looking to upgrade

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sean_mur88

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hey all, i've done some random recording over the last year or so, and i'm looking to improve the quality of my recordings. just looking to see what you guys think about where my money would be best invested.

i've got a

1.3ghz amd athlon (i think) with 256 megs of ram
generic (not on board) sound card with 1/8 inch mic line in
behringer eurorack mixer with a shure sm58-lc microphone
adobe audition

i record guitar and vocals.


i'm planning on getting more ram in the near future since i have this guitar effects program which has too much latency, but i'm just wondering what will improve the sound quality the most for recording?? i would want up to 4 tracks at the same time, if that is possible for a few hundred dollars.

i see a lot of people here with 2.5+ ghz, just wondering if that has a significant effect on sound quality or just lets you do more effects and stuff when recording.

i'm assuming that a better sound card or interface would be the best call, overall i just want a better, cleaner sound, the one i am getting right now is a bit noisy and a little bit tinny as well.. but didn't know if that was my weakest point or if the lack of ram or processing speed is a bigger problem. i can spend a couple hundred dollars right now, any help would be appreciated.

i'll stop with the questions now before this turns into a faq, really just trying to figure out what's okay in my setup and what needs to be repalced. thanks
 
Well, I use a lot more tracks, synths and effects than you do, and I'm still running on a 1 Ghz machine - you should be fine there. I have twice the RAM you do, though, and I really don't know how significant that is - upgrading certainly wouldn't hurt.

For my money, the best single thing you can do is upgrade to a better audio interface - generic sound cards just don't cut it. Something like this might be good:
http://www.zzounds.com/a--2676837/item--TASUS122
And with that, there's no reason to go through the Bger mixer - it'll just add noise. You'll be able to run the mic strait into the interface's pre-amp.
 
cool .. thanks for the info. i was reading reviews on the Tascam US122 from that link, and there seem to be a lot of people who think it is a big piece of junk if you are using windows xp with sp2, and all the drivers are crap, etc etc... it that a common problem? do you have to get dirty and know how to mess around with your computer to get these things to work, or is this just one product?? are there the same problems with sound cards?
 
Definitely upgrade your RAM. It's the cheapest, most effective way to increase your computers performance. I think you could get another 256K for about 30 bucks. That would be what I would do if I was on a very limited budget and wanted to extend the life of the system you described. Of course, if money's not a problem, you could just upgrade to an all around faster system.

Next, get a decent soundcard/interface. A good start would be to compare the features on the various models by m-audio and presonus. Read about the different interfaces offered by these two companies, and do a little more investigation and decision making about exactly what features will be needed for YOUR application. After that, go ahead and ask more questions if you have them.

By the way, what kind of stuff do you want to record, and what is your recording area/studio like? Have you considered acoustic treatment yet? Do you have a decent set of monitors?
 
I haven't used that particular interface myself - I've just heard good things from others around here. I was guessing it was as good example, but I'd agree with Jeff - come up with your list of requirements, and check out everything, then come back here with a short list of what seem to be your best options.
 
thanks to both of you for the advice, i didn't realize that ram was that cheap, i'll definately get that put in this weekend. as far as what kind of stuff i record, i like to experiment with a bunch of different stuff .. i do some barbershop, and record some celtic stuff and random songs of friends, but mostly just my voice and a guitar, maybe as much as two voices and two guitars at the same time (or 4 voices for barbershop). i have some random clips put up at http://seanmurray.byethost3.com/ (am i allowed to post a link??) .. "my love is discrete" is the typical type of song that i'd be recording. i just want a cleaner sound, i've been listening to other people's clips and they make mine sound like mine's underwater or down a long hall or something. i also haven't been paying a lot of attention to environmental noise, i'm essentially just recording in my room. also, for monitoring, i plug into my stereo system, which probbably makes you guys cringe, but i think the lack of good monitors is way down on my list of problems. i guess i'll buy the ram and look for a good soundcard or interface. i'm sure this is a noobieish thing to say, but i always got the impression that an internal sound card would be:

a) better value because they don't have to design the casing and such
b) better quality and faster since they're connected right to the board

is this true at all?
 
OK, Sean, I just listened to your song. It's nice - shows some good potential. Nice, clean guitar playing - what kind of guitar is that?

Perhaps I can offer you a couple things to think about that will help you decide where to go from here. I'm basing the advise I give here on the assumption you're mainly gonna wanna record stuff similar to what I just listened to. First of all, do a search on this site for threads regarding the recording of acoustic guitar - you will find some varying opinions but a lot of good advice. Ultimately, I believe you're gonna want a couple of nice small diaphragm condensor mics to best capture the sound of your guitar. And with those, of course, you'll want two good quality preamps which can provide phantom power to your mics. Next, you may want to consider a nice large diaphragm condensor for the vocals. If you track those at the same time you'd need a third preamp, but I'd suggest it may be easier to do that separately. It's up to you though, you just need to decide how many inputs you need at once before picking out an interface. You also have to decide if you plan to use your behringer for preamps, buy an interface with the pres built in, or use standalone, high quality pres. One way to go would be to buy a nice interface without built-in pres and use the behringer to start with, and later on ditch the mixer and upgrade to some higher quality dedicated pres.

Once the above is taken care of, you're gonna want to look at monitoring and your environment. A decent set of monitors is going to be crucial to hearing how your mix sounds - there's plenty of advice on monitors all over this forum. And you really need to pay some attention to your environment, both for tracking and mixing. I don't know what kind of room you're doing this in, but you should easily be able to record and mix this type of music nicely in a single bedroom. Read through this forum about acoustical treatment methods and check out the Ethan Winer stuff to learn how you can treat your room to best be able to hear the mix properly in your monitors. Also, if your room has a carpet floor, try setting your stool over a piece of plywood when recording that acoustic guitar.

Anyway, hope that helps get you going down the path. I look forward to hearing more of your stuff!
 
sean_mur88 said:
i'm sure this is a noobieish thing to say, but i always got the impression that an internal sound card would be:

a) better value because they don't have to design the casing and such
b) better quality and faster since they're connected right to the board

is this true at all?
Click to expand...

Hey again, just to address this question, you're right that on the average (but not always) an all internal sound card will be cheaper. But usually that's because it has less inputs and features. An external interface is not going to be any slower and I believe the firewire ones are just as fast as PCI anymore. Some of the interfaces use a PCI card inside your computer connected to an external breakout box. I have heard that this is actually a good thing, as it get your preamps, converters, etc, away from the potential interference of your noisy pc components. Personally, I like the convenience of having the breakout box mounted in my rack with my other gear, for ease of patching things up, etc.
 
Pump that thing up to the max RAM. It's cheap and is the best way to show a marked improvement. Your computer is fine other than that.
 
hey

I was directed to your site from someone that posted in my thread...
https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=1881130#post1881130

I like the song on your site, I do similar stuff...i decided on going w/ the m-audio solo firewire...I'll let you know how it turns out..also if your on myspace add me up!

www.myspace.com/minnerd

my stuff is extremely basic as I'm just starting out.

-derek

P.S. The Solo firewire I picked up was through a guy on ebay: used for $110...good price...i hope it works.
 
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