home studio equimpent for vocalist

[bejizzled]

My daughter, age 15 is a want to be professional singer,and is having success with Youtube views and recently appeared on France Has Got Talent demi finals., which got her alot of publicity, unfortunately not the finals as the production team wouldn't let her do the song she wanted and picked one no good for her voice/personality.. so now she wants to follow that exposure up with some great youtube performances.

To date all of her youtube (bar the TV performances) have been recorded on my sony still camera cybershot in video mode (a 130 dollar little camera), so the sound is not good and when compared to her TV performance is rubbish.

She's got to the stage whereby she needs something more professional so that she can confidently send links to producers/agents of her latest uploads knowing it is a good representation of her vocals. For her birthday/xmas I want to buy her a good mic, and it seems a minefield

Looks like she'll need a recording booth, and a pre amplifier or something. She sings solo to mp3 backing tracks and has found some free software herself for mixing ( a bit like garage but for pc as we don't have a mac)

My budget is maximum 500 dollars, which I know isn't much, and you can spend thousands on just a mic, but thats the budget I have to work with, and I really don't want to end up buying the wrong thing and don't know where to begin.

I've found some links - one to a microphone and another to a "bundle" where all is included (or so they say :

I can't post the links here as a newbie, but The mic I thought might be ok was a pg42 usb made by shure for 199 dollars

and a site called Editors Keys had some bundles including booth/mic/ something else for 300 dollars.

What I'm really looking for is if anyone in the know can just tell me what to buy for the best result within the budget.

Thanks so much and sorry I'm so clueless. We live in France so the supplier needs to be able to ship here.

I wanted to post her youtube link but as a newbie it wont let me, one where it was on TV and the other where it is recorded at home. Her youtube name is gracerose2 if anyones interested.


Thanks for any help , simone

 

[wheelema]

My daughter, age 15 is a want to be professional singer... My budget is maximum 500 dollars.

Zoom H4n w/MXL V67G. If you can somehow stretch to $550 check out the CAD Trion 8000.

Stay the heck away from USB 'microphones'.



YouTube - Chaîne de gracerose2

Put her in a convent before it's too late.

 

[TimOBrien]

Yes stay away from usb mics. They are made for internet chat radio, not music production.

Best solution if you dont want to do it all on the computer might be for a stand-alone recorder package that you can move the files to your PC.

Or if you want a full PC 'starter kit' you could go here or here.

If you decide to go full PC production, here's my standard notes:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My obligatory standard reply-for-newbies that I keep in Wordpad so this is just a paste (I don't want to re-type this all the time):

First off, immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $16
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Recordin...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273169612&sr=1-1

PC Recording Studios for Dummies - $16
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Stu...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273169612&sr=1-2
(Wish I'd had those when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)
You can also pick up this book in most any Borders or Barnes&Noble in the Music Books section!

Recording Guitar and Bass by Huw Price
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Gui...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215734124&sr=1-1
(I got my copy at a place called Half-Price Books for $6!!)

Home Recording for Beginners by Geoffrey Francis
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Recording-Beginners-Geoffrey-Francis/dp/1598638815

When you get a bit into it, I highly recomend The Art of Mixing by David Gibson
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mixing-Recording-Engineering-Production/dp/1931140456

A MUST READ: Kim Lajoie's "Lifesigns from studio" - FREE - http://www.errepici.it/web/download/KLBD.asp

And you can get a FREE subscription to TapeOp magazine at www.tapeop.com

Barnes&Noble or Borders are great places to start --- they have recording books and you can go get a snack or coffee and read them for FREE! Don't pass by a good recording book --- this is a VERY technical hobby and you REALLY want to start a reference library!!!

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics and have good tips:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/computermusic?entry=free_beginner_pdfs
http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/tips-techniques/168409-tips-techniques.html

Guitar Amp Recording: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug07/articles/guitaramprecording.htm

21 Ways To Assemble a Recording Rig: http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

Other recording books: http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html

Still using a built-in soundcard?? Unfortunately, those are made with less than $1 worth of chips for beeps, boops and light gaming (not to mention cheapness for the manufacturer) and NOT quality music production.
#1 Rule of Recording: You MUST replace the built-in soundcard.
Here's a good guide and user-tested suggestions that work: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm
(you'll want to bookmark and read through all of Tweak's Guide while you're there...)

Plenty of software around to record for FREE to start out on:
Sony ACID Xpress 10-track sequencer: http://www.acidplanet.com/downloads/xpress/
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net (multi-track with VST support)
Wavosaur: http://www.wavosaur.com/ (a stereo audio file editor with VST support)\
Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/
Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com/smm

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
(It's $60 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)
I use Reaper and highly reccomend it...

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($25) and Harmony Assistant ($80) have the power of $600 notation packages...
http://myriad-online.com
Demo you can try on the website.

And you can go out to any Barnes&Noble or Borders and pick up "Computer Music" magazine - they have a full FREE studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (November 2006 they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150, November 2007-on the racks Dec in the US- they gave away SamplitudeV9SE and July 2009 issue they put out Samplitude10SE, December 2010 they gave away Samplitude11LE. FREE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)

'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'

 

[bruiser1964]

Just thinking aloud - but if your intention is mainly YouTube would you not be better with a quality video camera? If you buy recording equipment, mic, interface, software etc you will need to combine the end product with a video anyway... Jus thinkin'
There are plenty of bundles out there if you want to be more pro... try a search for.
Digidesign MBOX 2 MINI - computer interface £139.00 comes with DAW software (protools)
RODE NT1-A Complete Vocal Recording Solution £140.00
Mik Stand - £35.00
Forgot - decent headphones - £40.00
That should get you started for less than your budget. (after a lot of reading) all this assuming that you have a reasonable spec PC
Getting these shipped to France shouldn't be a problem.

 

[ido1957]

Can you rent a professional camera that has a high quality microphone?