help! using cakewalk and a four track cassette recorder

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downinfront

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hey,
i'm somewhat of an amateur in recording. my band has started to record on our fostex x-24 4-track, a cheap little thing but it does the job. now i know a bit about how to record on this machine, but i recently got cakewalk pro audio 9, and i am interested in using that to mix the tracks and put them into .wav files and burn them into cds. here's my question/scenario. right now we have the drum track laid down on track 2 of the recorder on our cassette. can i record this drum track into cakewalk, then go back, record the bass onto another track, put that into the computer (in the correct time with the drums) and continue doing so, so that i don't have to bounce tracks on the 4 track, or is that not a good idea? any help is greatly appreciated
 
down, why bother recording at all with the fostex?
That defeats the purpose of Cakewalk. Record with
Cakewalk, not the Fostex, Just use your Fostex as a mixer, not a tape recorder.

What kind of Computer specs?
You will need a soundcard too, probably Soundblaster or better. Good Luck.
 
DavidK is correct.

You are defeating the purpose of using Cakewalk by recording to the Fostex.

Let us know about you computer equipment, so we all can get you up and running. :)

peace

spin
 
here's my specs

hey, thanks for replying,
here's my "specs", i have win 98, 128 mb ram, a few gigs of hd space, 450 mhz pentium III processor. do you need more than that? thanks, i've tried recording the track from the fostex onto cakewalk, it seems to work okay, but how would i go about recording just w/ cakewalk? thanks,
E.J.
 
EJ,
if you record to fostex, then to cake, you get tape hiss and poor sound quality, which of course you dont want!

To record directly to Cake, you will need a soundcard, which you probably have, but it is probably bad if you have a store bought pc.
With a sound card, you could plug the mixer into the card, arm a track in Cake, and record. The sound quality will be good to great, depending on lots of things, but
it will be much better than the fostex.

With your setup, you can probably get 15 tracks in cake,as opposed to 4 in the fostex. Since you are new to cakewalk, plan on spending a few months learning it,but the basic stuff is pretty simple; I recorded a few tracks within hours when I got mine, which I have had 10 months now.

The key for you will be the soundcard, do some studying on that. Cheers, Dave
 
Let us know what type of sound card is in your computer.

Like DavidK said, it probably isn't a good one.

Also, let us know how much you are willing to spend on a new soundcard.

$50

$100

$300

$500

or

$0

peace...

spin
 
i don't know what kind of soundcard i have but...

hey i'm not sure the type of soundcard i have, but i'm not going to buy a new one for the computer. i think its a decent one, but i couldn't find it on the control panel where i looked. so if i use our p.a. powered mixer instead of the fostex, then run the line out and plug that into the line in on the computer, it should sound ok, or do i have to plug it like into the back of the soundcard itself? thanks a bunch
 
Yep :)

Mixer LINE OUT/computer LINE IN.

Important!!!!

Make sure you go into the LINE IN and not the MIC IN.

spin
 
Sidebar

I'm using a Delta 66 Soundcard.

It's got 4 ins/4 outs. I also have a Fostex XR-5 (4 Track cassette recorder). Let me ask you all a question.

I notice in a lot of threads, people are using external mixers, (even old four track recorders) with Cakewalk PA9. What are some of the applications available when doing this? If you've got 4 ins and 4 outs does the mixer give you more of each. I can't see how you could do that.

If this question doesn't make sense.....let me know.
 
For one thing, the mixer typically provides mic preamps. For another, an external mixer allows you to combine a number of signals, say 16 (it of course depends on the particular mixer) and send them to 4 outs for sending to the computer, if you want to do that. A mixer also allows you to take the 4 outs of the soundcard and mix them down to stereo on the way to a stereo DAT or external CD recorder or other mastering device. If you have enough channels on the mixer you can leave lots of stuff connected and ready to use at the slide of a fader or push of a button, rather than having to swap cables at the back of the computer whenever you switch mics. There's probably other reasons I'm missing...
 
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