Home recording advice with existing gear

[souwalker]

Hi All
First time poster.
My friend and I (2 guitarist) have been rehearsing for a gig this Sunday.
Our gear:
Beringher Euro 2000 Power Mixer
Crate 12" PA speaker
Ashton active foldback
cd player (for backing tracks)
4 guitars (2x acc/elc & 2 elec)
2 x elec guitar amps
2 mics

The 2 mics goes into the power mixer. The 2 acc/elc guitar goes into the power mixer too. The cd player goes into the power mixer too for the backing tracks (via line in)

Can this work? I have a laptop with Power Tracks Pro V9. Can I use the power mixer's tape out and go into the laptops 'in' and use PT9 to record everything? Would all that is hooked into the power mixer get recorded? For the electric guitar, I was thing about getting another mic, plug it into the power mixer and mic the guitar amps.

I suppose all sound from the power/miser will go to the laptop as 2 channel stereo? Would I be able to use PT9 to at least ensure the recording level does not distort? I was thinking of then burning the wav files to cd.

Any thoughts, recommnedations to thie pure 'recording' newbie? I would like to use what existing gear we have.
many Thanks
Patrick

 

[manning1]

yes. you should be able to use the powered mixers TAPE OUT TO SOUNDCARD LINE INPUT. but please be aware that powered mixers are not often of the highest quality.
i'm a powertracks user for years. some tips. make sure you have track type selected as STEREO !! also bring up powertracks input monitoring meters,
and set your levels on the powered mixer output so you dont overload
the souncard. (try a dry run first). also - note - after you have recorded the track REMEMBER TO SAVE. also note the noise gate function in powertracks.
hilite the whole audio track in the audio edit view then bring up the noise gate dialog and try various thresholds from -30 db to -20db to cut down on any hiss from the powered mixer.
if you post your laptop confign IN FULL i'll offer further ideas.
NOTE...in the future you might consider using a cheap recording mixer like a yamaha mg which a lot of folks like. also in the future with the right laptop confign and pro laptop sound solution you could record multiple mics at the same time to different tracks. peace.
ps...tell me what soundcard your using to record with.
ALSO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH DISC SPACE TO RECORD WITH !!

 

[souwalker]

Many Thanks Manning1 for the tips.
At the moment we are not after top class recording results just to get several songs resonable sound quality songs to later burn to cd.
My laptop's a Compaq P4 (200-300 hz :can't remember off my head) close to 500 mb ram. I don't know what sound card is in there but it's the standard that came with the laptop. The laptop is fairly new. I bought it this jan in Florida when I was there with my family.
Any further tips is appreciative...totally newbie on home recording :-(

Pat

 

[noisedude]

You should be ok with that. But for reference, a little mixer with nicer preamps to do some quieter recording costs peanuts. And if you ever want a bigger upgrade, a proper USB or FireWire soundcard would be your first port of call ... then mics!

You will have to check the levels in your software to make sure you don't get any distortion - sensible planning will help you avoid this happening if you're recording at a gig.

HTH

 

[souwalker]

Many Thanks Noisedude

Any recommendation on that little mixer with better preamp that won't break the bank? Our intention is first to record the songs during rehearsals.

We did a gig yesterday and your mention of recording alive gig has got me thinking.

Cheers
patrick

 

[crankz1]

Yamaha MG 12/4

You may want to consider some Direct Boxes for the guitars and bass though.

 

[manning1]

swalker. the mg will do you fine. longer term you might want to think about
going with some standalone mic pre's as well like dmp3.
also - for your laptop....check your internal drive is 7200 rpm preferably.
if your seriously considering multitrack recording fast hard drives are preferable. two drives are even better. also as you are aware powertracks that we both use will support
24 bit recording as well as 16 bit (but your current sound card wont do 24 bit i'm sure)and sound solutions with multiple inputs (eg...look at RME
sometime) but its crucial to have the laptop set up properly to do this.
in the future you could do something like this....eg...new mixer and
multi input sound solution..(ins = mixer insert on mic channel)
mic1>>mixer mic in 1 >>mixer ins1 OUT>>sound card in 1>>powrtracks 1
mic2>>mixer mic in 2 >>mixer ins2 OUT>>sound card in 2>>powrtracks 2
mic3>>mixer mic in 3 >>mixer ins3 OUT>>sound card in 3>>powrtracks 3
mic4>>mixer mic in 4 >>mixer ins4 OUT>>sound card in 4>>powrtracks 4
and so on for as many inputs as the multi input sound solution has.
the overall schematic would look like this ......
mixer (and/or standalone mic pre's)>>>eg..firewire sound solution>>>>individual powertracks tracks on the pc.
peace.

 

[noisedude]

Definitely I would recommend a little Yamaha MG mixer. The 10/2 has four preamps, 12/4 has six I think. Pretty flexible and much better than the Behringer equivalents. Don't look at Phonic or Alto.

Make sure you're using the line in on your laptop by the way - the mic input has a crappy little preamp in it that will spoil your recordings. When you look at sound cards, M-Audio stuff is all very good so you can't go wrong with them for the money IMHO!