New To Home Recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter disrhythm
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disrhythm

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Hey everyone. I'm just your average 15 year old who was recently hoping to get into recording songs from my home to put on purevolume/ myspace. I am currently completely lost on what equipment I need to record.

I was looking online and saw the Lexicon Omega Desktop Recording studio
and thought that it might work for me but I didn't know what else besides that I would need. It would be great if someone could tell me what exactly I would need to record and if the Lexicon Omega is a good product.

Thanks in advance.
 
I haven't used the Omega I/O box personally, but have had great results from all my Lexicon products (mostly digital reverbs). From what I can tell, the Omega seems to be a pretty solid starter box.

What are you looking to record? Voice? Guitar? Piano? A group? Your equipment selection will likely be guided by what you need to record and what quality you need.
 
For the time being, I'm probably just gonna record vocals and some guitar, and maybe in the future drums.
 
well i started with one microphone (a condenser, at 2020 from audio technica) a 12channel behringer mixer i got used for only $50. won some cables in a battle of the bands and some headphones. And now i go directly into my macbook which i just bought. some say you need an audio interface which is basically what my mixer is, but better.. it takes audio or midi in and the transfers it to you computer through usb or firewire. if it has multiple inputs (where you plug the mic/line in) and it's firewire, the software you use usually lets you record multiple tracks at the same time... but seperately, that way if you plan on recording drums you can have a track for kick, snare, etc.. and each one would be completely editable. Right now i'm going to stick with using my mixer and not worry about editing drums. I'm not too serious into it to buy a $500 motu interface or a lesser $ 300 firebox interface from presonus. So if you want to start cheap here's what i say,

1-2 microphones (2 if your doing stereo)
find a decent analong mixer
cables for mic and the mixer to the computer
and of course your computer.

it works for me.. and if you're interseted in how it sounds i can show you some of my songs (they are a work in progress) and i think the mic pre's in my mixer are fine for behringer.
 
Okay, so I've been look through guides on what i need, and I saw people saying I needed a pre-amp and assorted microphones as well as an interface and possibly a mixer.

Apparently the Lexicon Omega I was looking at has a pre-amp, which crosses that off my list. It also comes with the Omega 8x4x2 USB I/O mixer. So basically I'm left with only a few more questions.

First off, I have only seen this Lexicon in pictures, but it appears to have an 'Instrument' jack on the front. Would that mean I could directly plug my guitar into it? If so, would that mean I wouldn't need to buy a specific mic to record guitar.

And lastly, what are some good mics?

Sorry for all of the questions, but I'd really want to buy what is needed, and not just waste money on things that aren't a necessity. I am on sort of on a tight budget being a teenager and not having a large income.
 
tojo said:
well i started with one microphone (a condenser, at 2020 from audio technica) a 12channel behringer mixer i got used for only $50. won some cables in a battle of the bands and some headphones. And now i go directly into my macbook which i just bought. some say you need an audio interface which is basically what my mixer is, but better.. it takes audio or midi in and the transfers it to you computer through usb or firewire. if it has multiple inputs (where you plug the mic/line in) and it's firewire, the software you use usually lets you record multiple tracks at the same time... but seperately, that way if you plan on recording drums you can have a track for kick, snare, etc.. and each one would be completely editable. Right now i'm going to stick with using my mixer and not worry about editing drums. I'm not too serious into it to buy a $500 motu interface or a lesser $ 300 firebox interface from presonus. So if you want to start cheap here's what i say,

1-2 microphones (2 if your doing stereo)
find a decent analong mixer
cables for mic and the mixer to the computer
and of course your computer.

it works for me.. and if you're interseted in how it sounds i can show you some of my songs (they are a work in progress) and i think the mic pre's in my mixer are fine for behringer.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't get an analog mixer. That's how I started out, running all my mics into it and then using the monitor outs to go to my computer's soundcard, but if you do that, you don't get all the multitrack goodness, which may or may not be a concern for you at this point. Exactly what you're looking for depends on what you have for a computer now. If you've got a desktop and you're not adverse to opening it up, you can buy things that use PCI cards. If you've got a laptop, you'll need a firewire or USB interface. You can buy decent ones for fairly cheap, but you are probably going to spend over $100 unless you go used. A lot of people start with an M-Box set up from Digidesign. These are USB interfaces (I think, or else firewire) that have at one or more inputs for microphones and one or more preamps that are associated with those inputs. The purpose of the preamps is to take the lower-level signal coming from the microphone and bring it up to a usable volume. They also sometimes provide power to the microphone, a feature often required by condenser microphones. Anyway, the m-box setups also come with a version of Pro Tools, which is kind of the industry standard for recording right now. It's probably a fairly good deal, but there are also probably some cheaper options, especially if you've got a mac with garage band on it (which would probably be easier for you to learn anyway).

The instrument jack is for guitar, but all you would get out of it is a clean signal unless you have effects on your computer. Bass is often recorded like that (it's called recording "direct"), but guitar usually sounds better when you put a mic in front of an amp (at least, in my opinion). I don't know a whole lot about what mic you should look for, but you can probably get a decent idea by looking at mics in your price range on Musician's Friend and reading reviews.
 
My obligatory standard reply-for-newbies that I keep in Wordpad:

First off, immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $15
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07...ce&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance
(Wish I'd had that when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)
You can also pick up this book in most any Borders or Barnes&Noble in the Music Books section!

Another good one is: Recording Guitar and Bass by Huw Price
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Gui...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215734124&sr=1-1
(I got my copy at a place called Half-Price Books for $6!!)

Barnes&Noble or Borders are great places to start --- they have recording books and you can go get a snack or coffee and read them for FREE! Don't pass by a good recording book --- this is a VERY technical hobby and you REALLY want to start a reference library!!!

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/computermusic?entry=free_beginner_pdfs

21 Ways To Assemble a Recording Rig:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

Also Good Info:
http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.htm

Other recording books:
http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html

Still using a built-in soundcard?? Unfortunately, those are made with less than $1 worth of chips for beeps, boops and light gaming (not to mention cheapness for the manufacturer) not quality music production.
#1 Rule of Recording: You MUST replace the built-in soundcard.
Here's a good guide and suggestions:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm


Plenty of software around to record for FREE to start out on:

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net (multi-track with VST support)
Wavosaur: http://www.wavosaur.com/ (a stereo audio file editor with VST support)\
Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/
Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/ (It's $40 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)
I use Reaper and highly reccomend it...

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($20) and Harmony Assistant ($80) have the power of $600 notation packages - http://myriad-online.com
Demo you can try on the website.

And you can go out to any Barnes&Noble or Borders and pick up "Computer Music" magazine - they have a full FREE studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (November 2006 they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150, November 2007-on the racks Dec in the US- they gave away SamplitudeV9SE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)
 
I just signed up here...and thats the exact sort of intro new guy speil i was hoping to find here.
 
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