I need help w/new system conf.

[Velocity]

I have a Mackie 1604-VLZ PRO 16-channel mic/line mixer with 8 tracks on 9-18. I got 2 yamaha MSP5 Bi-amp 2way studio monitors, the program Cuebase SX, I built a nice computer big and nice enough for anything, i got a studio i built that is pretty much sound proof and nice size, and cords and mics.

Do i need a special audio card for my PC

This is what i want to do:
I would like to be able to record instruments like trumpet, violin, guitar, and a wood bass called a guitarron. The music is called Mariachi (you can probably do a search and get some examples). I'd like to record voices too but not all of it has to be in the same room or all at once if it makes a difference.

I'd like to know what i need besides what i have. And may be if possable may be give me a quick config.

--OR--

How could i use what i already have to do something similar. I already tried but i couldn't figure out how to get sound into the program and hear it and record.

-Velocity

 

[manning1]

phew this is gonna be difficult without more detail.
do you have mics already ?
if you do and assuming you have some kind of on board sound on your pc you should be able to record fine in sx. but not with great quality
using on board sound.
you will have to tell us your sound card budget. what is it ?
if your rich check out rme or lynx.
if you want a good quality at a fair price. most people like deltas.
i dont know sx intimately . but its a v good multitracker favored by lots of folks. have you read its help file ? most multitrackers when you load them up for the first time normally you have to set preferences like which sound drivers you want sx to use. if you have not done this then that could explain things. please also post your detailed pc configuration currently.
than you normally set a tracks properties for either midi, or mono audio or stereo recording. then hit the recording button.
but need more info.

 

[Velocity]

well, for mics i got got good enough mics but one of the things i needed help on was the sound card i have no clue what to use or what would be best or best of all how to tell which is the best. im in a rush i'll post my pc config. at a later time. ohh and please let me know what kind of more details i need to give.


Velocity

 

[crankz1]

Here is a little info on soundcards.
The number of inputs you require and your budget will be to the two most determining factors in soundcard selection.

 

[Velocity]

im not sure what you would like to know about my computer config. but if i dont list it let me know. and if you have any suggestions for changes on my computer let me know.

firewire
2x cd-rw/dvd+-rw
floppy
180gig hard drive
200gig hard drive
1gig dual channel rdram
microsoft xp pro
pentium 4 3.00ghz
modem
(broadband available but i use another computer for mostly anything to do with internet)
2 side-by-side flat panel 17in. each
350 watt power supply
the sound card i got now is sound blaster audigy audio with IEEE 1394 sound card
Yamaha msp5 bi amp 2 way studio monitors
NVIDIA GeForce 4 128mb agp graphics w/tv out

 

[manning1]

wow - hellova machine velocity.
should be able to do great work with THAT ONE.
you should do a tremendous number of tracks with it.
i'd be surprised if you didnt get 80 tracks or more.
you are good to go as far as i see.
only word of caution - MIGHT NOT BE APPLICABLE TO YOU,
do you have anything in your pci slots ? or are they all empty ?
i would say your ready to try sound cards.
just make sure you pick a sound card on the basis that you can return it
if you get problems. sound cards are a funny species. you can have 2 identical machines and a certain sound card might work well but not in the other.
i think your going to have lots of fun with that.
how does sx perform currently. ?? have you tried it?
have you tried pushing up track counts. ??
no problems ??
if sx works fine now. you should be set.
nice system.

 

[Velocity]

it took a while to build it but man it works like a charm! Is the more tracks the Better? I dont have anything exepct the sound card that i already have in the PCI slot, the rest are free. im not sure how cuebase works yet i havn't messd with it. Whats better audio interface or sound card? Would it be possible to hook my mixer to my computer the way i have things now or no and if so how would i do it?

 

[manning1]

some people get problems with audigy. but others seem happy.
you have to get your feet wet somehow. just connect a cable from the mixer out to audigy line in and start recording.
you might need some special connectors if the audigy (ive forgotten)
has those silly 1/8 th stereo jacks.
shack has cables.
there were also past issues with 24 bit recording/playback with audigy.
search the forum. dont know if solved yet.
one thing i WOULD do to minimise latency, put a old cassette deck between the audigy line out and your monitors ie : try this
audigy line out >>>cass dek line in then plug phones into cass dek while recording. this is also handy to use the meters in the cass dek for idea of level. if you monitor AND record sometimes using ONE MIXER
you can get problems (eg feedback etc).
the ideal is to have TWO MIXERS. one that sends the mic signals
to the sound card (particularly if you hav multi in sound card),
and one for out of sound card. read up on stem mixing techniques sometime
that big studios do.
if you want a software option try the demo of powertracks from pgmusic.com.
a lot of people use it with the audigy card and like its ease of use over other solutions. your choice. there is also a great user forum at pg music full of pro's you can learn from and which helped me in the past.
it takes a time to shake down a daw studio. just do one bit at a time.
frankly i would look at a multi in sound card like a delta 44 in the future and maybe keep the audigy for midi only.
just another option.
hope all this helps.
when your a big star i expect some hamburger helper - just kidding !

