Help... Basic HW setup 4 a recording studio?

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cranio

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Hallo!

I need some fast help and I hope you'll get through my english...

I had the opportunity to meet some people who want to give me funds to realized something I've ever dreamed of...
With their help and supervision I'm about to set up a recording studio with some friends of mine; the primary activity for the studio will be, for now, recording jingles, voices for documentaries, voices for supermarket announcements, as these are the areas in which we have most contacts.

But in the future we'll like to upgrade it to "serious" music recording and production.

Some things I'd like to know...

Can I get along, for now, with only PC+soundcard+mic?

And, what kind of mic is the best for voice recording?

Can you suggest me a good sound card ($$$ are not a problem) with multiple inputs?

And when it comes to MIDI music, do I really need some external sound module? and, in the case, do you have some suggestions?
 
Well, yes and no. If your PC has enough horse power and you get some recording/ editing software, that is exactly the medium I'd want to use (if you're doing jingles and voice over kind of stuff, you'll definately want to be able to edit audio). An average sound card that is full duplex will do what you want to do but if you're actually going to try to sell what you're recording, I'd try to get something decent. On the choice of sound cards, just search the archieves of this this site as there are VOLUMES of opinions on sound cards.
Get a decent work horse microphone. For voice over work, at the bottom of my list would be a Shure SM-57, at the top a SM-7 or an Electrovoice RE-27. Next I'd have to have a mic preamp. An ART
is cheep and decent.
Realistic street prices in US dollars assumming your computer is up to snuff;
Decent sound card-$400
Microphone-$100 to $500
Microphone preamplifier-$100 to $Holy Shit!
 
So, it seems that I need also a mic preamplifier... but is this
really necessary? I thought that with a good soundcard it would be possible to plug the mic directly in the sound card...
 
The better the soundcard, the more the devellopers will realize that adding a micpre to the board will just downgrade the performance of the total signal chain.

Instead of just a micpre, you might consider getting a complete voice channel (which includes a mic pre). At least a compressor would come in very handy. De-essing could also be handled in the digital realm, same for EQ.

Also think about the software... That's gonna cost you too.

When doing voice over for documentaries, you might need some sync-hardware. Don't know alot about that.

For midi-stuff. You don't need a hardware-module, you could just keep with a software sampler and a load of samples. But one of those little boxes that has got the sounds ready to use is usefull. Check out the roland JV1010, or look for a used JV1080. (they go pretty cheap these days.)
 
Some sound cards have mic pre's built in that are functional but as I said, if you'll actually be doing work for pay, you really need to go to that level of performance. And if you happen to want to use a condesor type of microphone (which also would be a good choice for this kind of work) you would need a preamp that can generate phantom power (48 Volts DC that goes thru the mic cable to power the microphone which has active electronics). Hey, I'm not saying you have to have one. You could cobble together a system with a 300MHz PC with128megs of RAM with a genaric sound card (as long as it was full duplex), a SM-57 using an impedence matching transformer so you could physicly plug it into the sound card running something like N-Tracks which is a low bucks recording software and you'd be off to the races. But there's an audible difference in performance between the two platforms. Just my humle opinion of course.:D
 
OK I may get flamed for this but I'll say it anyway :D:
Looks like you know NOTHING about audio production, recording and equipment, so I don't understand why someone would want to buy you a studio which you don't know how to use in the firsdt place (but that's another story and I hope you didn't tell them that you know how to use the equipment they are financing).
Wouldn't it be wiser to learn some stuff first before you start spending someone elses money on gear?
There's a lot more to a good production than equipment you know. :)

Well my $.02 anyway,
Keijo
 
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