Help me get started?

[cincy_kid]

Ok, first let me state that not only is this my first post on the board but also I have no experience with home recording so please keep that in mind. I know about computers hardware/software but thats about the extent of my related knowledge.

Anyways, I am wanting to record my own music that will get a good sound quality from it. A quality where I could just burn the cd and it sound similar to what you hear on the radio, etc.

Lets start with what I will want to do. I will be doing all of the recording myself. No other musicians will be involved. I am a singer, so vocals are very important to me. Other than sing, I will play guitar (both acoustic and my electric), and then use loops and/or drum machine for the rest.

Here is my existing equipment by category:

Musical
Shure 58 microphone
Acoustic guitar with electric built in pick up
Electric guitar
Johnson Amplification

Computer
AMD 3000 Barton
ABIT NF7-S MoB
1 gig DDR RAM
120 gig Western Digital 7200 rpm HD
ATI RAdeon 256 MB vid card (irrelevant but nice piece nonetheless )
CDRW / DVD Combo

Software
Sound Forge 6.0
Acid Pro 3.0
Acid Pro 4.0
Vegas 4.0
Adobe Audition

Ok, so now that you know what I have, I need to know what I need. I know the first and probably most important thing I need is a sound card. I have read many posts on these forums about different cards and still not sure what I would need for my situation. Do I go PCI? USB? Other?

Also, since vocals are important do I need a mic preamp? Anything else? mixer? other preamps? I am clueless on all of this stuff.

I am sure budget matters as to what advice you give me. I am not looking at spending much at all starting out until I make some progress and learn which way I want to go. I know it will be $150-$300 for a decent card, but other than that I am not sure what to get.

Thanks in advance for all of your help!

 

[Stealthtech]

1. You will be hard pressed to sound like the radio
2. The card you choose will be dependent on your needs for inputs/outputs/preamps/spdif/Quality/budget
3. In your case, take a look at the m-audio delta series.
PCI if you have outboard mixer-pre-amp, etc..
Breakout box with pres USB or Firewire
4. The Shure is a good overall mic but consider a second...high quality studio mic.

 

[cincy_kid]

Hey Stealthtech, thanks for the reply, however:

1) I hear home recordings all the time that sound radio quality if not better so I know it can be done. Most new bands today do all of their recordings that way. (IE Linkin Park)

2) I described my needs, equipment and budget above just so I wouldn't get this sort of "depends" reply

3) I dont have an outboard mixer preamp, just looking for the things I will need to get with my situation.

4) Ok, sounds great, but have any ideas of what a good high quality studio mic would be? Name? Cost? Again not looking at spending much in the beginning.

Hopefully this didn't come off as a negative post. I am just trying to get help here since I am completely new to all of this and would like to start recording some hit songs in the near future

Thanks again for your reply ~

 

[manning1]

heres some products to look at and demo to see if they fir your needs.
out of the millions out there. CAD microphones. a lot of people seem to like them. used old ev mics dynamics can be usefull as well and can be had cheap if you shop aound. srudio projexts mics are well thought of.
in preamps definitely try a rane ms1b sometime.
if you want a real cheap mixer i demoed an alto awhile back and was quite surprised. its not a million dollar desk but certainly very clean and good.
if your willing to do some work you could build your own mic pre. loads of schematics on the net. as an example i built a mic pre using mpsa18 transistors (ultra low noise). listen to the song up in the sky or raise the flag
or several of my other songs at soundclick.com/bmanning for an idea of quality. or a close micing example - everybody asks me for a love song that my wife and women seem to like. now compare to take my love song done in a very high end studio using megaconsoles. not really a whole bunch of diff imho. on monitors as always i say yorkvilles. driven by a cheap hi fi home amp. big studios often use auratone cube spkrs to mix on. you might want to try the,.
as to soundcard - its a huge field. stay away from cheap consumer sound cards. audiophile 24/96 and delta range are used by a lot of folks and RME
are well respected by pro's but expensive. visit tracertek.com they have a maya mk2 with 4 in for 100 bucks. that does 24 bit. but no user reviews yet.
but a sweet price. for software my personal favorites are magix music studio (80 bucks) - its SUPERB ! and powertracks from pgmusic.com that does 48 digital audio tracks for 29 bucks and has a pro midi sequencer built in with lots of other doodads.(pgmusic.com). these are about my best ideas for someone starting. or do what i do and buy a lot of (particularly mics and guitar amps) for 10 bucks used. also a tip - experiment like crazy.
eg: you can use a speaker as a mic. if your stuck for dough and can get some surprisingly good results.
peace.

 

[manning1]

sorry for the typos. in addition i notice you have just one drive.
put a second one in on its own channel. put windows on one drive and the second for your tracks to maximise performance of your PC.
less head contention.
peace.

 

[cincy_kid]

Thanks for all of the advice manning, it is much appreciated. So after some further research and reading some of your advice, it seems like I am going to atleast need the following:

- Decent Sound Card
- Mixer (which has built in mic preamps so I dont need preamps also?)
- Another Hard Drive

So with a mixer, does that mean I can plug the mics and guitars into it or just the microphones?

