Home Studio help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bizee
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Bizee

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Okay, Im sort of new to this whole pc recording, I mean I have been messing around with programs like soundforge, acid, cool edit, for about 2 years, but now I want to have a more proffesional sound. Evertime I have an answer for somthing, I find my self having 2 more questions, im finally getting frustrated and really dont want to post all of my questions on here, If anyone that knows a lot about soundcards, mics, mixers etc, could please take some time out and chat with me on aim or somthing I would really appreciate it. Im not a total noob, so I can catch on quick, I just need a little one on one help. Thnx in advance.
-Bizee
 
Drop me a line tomorrow on aim, I think my screen name is in my info. I'm off to bed, later.
 
Hey Bizee, "professional" is in the eye of the beholder. You said you been messin aroud with soundforge, acid, and cool edit. Well those are some pretty decent programs. Soundforge is a good Pc audio editor you can use to your advantage. tweak your sounds in SF, then open them in acid. Of course if you get a usb or firewire soundcard you'd have a way to get audio in and out your compter. For a more "pro" way you could always pick up a Digidesign mbox or 002. A lot of follks consider this to be pro by default. But a lot of soundblaster cards are straight and some M-audio cards aren't bad. I've used Pro Tools but I personally prefer Cubase. But thats just me.
 
I have a soundblaster card now, but the quality is not where I want it...What im trying to do is mainly edit music...I use soundforge to do that. However it takes me easily 4 hours to finish a track, that comes no where near whats going on in my head. What I do is I lay down an instrumental in Acid 4.0, my friends will come and freestyle to the beat (I do the recording in acid also) and then I do voice overs and some other effects in acid...then take it to sound forge to finish the mixing. What I dont like is the quality of their vocals...I have a shure mic that was given to me....its a pretty crappy one im sure, cause i looked up the model on ebay and it goes for like $14 :( Now Im very adept in computers, I have been building them for about 5 years from scratch....so I automatically figured it was a sound card issue...so I did some research and decided to buy an older Echo Gina20...that is another issue I dont want to go into right now because i dont want to make this post a freakin short story... :p anyway i tried to hook it up like a regular soundcard....install drivers ect. After my gina failure, thats when I realised this home studio stuff is far from JUST computer hardware. Now before I had just been using my onboard sound card for recording and play back I would just take a 1/4 to 1/8 adapter for my mic and put it in the mic jack. Anyway I have been researching for months now, and everytime i think i figure somthing out, somthing else comes up and I have more qeustions...the main thing is I want the vocals to be better...they dont even have to be studio quality....I just want them to be clear...I have done all I can in soundforge and acid to try to make the vocals clearer but its just not working right....and then I want turntables for mixing, and editing, so i dont have to spend hours mimicing turntable effects in soundforge. So thats what I want to do....i just have a lot of questions... thanks for the help, thanks for replying guys...and andy thanks a lot too i'll try to hit you up tomorrow if my job will ever let me go home :(
 
I would look into getting a vocal mic, and a mic preamp.

You don't want to hook the microphone into the MIC input on your soundcard. The preamps on your SoundBlaster are crap.

I don't know what your budget is, but the M-Audio DMP3 is a good budget preamp.

Your signal chain would look something like this:

Microphone -> Preamp -> Line In of your soundcard.

I would choose your microphone carefully...buy smart, buy once. Save for awhile if you have to.

You won't get studio quality out of a cheap mic.

Also look into getting a new SoundCard.

And on top of that, maybe try to make a small vocal booth, or hang some blankets or something and make an isolated area in your room to do vocals.

All of these things will make your tracks sound a million times better.
 
Okay Im in a newbie area posting this stuff and I get a neg rep anonymous person saying

You know, they make these things called "books", they have a lot of information in them. You buy them in a "bookstore"


wtf is that? They also have these things called "Forums" and you can find them on the "Internet" for free!

If people are that irritated by what us beginners ask...then why browse the newbie area. If you dont want to help dont help. But dont browse the noob area expecting not to get beginner questions. just my .2 :rolleyes:
 
Don't let peeps get under your skin. This is just the internet and it has plenty of idiots on it.

Anyhow, you can't just plug a mic into your soundcard and get a decent sound. You need to use a pre amplifier. You might want to by a dedicated preamp for yourself or you can use the preamps that are on mixers or what you might think of as soundboards for PA systems. There is a preamp on each channel, it's the gain knob on the top of the channel strip. The quality of the pre's on the mixers usually aren't as good as dedicated preamps but for alot of cash there are some really nice consoles.

Your sound is only going to be as good as the weakest link in your sound chain. Just replace one piece at a time and keep improving until you get to that spot you are looking for. Be very careful because it is real easy to become a gear slut. Most importantly, look into the future. There is nothing worse than buying a piece of equipment today that will out live its usefullness next month.

I'd start by getting a decent mic and preamp. After that, take a good look at the monitors you have and the room you are using. It might be awhile before your soundcard is the worst part of the equation but there is definitely a noticable improvement using quality a/d converters.
 
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