In need of some answers...

[EvanE]

Ok here's the thing, I have a MXL 990 Condensor mic now all I need is a mixer with Phantom power...I've been recording music off and on for a little under a year using cool edit pro and am concerned with buying a mixer...I'm not exactly brilliant when it comes to high tech equipment and I don't know for sure how you go about hooking up a mixer to your computer and being able to put a track together through the mixer and will I also need a good sound card if buying a mixer? Help me please in small english terms that I will be able to understand or provide pictures, I'm a very visual learner thank you...

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

If you're using a soundcard which isn't geared towards recording audio then buying a card which is will increase your sound quality considerably (and will also give you fewer headaches with latency).

If you're only recording 1 or 2 tracks at a time you might want to consider a dedicated mic preamp rather than using the mixer.

As for hooking up it depends on the features of the mixer but you would either go direct out from each channel using the track inserts (small mixers don't generally have direct outs) to the inputs of the soundcard, or you could go from the stereo outs (maybe called tape outs depending on the mixer?) to the soundcard inputs panning channels 1 and 2 left and right respectively.

If you're not familiar with mixers that might not make a lot of sense but I can assure you that once you have the gear in front of you it's quite straightforward.

Do you have a budget in mind?

A good, fairly cheap solution would be an M Audio audiophile 2496 soundcard (2 inputs, 2 outputs) and a DMP-3 dual mic preamp.

A mixer would give you cheaper preamps and headphone monitoring but the preamps would not generally be as good a quality as those in a standalone pre.

If you really wanted to go the mixer route then I'd recommend the Yamaha MG 10/2.

Of course this is the budget stuff, you might be willing to spend more?

 

[metalhead28]

Aside from that, you may want to consider instead of buying just a new soundcard, get an interface for your computer that also includes a microphone pre-amp or 2. These can be had pretty cheap these days, and in all flavors. A PCI card, USB, or Firewire connection. This would negate the need for a mixer and simplify things for you alot.