Help for a beginer plz

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sebcore
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Sebcore

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Hi,id like to have help on how to record on a pc because i dont know nothing about it.im writing songs and i want to record them,its bassiclly 2 guitars,vocals,drum machine and bass midi.thats it.i want to buy a soundcard and a program to record but i dont know what to buy and what i need with it.i have 128mb rams 1000mhz pc.can someone tell me the cheapest way to do that and have a good sound. thanks :confused:
 
i'm a computer engr with my own studio. will try and help. firstly you need
to up your ram to 512 . 128 is too small. also two 7200 rpm hard drives is recommended one small one for windows one bigger one for your audio tracks. please also tell me what you have in your pci slots.
also - do you have a mixer ? until you get back to me read the free tutorials about digital audio in the support section at pgmusic.com.

also read about powertracks at the same site. then if you have Q's just ask.
also take the free video tour. youll find it interesting and a great introduction.peace.
 
The thing about two drives is not such a big deal any more, you can easily function just beautifully with a single large 7200 rpm drive.
 
AL. yes you can function with one drive ...however - there are several advantages of two drives.
1. you can back up your audio tracks/projects. the problem with one drive is - if it goes bad youve lost everything. with two you can do mutual back ups of projects etc.
2. using two drives on seperate channels your not contending with windows OS calls to the drive like you are with one drive where windows also resides
as well as your tracks. peace.
 
manning1 said:
i'm a computer engr with my own studio. will try and help. firstly you need
to up your ram to 512 . 128 is too small. also two 7200 rpm hard drives is recommended one small one for windows one bigger one for your audio tracks. please also tell me what you have in your pci slots.
also - do you have a mixer ? until you get back to me read the free tutorials about digital audio in the support section at pgmusic.com.

also read about powertracks at the same site. then if you have Q's just ask.
also take the free video tour. youll find it interesting and a great introduction.peace.
Click to expand...

i dont know what a pci slot is..and i dont have a mixer.if the pci slots are for the sound card,i think my sound card came in my mother board.but something is wierd when i try to record with just the recorder in win98 it dosent want to record.first im not sure where to put my mic(cpu) there is 3 places.then when i go in multimedia theres 2 things in audio ;the volume control and the recording control but i cant go in the recording control advance option maby thats why it dont record maby something is wrong with it.so thats why i want to wait before i buy a good sound card, it dont even work with the window recorder. thank man
 
lets start with basics. what is your computer ?
a pentium ?
pci slots are slots inside your computer that you put for example a proper sound card in to do good quality recording. you wont get good quality
using the sound subsystem that came with your computer.
i would suggest you get a book on recording on the pc.
all will be revealed. also - what brand is your microphone ?
does it have 3 pin xlr jack on it ?
 
manning1 said:
lets start with basics. what is your computer ?
a pentium ?
pci slots are slots inside your computer that you put for example a proper sound card in to do good quality recording. you wont get good quality
using the sound subsystem that came with your computer.
i would suggest you get a book on recording on the pc.
all will be revealed. also - what brand is your microphone ?
does it have 3 pin xlr jack on it ?
Click to expand...

its not a pentium its a duron 1000mhz,the mic i have right now is just a really cheap cpu mic, im not planing to record my music with it but i want to see if it work before i buy the real equipement.it have a 1/8"'jack i think the smaller one like for walkman.
 
Here's a link to a freeware (meaning free) multitrack application called 'Audacity'.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

This, a small mixing board and one of the budget-priced condenser mics (Behringer, Oktava, Rode, CAD, Marshall, etc) will be all you need to get started.

Also, you might want to download the Tracktion demo here:

http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktion/

The demo version is fully functional for two weeks, and if you like it as much as I do it's only $80 to buy your own copy.

