Looking to invest some $$ in more/better equip..

[coupedeebaybee]

Hey everyone on HomeRecording

I just joined to start this thread, although I've been here many times and gotten countless valuable information from these forums.

I've been interested in home recording ever since 2008 when a high school buddy of mine gave me a DVD-R with the words "FruityLoops 8 Demo" on it.
Been hooked ever since. Stuck with it, beat the learning curve, and now I'm actually pretty good at it.

I've always been musical, picked up a guitar @ 12 and taught myself 3 chord punk rock classics, and then with alot of time and practice, I could probably play lead in a alt. band & rhythm in a metal band easy. I can play all stringed instruments & the piano, drums, harmonica, brass ensemble, accordion, etc the list goes on.

I am here today to ask what you think of my setup, and what I need to invest in next.

I have a 64bit PC, 3 monitor setup, with FL Studio 12, Ableton Live Suite, Mixcraft, audacity, ETC. A Behringer UMX610 midi controller and I use the UCA222 USB interface like it's the holy grail. I record a little, so I got a Sennheiser MD421-II gifted to me from a buddy in the broadcasting industry. XLR output, ran into a Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic200, stereo-jack out, converted to 3.5mm, w/ a 3.5mm to RCA cable, into the input on the UCA222. Speakers are sony full range tower speakers, and they work great.

Money burning hole in pocket, help asap lol

 

[Pinky]

Can you be more specific regarding the computer?

Tower speakers, no matter how 'great' they are, do not perform well as monitors.

Are you hitting any limits with what you have? [don't fix what isn't broken]

If you're just looking to lighten your pocket, I'll PM you my paypal address. Donations to the ME Fund are always accepted.

 

[Mickster]

Pinky is right..........Sony "full range" tower speakers are a place I'd look to upgrade. You're probably not getting honest feedback from them and since you have some $$$$.........think about getting a pair of good monitors. To help you better.......we do need to know more about what you eventually intend to record....etc.........but PRIOR to all of that.......the space you record and or mix / monitor in is FAR MORE IMPORTANT to get right first. Have you done anything with it? The equipment you have seems fine and you don't seem to be complaining about anything.

 

[mjbphotos]

As Mickster points out - your mixing/recording room is important - do you have any acoustic treatment? Bass traps, ceiling cloud - rockwool or compressed fiberglass, not "acoustic foam".
After that, you can start looking at upgrading your input chain - a real audio interface with built-in mic preamps, so you're not using a $30 interface and a $30 preamp.

 

[JimmyS1969]

Do research and ask many questions before spending a dime! Damned good start here so far.

I am also one of the guys that will tell you to spend time on acoustic treatment before spending the bid dollars on monitors. Though every part counts, you can't make decisions on what sounds good if you can't hear the sounds correctly.

It really depends on how much 'you' care. Your budget and desired outcome is what is important here.

A viable Audio Interface (AI) and computer that is capable of what you wish to do should be first on your list.

The tower speakers can be used if you don't care about your mixes translating on other peoples stereos.

The quality of what you record is directly relative to the quality of the gear you use to input it, as well as the quality of the gear making the sound you are recording. So the old saying of 'Shit in=Shit out'. You decide what is quality to you personally. Make decisions based on your research as to what 'quality' means to you.

Sorry, that sounded vague, but if you do not know what level you wish to achieve, you will need to figure that out yourself. Myself nor anyone else can decide what that is.

 

[ecc83]

The Behringer UCA222/202 is a remarkable bit of kit for its price but it is very limited.

The first limitation is the 16bit word length limit (aka "bit depth") for any serious recording you want to track at 24bits (and 44.1kHz except in VERY exceptional circumstances) . This allows you to drop your average recording level to -18dBFS and ensures that you should never get close to overload.

You mention a MIDI controller? Whenever I see "MIDI" I think "latency". This is the delay you can get twixt picking a string and hearing the (often processed) sound back from the PC.
If you have experienced latency there is one Audio Interface that I am confident will fix it and that is the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6. Products improve all the time and there MIGHT be an AI around the $200 mark to compete with the KA6 now but I have not heard of one.

The KA6 will also give you two extra line inputs so you could still use your preamp, in fact you would have a 4 channel recording capability (plus MIDI data) .

Whatever you decide about an AI take your time, read as many reviews as possible, check back here. You don't want to be wishing for more capability a year or so down the line.
All the other comments about monitors and room treatment are of course spot on but IMHO you need a proper interface to start with.

Dave.