 

[Velocity]

thanks for your sugestions manning1 very useful! Right now im in the process of tring to get cuebase to recognize that there is sound and record it. but if i get tired of that i'll try pg music, Thanks again!

 

[manning1]

just some quick tips and this applies to most music software packages when you first install them......you have to go thru several steps....
1. check in the preferences that the right midi and wave devices are selected in a presented dialogue via a menu bar.
2. identify which tracks are midi, mono audio or stereo audio.
3. set up your personal template regarding how your going to work.
rather like track sheets we used to use in big studios.
which you can reuse time and again.
for example if you figure 36 tracks is max with 8 midi tracks and
18 mono tracks and 10 stereo tracks. you would set up a template reflecting this with track names you could reuse.
sx is a good package. but i can do just as good tracks in powertracks.
if you try it youll see what i mean.
one thing ive always liked about pg music is the upgrade path.
each time i upgrade powertracks its never more than 19 bucks to registered users. which is ultra fair imho.
from what ive heard and i dont know how true this is but powertracks seems to take into account audigy and some of the lower sound cards.
maybe they did something in the programming. i dont know.
as an example if you install the demo make sure you let powertracks scan
the audigy, because this is quite important.

 

[tedluk]

Since you're doing mariachi, are you recording the whole group live in one room? If so, and to keep things simple, you might just run everything through the Mackie and set your levels there and take the stereo out into the Audigy. If you need to go back and add vocals just assign them to different tracks in Cubase and mix them with your pre-recorded instrumental tracks. This arrangement isn't as versatile as having each instrument on its own track, but if you're recording as a group anyway, unless you're taking great care to isolate the instruments from one another, you're going to have a lot of bleed (the sound of one instrument being picked up by the mic of another) anyway.

If you don't understand how to record in Cubase, you need to read the manual! It's beyond the scope of this forum to explain that (and, besides, I don't use Cubase so I don't know how to do it anyway! )

More tracks is not necessarily better. If your setup can handle the number of tracks you NEED, that's all that matters. A higher track count indicates that your CPU has the overhead to handle more tasks. That might not be of any importance in your situation.

Manning1- I'm sorry, but I've got to disagree with a couple of things you said. If I'm misunderstanding your suggestions, I apologize.-

How does putting a cassette deck in there do anything to improve latency? That makes no sense to me. Latency, as simplistically as it can be stated, is the time it takes within the computer for a sound to be processed and spit back out. Latency is a product of the operating system, the drivers used and the hardware. Also, it's only an issue if he's overdubbing or attempting to play soft-synths.

Cubase, I'm sure, has an internal mixer so you don't need two mixers. You don't even need one mixer if your soundcard has enough inputs. Cubase also has meters that are going to be far superior to anything found on an old cassette deck. Are you suggesting he use the cassette deck's meters instead of the ones in Cubase to improve latency? I don't think, given his computer, that would make much difference.

Ted

 

[Velocity]

im getting how to work this program now but after reading the manual i still dont know where to go out from on my mixer and i dont know where to go in on my sound card(mic in, line in, or some other one with a arrow pointing in.)
I think I already got it set up to work with my card.

 

[manning1]

mixer line out OR direct out from channel >>>>line in of sound card.
line out of sound card >>>monitoring eg power amp>>>speakers
tedluk. i'm a bit time stretched right now but the cass dek is because some people bring back sound card out into their mixer feeding the sound card. thus problems. it DOES WORK. i'm well aware about INTERNAL latency.

 

[tedluk]

tedluk. i'm a bit time stretched right now but the cass dek is because some people bring back sound card out into their mixer feeding the sound card. thus problems. it DOES WORK. i'm well aware about INTERNAL latency.

That has nothing to do with latency. All that would accomplish is avoiding a feedback loop. I'm not saying it won't work, but I don't think it helps newbies if we misuse terminology. It's confusing enough. Saying that patching in an old cassette deck will improve latency is misleading at best. He'd be a lot better off learning how to properly route signals within the software.

Ted

 

[manning1]

BECAUSE NEWBIES LISTEN TO SIGNAL BEFORE HITTING THE SOUND CARD INPUTS SOMETIMES TED. CASS dek forces other way.