And don't fail to order that book from Amazon that TimOBrien recommended.
 
manning1 said:
duron is fine. do you have 512 ram ?
Click to expand...

no i have 128 ram..ill upgrade but before i just want to see if i can try the window recorder.cuz rigth now it dont work.do i really need a mixer?theres no mixer in the program to record?
 
hey brazillion, what would you consider to be the duron's equvalent in terms of intel products? is it about the same as a pentium II? i figured the first athlons bartons were equal to the PIII so a bit older than that?
 
brzillion. rarely will i disagree with you, as ive seen your very fine posts.
but with respect with the proper fast hard drive some people are getting 40 tracks using duron. no - its not the best processor. but it will do the job for starting out.
ideally - i agree an athlon is a better proposition. so beezbubba , imho a duron is certainly capable of a lot of track laying. in fact i did a test with a friends duron versus a p4 laying reverb round a track. the p4 beat it by a second or two only.
sebcore, you definitely need 512 ram for modern multitrack recording.
otherwise your asking for problems.
if you want a decent mic for cheap , look at a cad gxl for 50 bucks.
you will also need a mixer .eg yamaha mg are cheap . and a decent sound card eg..delta. plus the memory i mentioned.
for multitrack software i use powertracks from pgmusic.com.
which has many unique digital sudio and midi features not found in free ,
and many other much higher priced packages. and only costs 49 bucks for 48 tracks. you can view the on line video on it and features here.....
http://www.pgmusic.com/powertracks.htm
if you dont believe me...talk to users on the forum...who like myself
have tried every single package available on the market including the free and higher priced ones. peace.
 
I'm getting by nicely w/a Duron 1000 and 250megs DDR!Granted I don't ask a great deal of my system(no softsamps and not real heavy on plugins)and I'm still living in the 16 bit dimension.I don't worry about how many tracks I can acheive.If I need one,I add one!I believe 19 is the most I've used in ntrack.
I do admire the quest for higher technological firepower and would pursue it myself if I had the bucks but the original post in this thread had pretty modest aims."A duron is not enough"!Enough for what?
 
hehe.. ten years ago nobody had half a gig of memory and four gigherz processors... they still managed to get thing done... :rolleyes:
 
As I recall, 10 years ago "getting the thing done" on a pc meant running MIDI tracks, *not* audio. No one was recording 20+ audio tracks back then. We stored to DAT, tape and other outboard devices.

The ablility to run audio tracks, plugins, etc are directly related to the amount and speed of system RAM and the speed and type of your processor, unless you have managed to offload that functionality to ASICs (as would be the case in offloading effects to dedicated pic cards and so on.)

Certainly, with a duron you *can* run audio, and if the performance suits you, then who is to say it is not sufficient? However, anyway you slice it, it is a slow processor by today's standards.

I also would recommend seperate drives for system and audio files. As Manning first pointed out, you want to avoid contention between the OS's system calls and the IO for your audio. I would go a step further and argue that your second drive should be your secondary master; ideally you want the drives on seperate controllers.

Hope this helps
 
fraser. i agree 100%. my friend thats running 40 tracks on a duron has lots of ram. also if he needs more he just mixes down to stereo once the duron starts "wheezing", brings the stereo mix in as a stereo track to the multitrack software...and adds another 38 tracks as before.
so if one is stuck this method lets you get loads of tracks.
much as i love amd 64 , a lot of people just cant afford them unfortunately.
hopefully amd will drop the prices over the next 2 years.
 
You could consider buying a hard disk multitrack recorder. They're relatively cheap these days and very easy to use. As you are finding, recording to computer is still confusing and difficult to get decent information about without people teching out on you. Its better than it was, but still a pain of unknown questions and requirements.

Hard diskrecorders are all inclusive, that is you dont need to buy this and that or indeed wonder what to buy. It's all in one neat package. The only disadvantage is the less tracks you get and possibly more limited fx. But if you're a beginner it'll be fine, you'll still never explore all its options.

People in this industry are the most hopeless I have ever come across at explaining things to beginners. This is because they are generally very good at what they do and thus cant relate to a beginners knowledge base. It's like talking first year chemistry to a professor, the gap is too large to be useful. Its up to you basically to work it out. Also so much information is actually sales hype, telling you you must have this very expensive thing when you dont at all.

Buy the book that guy recommended for sure, and if your still confused, which you may well be, buy a hard disk recorder for simplicity, quality and usefulness.
 
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