home studio

[ascendant]

hey there everyone who reads this, just like to say that this looks like a great forum thats full of a lot of people in the know about recording, which i am greatly thankful for as i need yer help!

i'm a complete novice in the area, but ive decided to jump off the deep end and build home studio.Im a drummer so im very interested in gettin good sound recording from my drums, but my objective is to have it so a four piece band can play live together and be recorded all at once
I have the following comp

Advent 7035 Laptop

CPU Intel Pentium 4-M 2.8 GHz
Chipset SIS 650 chipset
Memory 512 MB DDR SODIMM
Hard Drive 40GB Seagate ST94011A
CD Drive 24x 10x 8x 24x QSI SBW-242 CDRW/DVD
Video Card SIS 650
Sound Card Realtek AC'97 audio
Modem HSP56 MR-8640
Network Card SiS 900 integrated fast ethernet
Advent 802.11g wireless LAN card
PC Card Texas Instruments PCI-1410
Ports 1x Microphone jack
1x Headphones jack
1x Security lock
1x RJ-11 modem
1x PC Card
1x PS2
1x RJ-45 LAN
4x USB 2.0
1x TV Out
1x External VGA
1x Parallel
1x PC card slot (type 1/2)

I know its a lot to ask but ill send any one of you experts a thousand blessings, if ye could tell me the best way and the equipment (minus insruments and amps) and software needed to do this

 

[Monkey Allen]

Well I can give you some very basic tips. But I am sure others will help too.

Software: Guitar Tracks Pro 3, Sonar, Cubase
Sound card: M-Audio range. Look for one with mulitple inputs
Microphones: Condenser mics are great for picking up acoustic sounds and dynamic mics shure sm57 I think it's called are good for vocals amd micking loud amps and drums.
Preamp: Maybe quality sound cards have capable built in preamps, otherwise you may need to get an external one.
Mixers: External mixers I think where you can run mics from each instrument

This is very basic stuff. I am new to the more pro recording aspect. I have only ever recorded with a $50 mic via the mic in of my soundblaster.

I'm kind of looking into creating a more pro set up. But I only require hardware to record 1 track at a time. Not a band situation.

Good luck

 

[bennychico11]

a lot of good things Monkey recommended. Definitely look at M-Audio for sound cards. They have some good quality stuff that's relatively inexpensive. As far as mics go, I'd look into a condenser for a vocal mic, not a 57. A 57 word work, but large condensers are more suited for vocals...of course, depending on what kind of music you are recording and what kind of voice the vocalist will have. For your drums, I'd say look at a drum mic package. There are a lot to choose from so find a site like sweetwater.com or zzounds.com and just search. Zzounds will give you more customer reviews on their products though. Getting a drum mic package will get you some mics that are well suited for a drumset rather than buying a bunch of random mics that can work for drums but aren't made for them.
There are a ton of software programs to choose from, and Monkey gave you a good start. To add to that you can look at N-Track and Cool Edit Pro (or maybe it's Adobe Audition now?? can't remember). Then, of course, there is M-Powered Pro Tools which is now selling with some M-Audio hardware for like 300-400 I think.