Newbie ask's: What is the bare minimum?

[justcrash]

I'll tell you what I have: A tbird 800 on an ASUS A7v. 384 megs of PC133 RAM. 30 gig hdd partitioned into 3 drives of 10 gigs each (duh.. ) a live sound card, a live drive 2 (How useful is this for recording, guys?) and a 5 piece set of Klipches speakers.

I am running win 98 SE with Sonar Xl and fruity loops installed.

To record guitar could I go directly into my sans amp, then into the 1/4 jack on the live drive 2?

My goals: I am going to be recording my ideas to present to the band, so I need to do a drum track, bass track, guitar and 1-2 vocals (recorded one at a time).

So what else do I need? Thank you for your help!

 

[Gidge]

it seems you need a mic and a preamp.....

for drums, are you gonna record a kit or do it with software?....

 

[justcrash]

it seems you need a mic and a preamp.....

for drums, are you gonna record a kit or do it with software?....

Drums? WITH SOFTWARE he replied proudly (not having a clue how to do so.. )

I forgot to mention I own a few mics sm58 and 57. For a preamp someone mentioned the audio buddy, so Im lookin to get that.

Anythoughts on how to go in w/ my sansamp? Or if the live drive 2 will be an asset to me at all?

 

[TexRoadkill]

The sansamp should work with the live drive for scratch demos.

 

[Meshuggah]

I had a Live Drive II before I bought a new card...

Put the Sansamp into one of the aux-ins on the Live Drive.

 

[db51]

I am going to be recording my ideas to present to the band

An important question:

do you just want your band to be able to hear distinctly all the parts of your 'idea'

or

do you want them to go 'wow, that's a killer song' ???


Warning : Option number two is a lot more expensive


- Dan

 

[justcrash]

An important question:

do you just want your band to be able to hear distinctly all the parts of your 'idea'

or

do you want them to go 'wow, that's a killer song' ???


Warning : Option number two is a lot more expensive


- Dan

Crap.. is there a middle ground Dan?

 

[justcrash]

I had a Live Drive II before I bought a new card...

Put the Sansamp into one of the aux-ins on the Live Drive.

Did you find the live drive 2 usefull my friend?

 

[Meshuggah]

It's absolutely possible to create song with a really good sound with Fruity Loops and a POD-thingy. If you can record a good sounding guitar and bass with the sansamp, then all you need is a one-channel mic-pre. This will be an excellent scratch-pad when you get the hang of it.

This song is recorded without any "real" instruments. Fruity Loops, Roland GP100 guitar-preamp, DI-Box for Bass.. (there are no vocals..) on a SB Live! Platinum.

Edit:
I found the Live Drive 2 VERY useful. The headphones and the s/pdif in was my way in/out of the card.. (I have a MiniDisc deck I used for A/D conversion.)

 

[justcrash]

It's absolutely possible to create song with a really good sound with Fruity Loops and a POD-thingy. If you can record a good sounding guitar and bass with the sansamp, then all you need is a one-channel mic-pre. This will be an excellent scratch-pad when you get the hang of it.

This song is recorded without any "real" instruments. Fruity Loops, Roland GP100 guitar-preamp, DI-Box for Bass.. (there are no vocals..) on a SB Live! Platinum.

Edit:
I found the Live Drive 2 VERY useful. The headphones and the s/pdif in was my way in/out of the card.. (I have a MiniDisc deck I used for A/D conversion.)

What kind of DI box on the bass? GREAT TUNE btw! Holy shit! Add vocals to that, and Im not turning the station when it comes on at all bro! I mean this as a compliment.. this should be what Metallica sounds like now. What is the SPDIF for? And the A/D conversion? Like I said, Im REALLY new to this stuf..

 

[Meshuggah]

What kind of DI box on the bass?

Old noname thing with only in/out. I really think you'll be fine with the Sansamp.

GREAT TUNE btw! Holy shit! Add vocals to that, and Im not turning the station when it comes on at all bro! I mean this as a compliment.. this should be what Metallica sounds like now.

Thx.. I just linked it as an example of what I did with a similar setup, and I'm quite confident you can get the same or better results when you get comfortable with your setup.

What is the SPDIF for? And the A/D conversion? Like I said, Im REALLY new to this stuf..

The SPDIF, is a digital input (you have spdif (optical and coaxial) ins and outs on the Live Drive) so you can use an external device for Converting the sound from Analog to Digital. If you don't have one, the SB Live! card will take care of it for you. Just use the Auxilary inputs on the Live Drive.

Hang in there, man. You'll be amazed how good your 'simple' scratch-pad really is..

 

[justcrash]

Old noname thing with only in/out. I really think you'll be fine with the Sansamp.



Thx.. I just linked it as an example of what I did with a similar setup, and I'm quite confident you can get the same or better results when you get comfortable with your setup.



The SPDIF, is a digital input (you have spdif (optical and coaxial) ins and outs on the Live Drive) so you can use an external device for Converting the sound from Analog to Digital. If you don't have one, the SB Live! card will take care of it for you. Just use the Auxilary inputs on the Live Drive.

Hang in there, man. You'll be amazed how good your 'simple' scratch-pad really is..

Thank you for being so helpful and not bailing on me when you saw how ignorant I am with all of this stuff.