Hoping to get some help

[Ineedhelp]

I go to a small country church, in VA, and we have been trying to get our sound room converted to record to MP3's. We have regular microphones, and a mixing board. I am stepping into work on this, and am very ignorant of most of what the terminology is, and what to do. I simply push the buttons I have been told to; making sure the speaker is able to be heard through the mics and the volume isn't too high to cause bad sound on the tapes, we were recording to.

I can find names of parts that I have, to help anyone to try to help me. I do have a computer, that I have been told should be able to record from our existing system & I just need help learning what I need to do. Any help, in basic terms would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[miroslav]

Need more info on what you have gear-wise and how much you understand what to do with it.

Besides the computer...do you have any converters/soundcards to get the audio into the computer...or were you thinking of trying to use the built-in line-in/mic-in on the computer (not a great choice)...?

It's not very complicated to get recorded music to the MP3 format...but there is a process.
How much quality you want and how involved you want to make it will be connected to your budget and your motivation/skills.

 

[John Willett]

Personally I would *not* record to MP3 at all (horrible nasty format).

Record to 24-bit wav files - and then edit as necessary.

Only at the very end convert to MP3 if you absolutely have to.

MP3 is really only a final delivery format and not a recording format.

I think that MP3 will die over the next few years - it was only useful when storage was small and expensive - now storage is large and cheap, there is now not any reason to use heavily compressed MP3. It will be replaced by the lossless formats which don't grunge the music like MP3 does.

So - record on the computer to wav files, do any editing and tidying up in the original format and, only then, convert to MP3 (pref. a the highest quality).

 

[TimOBrien]

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 - $15
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/04...mp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0470385421
(Wish I'd had that 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!

Another good one is: 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!!)

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

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

Also Good Info: http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.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 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...)
Another good article: Choosing an audio interface - http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep08/articles/audiointerfaces.htm


Plenty of software around to record for FREE to start out on:

Sony ACID Express (free 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 $50 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. FREE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)

 

[moresound]

^^^^Always this first^^^^^

 

[Armistice]

Personally I would *not* record to MP3 at all (horrible nasty format).

John... I'm curious... I didn't think you could actually record in this format... do we have machinery / software that actually allows recording in MP3?

I always assumed it was a format conversion thing only - you couldn't record in it.

What's the world coming to!

Cheers

 

[moresound]

Shoot!! there goes the game! MP3 recording it's all over now.