Help the noob with his setup, please!

  • Thread starter Thread starter 44Runner
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44Runner

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I hope I posted this in the right forum! Alright guys, I need your help in a big way. I've been playing for many years, and lately decided I wanted to mess around with home recording. I work in computer retail and some reps from Sonic Foundry where in my store the other day and I mention to the head rep that I wanted to make a home studio and I was thinking of using Acid Pro 4.0 as my base program. Well he talked to me and at the end, I walked away with a free copy of Acid. Pretty phat.

The computer I am going to use is a P3 700MHz laptop that I have collecting dust. After reading a ton on here and other sites, I decided to start out with a Shure SM57LC mic. If someone thinks that is a bad call, please point me in the right direction. If have a pretty decent set of speakers to go with it as well as some nice Sony digital reference headphones.

My biggest question is what else do I need to get started? I am on a very limited college student budget. I am not trying to start a company, charge people for recording, or anything like that. This is solely to put a smile on my face and have fun. I assume I will need some sort of preamp/mixer in between the mic and the comp. What should I get (*cheap*, but decent), and how much do they go for?

Lastly, I guess it will be good to tell you what I want to do with all this stuff. I am mainly a vocalist and guitar player. Those are my strengths, but I also play mandolin, drums and harmonica. Of course I have friends who I am sure would love to come jam on my setup who most probably do the same as myself, add a bass guitar (I want to learn, but don't own one).

Thanks a bunch for your help and I'm sorry for all the dumb questions, but this board is a life saver. No clue where else I could have gotten info like this.

Dave
 
detuned6 said:
Your need a sound card and some preamps.
Click to expand...

OK, what and why?

I mean the machine obviously has a crappy onboard sound card. What would I need to upgrade it to. I would need to look at extrenals with it being a laptop. Only one I know of there is the Sound Blaster Extigy, is there another that is better for what I am looking to do? Do I really need this if I am just lookin to d!ck around?

You say preamps, plural. Why do I need more than one if I my setup only has one mic?

I need serious help here, I know nothing. Once again, I definately don't need anything fancy, just lookin to play around and keep it cheap...
 
c7sus, thanks for your warm welcome. I know that Acid is great with loops and all, but I hope it will also cover my basic need to simply lay down tracks and edit them. The only other recording software I have played with is Pro Tools setup up on a G4 tower. Acid seems to be *basically* like that although not as powerful, and when I was messing with pro tools I had multiple people with me that knew how to use the software well. Also, Acid was free, so it fits in my budget quite nicely ;) I also stock Sonic Founry's software at work so it will help me in gaining knowledge of what I sell.

Echomancer, WOW! That is a lot of stuff to look over. Thanks for the links. Some of those products seem to be right up my alley in terms of what I am looking for, i think :/

-The Tascam US-122 looks like a good solution for me. Would give me mic inputs as well as direct recording from my guitars without micing if I wanted to do that. Also has 2 mic inputs so I could add a second mic down the road to get a better sound from my drums. It also seems to be the only thing I could maybe afford on their site :P

-All the stuff on the midiman link is just straight up out of my price range unfortunately. I am poor, what can I say. I am already gonna have to eat ramen for a month to afford what I am probably gonna get...

-The Edirol UA-20 seems like it would suit my needs just fine, but it also seems like for about 20 bucks more I can get the US-122 which seems to be the better unit with more features. Am I right here?

So given all my info, what would you guys do if you were me? I have at most 300 to spend to get me started. I already have computer(P3 700 Laptop), software (Acid Pro 4.0), headphones (Sony MDR-CD350), speakers (Labtec LCS-2414 and Altec Lansing ADA880). I guess what I am looking at now to round out my sorry little "studio" is a Tascam US-122 and a Shure SM57. Someone let me have it. What do you think?
 
c7sus said:
I would stay away from USB audio interfaces. They just don't have the speed or the bandwidth to transfer multichannel audio back and forth in real time as a well as PCI-based solutions do.
Click to expand...

Well, being a laptop, i don't have much of a choice...
 
c7sus said:
Sorry about that............ I guess CardBus is newer than I thought.:)
Click to expand...
In all fairness, CardBus is rather old, there are Sparc TadPole laptops from the early 90's that supported cardbus, but this is neither here nor there :).

This is very unlikely, but possible. Contact Dell support to find out of the USB ports on your laptop are USB 2.0 compatible. If they are, then USB bandwidth is a non issue for you. If they aren't, unfortunately, you'll be relegated to recording two tracks at a time, but if you're only doing this for yourself, it doesn't matter that much probably, unless you're a drummer.

Regarding the interfaces, I think I'm going to push you more towards the M-Audio stuff personally. Most people will tell you that one of the best values in this stuff is the MAudio AudioBuddy mic preamp. I'm almost positive that the MAudio interfaces use the same preamp circuitry as does the AudioBuddy, but I might be wrong. This unit: http://www.midiman.com/products/m-audio/mobilepre.php is actually cheaper than your Tascam, but may have less features, it's really late and i didn't pay close enough attention. Or, you might just luck out and find a used MAudio Duo from eBay or something similar (there are a few on eBay right now for around $150). Maybe check your local music stores and hagle with them.

The other possibility, though far more complex, is that you may be able to interface your laptop to a true docking station from dell (which SHOULD be cheap as hell on ebay) that would allow you to instal PCI devices for use on your laptop.

I've also seen that someone FINALLY makes a PCI->cardbus adapter, but it's about $800 (which is just silly).

Best of luck to you, and I hope you enjoy your foray into this endless pit of money!
 
Just my two cents

OK so working in a store that sell this stuff has jaded me a bit to the point of being bias but I love M-Audio!!!!!
I have used the new usb stuff from them and its very nice!
I just bought the Ozone audio midi all in one then I got the Dmp3 mic pre its latency free monitoring(direct monitoring)...
Also for $150 they make the Mobile pre usb dual mic or line inputs and stereo mic in's and phantom its buss powered too so its totaly portable. if ya dont have usb of firewire ports get a pcm dual pourpus card and get a external drive (usb 2.0 or firewire).....
My new laptop system cost under $2000.00 retail.......
P4 2.66ghz 256 mb of ram ozone dmp3 maxtor external usb 2.0 7200 rpm drive m-audio bag usb 2.0 hub and a mouse.......
Check out sonar and Project5 and samplitude is awsome too.
ANd just a plug I work for AMerican Guitar Boutique we have all this m-audio stuff so e-mail me rick@americanguitarboutique.com
or call me if you need to buy any of it.
-Reco
 
c7sus

USB does work just 4 chanels or fewer!
OH and a note on the mobile pre! it since its buss powered it only does 16bit/44.1 the ozone does 24/96 but isnt buss powered...............
-Reco
 
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