wrong or should i just use a guitar cord. im also running a dod mono 31 band eq now as i posted in another thread, what would be the best use for this and what cables would you guys use to hook it up. i guess i just need to know whats wright and whats wrong when it comes to hooking things into the sound card, because there are many ways of doing it but im sure one way gets better results. please feel free to add anything when you coment on this that may help a begginer get the ball rolling in the wright direction. thanks tim pate

 

[Phyl]

I sympathize with your real time effects problems, they do indeed eat up a lot of CPU time.

I think we covered the guitar/eq question yesterday; you have two options, either use a Y cable configuration to get the same mono signal into the left/right channels, or input it into one channel and use Dachay's suggestion to fix the problem within SONAR. Dachays suggestion seemed to be the smartest way to go, in fact it's the way I've been recording mono instruments but I never really thought about it, SONAR just took care of it.

As for the keyboard, does it have a stereo line outputs, i.e., a left and right line out jack? If so, you need to go the Y cable route to get both channels into your soundcard, just make sure you're using the line in jack on your soundcard. BTW, I'm assuming you only have one 1/8" line in on your sound card.

When you're get everything working we can help you with MIDI, it's not tough to get a basic setup going.

Where from in Michigan? I grew up in Traverse City.

 

[flash2ace]

hi fellow michigander

i live like 45 miles from there in a small city called cadillac which im sure you know of. wow its amazing just how big this world of the wide web is and then you bump into someone who used to live less than 50 miles from you. lol anyway im upgrading my system and it will be about a month and ill have a new pc (even though im looking at macs to but im not quite working that much overtime lol) my wife said i can spend all my overtime money anyway i like since my 40 hours a week covers all the bills nicely. so what do you guys think i should do, pentium or duron, also i found the ardvark card at a local pawn shop bundled with cakewalk pro 9 for 200 bucks so thats not bad cuz its 399 new at our music store.i also quit smoking after 12 years of 3 packs a day so id have more money to dump into this project.im gonna go with all rack effects ive been buying them slowly piece by piece. i picked up a ada mp1 preamp for 50 bucks today and to my dismay this a loud little bugger, makes way to much noise to record with so my next investment is gonna be a compressor noise gate to get rid of some of that noise. the distortion is great and has a very wide variety in it including chorus, but they are from like the early 90 s i think. anyway thanks for responding talk to you later.

 

[Phyl]

I got the same deal going with my wife - overtime is play money!!!

I went with the Pentium IIII and an Aardvark product and have no regrets. When you upgrade be aware Cakewalk does not guarantee that Pro Audio 9 will work with Windows XP. Some people have it got it to work but I don't know how well.

I looked at those ADA preamps a few years ago, people say they have tons of gain, great for shredders.

 

[flash2ace]

are you running xp? i know it is a better os but im a little bit shy to move up to it wright now cuz im so used to 98 and when i get my new comp i believe i will continue to be a 98 fan. even though the lure of a 64 bit os is quite catchy. im not even sure i even know what effect that would have on recording going from 32 bit to 64? and yes the ada realy puts out but the problem is ill have to run into a noise gate first cuz the noise is ridiculous lol. im working on a prject wright now thats not original but it is cool and is sounding great, its the new papa roach song she loves me not and the only reason im doing it is for a demo to give to bands because im thinking on trying to join a band again after 10 years of non playing lol. i also have sonar 1.01 and cakewalk pro audio 9 but i still use pro audio 9 as my main system for now because sonar dont run to well on my old comp, it has a amd k/6 prcessor and 256 megs of ram but i have some overheating issues to deal with and pro audio dont seem to heat up quite as bad. somtimes ill get in the middle of a project with sonar and my comp will shut off lol because of the overheating thing. what kind of music do you play? im into anything from jazz to metal and i love it all.but my biggest problem is that when i started out playing i skipped all the musical theory stuff and just learned songs so now im stuck in a big rut and have very little writing ability.im a decent player and can play most anything as long as i can listen to it first and im realy busy studying things i shoulda learned 20 years ago lol. but its nice hearing from you. tim pate

 

[Phyl]

I'm running Windows XP because that's what the new computer came with. Windows 98 seems to be a pretty stable platform so you'll probably do just fine with it.

I spent the last year playing in a cover band, we played classic rock and some newer stuff (Collective Soul, etc). I quit a month ago because of tendinitis and have concentrated on writing and recording orignal stuff since then, trying to find my own voice I guess.