 

[tedluk]

BECAUSE NEWBIES LISTEN TO SIGNAL BEFORE HITTING THE SOUND CARD INPUTS SOMETIMES TED. CASS dek forces other way.

Apparently you aren't reading or understanding my posts. I'll try one last time.

First of all, you made some good suggestions to velocity. I know you're a big proponent of PG Music since you suggest it to nearly everyone. I've never used it, but from what I've read it's a decent program with a lot of bang-for-the-buck and probably a valid option for people starting out. Your basic information on DAW setup was great and should put him on the right track.

However...(you knew that was coming, right? )

In an earlier post you stated that patching in an old cassette deck between the Audigy outputs and his monitors would improve latency. This is simply wrong. The ONLY thing this could help would be if he was having a problem with routing signals from the outputs back into the inputs, thus creating a feedback loop (something which he did not indicate was occurring). Essentially, you gave him a suggestion to solve a problem he doesn't appear to be having and then told him it would improve something it's completely unrelated to.

You also said that having two mixers was the ideal. That is debatable, but judging from how few people actually set up their system that way I'd have to suggest it's not only not ideal, but not even a particularly good idea. It's an added expense and doesn't accomplish anything that can't be done by understanding and properly routing signals within a DAW or mixer.

This is a newbie forum, giving mis-information is not helpful to people who don't know any better. As I said before, it only confuses things and this stuff is confusing enough!

Ted

 

[crankz1]

This should be rather easy .... you don't need a cassette deck (unless you want to record to tape also).
Look at the Hook-up guide in the section for computer setup. Assign the channels that you are recording from to the alt 3/4 output. Send the alt 3/4 output to the line in of the soundcard. Assign the channels that you send the Line out of your soundcard into to the main/master outputs.
Check out Mackie for all kinds of info on your mixer.

-Ken

 

[manning1]

ted i'm not trying to MISINFORM ANYBODY.
but i take your point. ive just seen so many newbies run into trouble particularly trying to run EVERYTHING
into one mixer. i'm simply proposing how a lot of big studios do it which is to seperate the recording activity from the monitoring activity.
i have set lots of friends up this way using a cass dek and it simplifies thir way of working, and leaves free the baby mixer that newbies have these days for preamping mic signals to the sound card.
sure more knowledgeable folks like you and i can do it ALL OFF ONE MIXER
because WE KNOW THE SIGNAL FLOWS. it all depends IF THE BABY MIXER CAN ACCOMMODATE THIS. also if one is using a rack of preamps instead
of a baby mixer , one needs a means of monitoring the sound card output.
see what i mean ??
one reason i like the cass dek approach is if one sets up test tones through the whole daw mixer to sound card to monitoring , it lets you monitor your sound levels out of the sound card using VU's or led's on the cass dek.
which can be quite usefull.
peace to you.

 

[tedluk]

I'm not disputing whether patching a cassette deck into your system will WORK. It's saying that it will improve LATENCY that I'm disagreeing with. Latency is a very specific problem and your suggestion has nothing to do with improving it. Velocity doesn't know the terminology at this point. I'm just trying to make things clear for him so he doesn't get confused.

He's got a great mixer already that can accomodate him without any problems. He's got one of the premiere software packages. Why tell him he needs something else?

Crankz offered a simple method of routing his signals within the 1604VLZ that should work perfectly.

Velocity? Are you still with us? Does the routing suggested by Crankz make sense to you? Does what I said earlier about mixing within the Mackie and recording a stereo track make sense as well? With the Audigy, you are going to be forced to make some decisions before you record since it's a stereo card. If you want to be able to separate instruments out you'll need a card with more inputs and outputs or else you'll have to record things one or two at a time.

Let us know if you're understanding what we are saying, ok?

Ted

 

[manning1]

ted i make the suggestion for valid reasons. lets keep it friendly. i'm not into pooping contests. if you notice i try my best to help people
where i can.
ITS SPECIFICALLY THESE small mackie and behringer mixers that people i know had problems with. even experienced folks sometimes get lost and press the wrong buttons inadvertently. SO i found it made my friends life easier by suggesting not using the control section on these small mixers ,
as they got confused. particularly newbies.
and instead using another means like i suggested. the main idea being the less problems of error/wrong switches being pressed.
by the way - the little comment about powertracks is uncalled for. if there was another package that packed as big a number of features for the money i would rave about that as well. anyone can check if i'm lying by talking
to other powertracks users on the pg forum. I DONT LIE TO PEOPLE.
being human i might make mistakes as per the latency nomenclature BUT I DONT LIE ! the mistake imho is that pg dont advertise powertracks enough so newbies dont know about it.
if you notice i also am a huge fan of multitrackstudio.com .
and magix music studio.
ted i wish you a great coming xmas and nothing but happiness.