Thanks again for your help ~

 

[manning1]

to answer your Q's.....
1. you plug the mics into the 3 pin xlr inputs on the mixer.
2. you can record guitar several ways , use something like a direct box
(behringer have them cheap). OR pick up an old rockman OR pick up some
sort of guitar processor like a behringer vamp and ilk. OR behringer have a cheap guitar amp called a Vtune i think it is for 50 bucks that you could mic. ive seen some user reviews that quite like it. OR pick up used guitar amps like i do. i have several my wife has found at yard sales for 5 bucks or ten.
just make sure they are electrically safe. OR you could surf the net for guitar amp schematics of which there are thousands - BUT make sure you take an electronics course if you want to enter the fascinating world of DIY.
for safety reasons. ie: take a college course. BE SAFE!
if you go to places like zzounds.com there are a slew of less than 100 buck guitar amps on sale.
also a TIP. get yourself a line mixer for monitoring the output of your soundcard with (or you can use a cassette deck or hi fi amp as long as it has a headphone jack so you can hear tracks previously recorded while playing back a new one). this way you dont have to repatch on the mixer as some small mixers make you do. heres the set up.
mics>>> mixer mic input>>>line out of mixer>>> soundcard line in
lineout from soundcard>>>linemixer or monitoring amp(with headphones
plugged in eg: while recording.) the monitoring amp also running your
main monitors OR get a seperate pair of monitors with amplification built in.
peace.

 

[cincy_kid]

On my Johnson guitar amp, it has a direct out. Does that mean I can run from the amps direct out straight into the sound card? or I go into a mixer? or do I have to buy separate mics and mic the amp?

 

[TripleJ]

Well guitar normally doesn't sound very lifelike if run directly - but yes you can use the direct out to go to your computer/a mixer. Make sure however that the direct out is line level - and not headphone level.

It will most probably be line level - but if its a headphone port then it will be too loud for your line in and may possibly fry it.

 

[manning1]

cincy - i am always leery of going into a sound card line in direct from amps because they are sensitive beasts. you might want to email johnson and ask.
i would go through a mixer.

 

[cincy_kid]

So when I have a mixer, will it be best to go from my amp direct out into the mixer? Or is it best to mic the amp and then send the mic signal to the mixer? Or is there a better/easier way that I am missing?

Thanks again ~

 

[manning1]

cincy .....many ways...
1. mic close in on grille (and optionally a second mic out in the room)
the GAME is all experimentation with mic positioning. then feed the mics into mixer...
2. some people optionally tap off and do a send to a guitar processor like
say an effects rack and mix that in as well....
3. some people do this ,,,,one mic dry positioned in the stereo field left eg :
a rhythm guitar while the effected is on the right of the stereo spectrum.
there are no hard and fast rules except experiment like heck with the mics and tools at your disposal.....but ONE RULE i never do is go from amp to line in EVEN if the amp booklet says its ok,,,,just incase a driver stage goes bad
in the output of the amp (like a bad capacitor) and then screws up the sound card line input stage. .....
my best advice is experiment first off with different mic positions on the guitar amp feeding the mic signal through the mixer and then to the sound card. also haveing recorded the guitar track experiment with playing the guitar track again (called doubling) and stacking guitar tracks with and without different fx. there is an interesting free guitar amp simulator you want to try thats on the net as well>>>>simulanalog.com
check out the jcm settings and some of the others.

 

[cincy_kid]

Well, to start off I think I am going this route unless I am convinced otherwise:

- Maya MK2 sound card ($109)
- Alto or Behringer mixer ($50-$80)
- Shure SM57 mic ($89)

Anyone else have any other suggestions or advice for me before I buy this stuff?

Thanks in advance

 

[manning1]

on the maya - as with any sound card its a good idea to check first that the soundcard is compatible with the motherboard in your pc as well as the chipset. the maya is very new. another user on here has reported he had some problems if i understand correctly playing back some CD's of his from
the cdrom. but reports it records fine. just search the forum for maya.
now in your case maybe the maya will be perfect in all respects.
you dont really know till you install it.
my only other comment is as an option to the 57 some folks seem to like the ev mics on guitar cabinets. if it was me i might also consider beyer mics. ive found them to be very good at each price point.
i have not tried the behringer but the alto seemed to have a pleasing sound to it when i tried it.
frankly at this budget level i think the most important thing is just to get your feet wet and start recording. everyone has to start somewhere right ?
you can analyse gear 6 million ways to sunday otherwise and never get a song done. even if you get a 10 buck dynamic and a throw out radio shack mixer its a start for some folks.

 

[NYMorningstar]

If you're going to record acoustic instruments like your acoustic guitar and voice you may want to check out a condensor mic. You can pick a decent one up for under $100 but keep in mind if you use a condensor mic you will be needing phantom power. Most mixers these days have the phantom power built in.

 

[cincy_kid]

Oops I thought the SM-57 was a condenser mic, lol

And yes the alto mixers have built in phantom power and so does the maya sound card, so covered both ways!

Thx for the advice manning ~

 

[manning1]

if you want cincy a nice but bit pricier mic a LOT of folks like the CAD
range of mics. ive yet to hear a bad word about them.
if you truly want a cheap starter condensor then demo the cad gxl range.
under 100 bucks - some places 60 bucks if i remember zzounds.com perhaps ? just dont lose sight of the fact that condensers will pick up every little squeek from your recording chair ! whereas dynamics can be more forgiving. imho condensors are not the be all and end all. good for
acoustic guitar OK, but if you are laying down serious guitar metal an ev dynamic you might wish to demo.

 

[manning1]

also cincy if i remember the maya is only 12volts dc phantom supply.
so dont think you can blithely plug in a condensor needing 48volts dc.
the industry standard. you would plug this type of mic like the cad gxl i mentioned into the alto with phantom 48v dc.