D
Drago
New member
Hello all 
I would be very grateful if some of you could spare the time to give a beginner some advice.
Ok.....I play 6 string accoustic guitar and a 12 string accoustic guitar,
the latter with built in pick-ups, and I sing. Folk-type stuff. I have a
fairly good PC........128mb RAM, 10 gig hard drive, pentium II, a CD writer
and a soundblaster live 'value' soundcard. I record using Cool Edit Pro
multitrack software.
I currently record using a shure VR116L electret condenser microphone with
1.5V battery-power using the soundblaster live mic input. I have tried
playing the 12 string using the card's line-in input but it isnt too good.
So I tend to just mic the guitar. I normally do vocal tracks and guitar
tracks seperately. (that's all I can do with the soundblaster). I have no
external mixer or pre-amp etc. I also have a small sony condenser mic and a
cheapo plastic computer mic. I bought the shure condenser electret mic
because soundblaster-live needs an electret-type mic and I thought it would
be a step up from the plastic computer mic and the sony. It is really not
much improvement and I think the best sound-source I have is still the
cheapo plastic mic (please dont laugh) which produces quite a warm vocal and
after getting rid of hiss and PC noise (using cool edit pro) and adding
reverb etc produces a respectable vocal and guitar sound.
I want to step up a bit. I have a budget of around $500 dollars (I am in
england but would probably import from US as a dollar over there seems to be
worth a pound compared to UK prices....that electret mic cost me £89 over
here which is around 125 dollars!). Mainly I am after a better, richer vocal
sound.
So my problem is, what will get me the best bang for the buck in terms of
improving my sound quality. Should I go for a better mic....a pe-amp.....a
mixer......a better audio soundcard or some combination of all four. I would
prefer to record two tracks at once but I am prepared to continue recording
one track at a time if the gear that uses that option gives the best sound
quality.
What do you think I should buy? I would be enormously grateful for any
advice.
Mucho gratias to the scaly-one for providing the best source of music-recording advice on the Web!
regards from
Drago

I would be very grateful if some of you could spare the time to give a beginner some advice.
Ok.....I play 6 string accoustic guitar and a 12 string accoustic guitar,
the latter with built in pick-ups, and I sing. Folk-type stuff. I have a
fairly good PC........128mb RAM, 10 gig hard drive, pentium II, a CD writer
and a soundblaster live 'value' soundcard. I record using Cool Edit Pro
multitrack software.
I currently record using a shure VR116L electret condenser microphone with
1.5V battery-power using the soundblaster live mic input. I have tried
playing the 12 string using the card's line-in input but it isnt too good.
So I tend to just mic the guitar. I normally do vocal tracks and guitar
tracks seperately. (that's all I can do with the soundblaster). I have no
external mixer or pre-amp etc. I also have a small sony condenser mic and a
cheapo plastic computer mic. I bought the shure condenser electret mic
because soundblaster-live needs an electret-type mic and I thought it would
be a step up from the plastic computer mic and the sony. It is really not
much improvement and I think the best sound-source I have is still the
cheapo plastic mic (please dont laugh) which produces quite a warm vocal and
after getting rid of hiss and PC noise (using cool edit pro) and adding
reverb etc produces a respectable vocal and guitar sound.
I want to step up a bit. I have a budget of around $500 dollars (I am in
england but would probably import from US as a dollar over there seems to be
worth a pound compared to UK prices....that electret mic cost me £89 over
here which is around 125 dollars!). Mainly I am after a better, richer vocal
sound.
So my problem is, what will get me the best bang for the buck in terms of
improving my sound quality. Should I go for a better mic....a pe-amp.....a
mixer......a better audio soundcard or some combination of all four. I would
prefer to record two tracks at once but I am prepared to continue recording
one track at a time if the gear that uses that option gives the best sound
quality.
What do you think I should buy? I would be enormously grateful for any
advice.
Mucho gratias to the scaly-one for providing the best source of music-recording advice on the Web!
regards from
Drago