new at "computer" recording, need help getting started

[plaidleader]

I just bought a laptop (gateway) mainly for school, but I want to use it to record and needed some help getting started.

I have a great deal of recording exp. but not on computers (the last computer I had was a 486).

The specs of my gateway are this:
-550 Mhz Celeron
-64 MB Ram
-6 gig HD

I bought a cheap 16 track DA studio at office depot (Magix Home Studio generation 5), but haven't bought a good mic yet. So far, I've attempted to use a cheap karaoke mic (to test record some vocals and acoustic guitar) and I'm getting a lot of digital "hiss" during playback. I'm really frustrated with this and I wonder how much a good mic will affect this. I'm also having trouble when I record a stereo source via a dual RCA to mini-plug adapter. The resulting sound is not properly "stereo" and I don't know why.

I also don't understand what all I can use as far as hardware is concerned. I have 1 PCMCIA slot and 2 USB slots. I also know that 6 gigs is not enough and was thinking about adding a CDR drive or maybe a 250 MB zip drive.

Can any one please help answer my questions? I would greatly appreciate it.

-plaidleader

 

[maranathaman]

Re: need help getting started

Firstly, I'm not familiar with your setup, but if you are using a cheap soundcard, you WILL most likely have a noisey output ala"Soundblaster". For example, many people who start out using a SoundBlaster, end-up upgrading to a better soundcard because SoundBlaster have a rep for being noisy. Also, I'd reccomend getting a better mic, at least a Sure SM58.