New to recording. I have no idea what I am doing!

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Zach612

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Hello everyone! First post here.

So I recently got a decent amount of equipment for recording at home but I have pretty much zero experience with what settings/software to use. I play mainly metal, punk, heavy, hardcore, etc..
I only am interested in recording guitar and electric drums.

The equipment I am using:

Tascam 16x08 audio interface
Simmons SD7PK Electric drum set
Valveking Head
Mesa 2x12 cabinet (swapped the v30s for celestion 75's temporarily)
Shure SM57


At the moment I am using Audacity since it is free and until I know what I am doing I'd rather not drop money on different recording software.
I can get a guitar recording but it sounds thin. I have done two tracks panned hard right and left and that helps but there isn't much definition in what is being played.

I also have no clue how to get the drums to work. I used a cable from the 1/4 inch output on the drums into a line in on the tascam and I am getting a signal on the digital mixer but when I try to record into Audacity I get nothing.

I know this is all a bit vague and jumbled but I figured if anyone has used any of this equipment in a similar way or just plain knows a better way than what I am doing I would greatly appreciate it.
 
Looks like there's 2 inputs on that interface that can be used for D.I. guitar, make sure you have that selected correctly.
You should have an separate HD to record Audio too.

I don't remember much about audacity but make sure your input looks right in it for Drums. example>stereo or mono, correct inputs 1/2,3/4 or whatever.


With that drum set I would be triggering midi via usb. You will need a Bigger Better DAW for this.
 
Don't use Audacity, it is not meant for multi-track recording. More importantly, it doesn't take advantage of the ASIO drivers for your interface, which is necessary.

You spent a few hundred on your interface, a few hundred on your drums, a few hundred on your cab and amp and a hundred on your mic... and you don't want to spend anything on software? Doesn't make sense. You can get Reaper which has a very very nice demo mode. Try it, if you like it, it's only $60. Or Cubase Elements starts at around $100. There are probably some others at around the same price.
 
Audacity will make perfectly decent recordings IF you do your bit but as Chilli says, not really structured for music creation. In any case the software does not support MIDI

The drum kit has "DIN" MIDI ports and you might find it easier to visualize things if you plug Tascam to it using a pair of DIN cables (you just need straight all connected "hi-fi" DINs. Don't pay silly money for "special Hi Deff " MIDI cables)

For software I would urge you to download a demo of Cubase. Not the friendliest DAW to start with but nothing better for MIDI. That said you can get demos of almost everything and you might like Sonar Cakewalk (I hate it!) of my fave'. Samplitude Pro X 3. That last is very expensive but they do a much cheaper cut down version which is still very powerful.

You have a LOT of work ahead of you friend but people here will help. Try to make your efforts and questions systematic and post audio examples as soon as you are able.

Dave.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone! I went ahead and downloaded the demo of Reaper and have yet to try anything with it. I will have time later today to do some testing and will let you guys know how it goes!
 
Routing is the key I suspect. I have a Tascam interface and the routing is done in the software to map the inputs to the channels and then the channels to the outputs. I suspect that you are trying to stuff things on on say, 9 and 10, but the software is defaulting to 1 and 2, the mic inputs. This is done somewhere in the software. I don't use reaper, but audacity, Audition, and Cubase all work similarly in the routing department.
 
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