Newbie Recording Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter chessl
  • Start date Start date
C

chessl

New member
Hello,

I stumbled on this forum tonight searching the net for information on home recording. It looks to be an excellant community and great source for information.

We are starting to record our daughters vocal covers with prerecorded music tracks. So far we have purchased a vocal mic and are now looking at software. I am thinking of purchasing Cubase 7 Elements and wanted some opinions on it as it pertains to what we are doing with recording vocal tracks and mixing with background music.

We are complete newbies to recording and mixing so we are expecting a huge learning curve.
Appreciate any help and comments.

Thanks
 
Morning Chessl and welcome.

WTGR you have gone about this a bit ass about face! The very first thing you needed to CONSIDER buying was an Audio Interface. (I say "consider" not because you don't need one, you do, but there is vast choice)

I do hope that isn't a usb mic? If so get it back to the shop ASAP and get a credit note for it! IMHO you will not make recordings of any great quality with such a mic.

You say recording "covers"? If this is rock/pop songs then you cannot go wrong buying a Shure SM58. For an AI? As I say legion but I will mention two, about a hundred quid apart.

The Steinberg UR22 has gained a good rep so far. Only two tracks plus MIDI but the mic pre amps and converters are said to be excellent. Around £100

The Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 is better equipped with two extra line inputs and four outputs, MIDI and digital i/o. Just shy of £200.

Both these devices are electronically capable of making recordings to better than CD quality but most important of all, the both come with a free, "lite" copy of Cubase. You really do not need to spend the money on C7 at this stage and might NEVER need to do so!

So, have mic, AI, software. You will need a mic stand, cables and at least headphones (but start thinking about small monitors now!) . Again, the choice of headphones out there will boggle you but Sennheiser HD202s at 20 quid are quite good enough to kick off with. Cost so far, £300-400 but you will not do quality for less believe me (and I have saved you a serious wedge on C7!) .

Folks will no doubt chip in about room treatment and PC noise but I have to go to work.

Dave.
 
Thanks for the comment Dave.

I failed to mention that we do have an audio interface - Lexicon Alpha. Also the mic is a Audio-Technica AT2050 (not USB). Also purchased Shure SRH 440 headphones.
I'm not too familiar with the equipment, my 15 year old son does some recording and purchased the audio interace awhile back. Being a teenager he isn't too much help as he is... much too busy... to help Mom and Dad.

I would appreciate any comments on room treatment and anything else that is relevant.
 
The typical pitfall recording to prerecorded tracks is that their levels are often too high to work with the normal recording process. Turn them down to peak at about -12dBFS rather than trying to record the vocals that loud. Turn the headphone level up to compensate. Don't worry that it's all a lot lower in level than a finished recording, this is not the part of the process where you set the finished level.

"Peak" means the highest level of a signal, as opposed to the average level. You'll want to shoot for average recording levels around -18dBFS, leaving room for the peaks to fall where they may without running out of space at the top, called headroom. You want to avoid running out of headroom.

Decibels, or dB, are the basic measure of levels and are relative to some sort of reference. There are various flavors but you'll mostly be dealing with dBFS, or decibels full scale. Digital recording has an absolute maximum possible level of 0dBFS, and everything is relative to that and is always a negative number.

It's going to be a mixed experience of frustration and reward, so don't get discouraged with the steep part of the learning curve. You've discovered a gold mine of information and help in these forums. Search before you ask but ask any question however basic. Good luck.
 
Before you purchase software, consider the "buy if you like it" free download for Reaper. It's also pretty easy to use, insofar as any DAW is easy to use. Then you haven't outlaid any money whilst you're learning the ropes. And I'd be wary of buying any cut down version of software anyway, although I can see the attraction if you're convinced this is as complex as it's going to get for you.

And +1 to what boulder is saying about recording levels immediately above.
 
Hello chessi,

I would also recommend you to try before your buy, as with most software manufacturers you cannot return the product once you have activated it.
The Cubase Elements 7 Trial should be coming out any time soon, I will suggest you to wait for it and then give it a go.
If I am not wrong with the Lexicon Alpha you should've had received an LE version of Cubase.
Maybe you have it somewhere... You can use it to get familiarised with Cubase and the whole recording experience.

About room acoustics, I will recommend you to read the following articles from Sound on Sound, they should answer most of your questions:

Soundproofing & Acoustic Treatment
The Studio SOS Guide To Monitoring & Acoustic Treatment

And probably you also want to purchase an antipop for the microphone, as young and unexperienced singers trend to get to close to the mic ;)

Best regards,
GN
 
Hey Chessl!

Who TF are you? You must have SOME pull to get a man from Steinberg to respond!
(Guillermo, you are very, very welcome. Is this a "born again" new, touchyfeely Steinberg we are seeing? Again a big HI, you are going to be a very busy bloke!) .

Chess' can you prise the AI away from surly teenager for a day or two*? Has son setup the included Cubase software on his own computer? If so you will need to use something else on the one for your daughter. At this early stage I suggest you download "Audacity". Almost everyone here knows how to use it and it is about as simple as it gets (which, it must be said, ain't very!).

Guillermo, you say LE7 demo will be available soon? Since it is NOT ready yet why has the trial version of LE6 been withdrawn please? I have LE6 and my son finds it much the best software for MIDI work (tho' I confess we use Samplitude for almost everything else!) .

I had never understood why Steinberg, almost alone in DAW software peeps did not have demo versions. When at last they did I recommended them widely, can't any more. Yes, I know we can get a trial of the full blown 7 but you have to buy a dongle. Noobs just ain't gonna do that. If the monster (and luverly!) Sam ProX can be demo'ed, why do Steinberg do different?

*Personally, if you can afford it I would jUst say **d 'im and buy a UR22!
Dave.
 
Hi Ecc83,

Thank you for the warm welcome!

you are going to be a very busy bloke!)
Click to expand...

I'm hopping on that :thumbs up:

Guillermo, you say LE7 demo will be available soon? Since it is NOT ready yet why has the trial version of LE6 been withdrawn please?
Click to expand...

Right after a new product release the old product is removed and exchanged for the newest version. It usually takes a month since the official release for the Demo version appears on the market, obviously this can vary.
We consider that it doesn't make much sense to leave a demo for a software that customers will not be able to purchase.

I had never understood why Steinberg, almost alone in DAW software peeps did not have demo versions. When at last they did I recommended them widely, can't any more. Yes, I know we can get a trial of the full blown 7 but you have to buy a dongle. Noobs just ain't gonna do that. If the monster (and luverly!) Sam ProX can be demo'ed, why do Steinberg do different?
Click to expand...

We are aware of this, and an alternative for the dongle is right now under development. ;)

Best regards,
GN
 
"We are aware of this, and an alternative for the dongle is right now under development."

Ah! I think you misunderstood me there Guillermo?

I was not trying to open the perpetual " Dongle V online verification" debate. I have used both and in fact prefer the dongle when the software company is Byzantine in their operation. MAGIX is one such and I guess you know the other! In fact the only real downside to the dongle is if it is lost or fails.

No, my point was that a newbie is not going to fork out 20quid for a months trial of something when he sees lots of other DAW vendors offering their flagship products on trial for nothing. (How many here recall that once upon a time you could not SAVE in trial audio software? How stupid was that!) .

I really do not see why LE6 could not be left on the stocks as a trial until the new one was ready? Or, and I don't want to be rude here, somebody should get their act together!

I do understand that software people want security but like shoplifting or terrorism we have to accept that 100% security is not possible without making life intolerable for the population. It has seemed in the past that some software companies take the "zero tolerance" view and **d the customer?

Dave.
 
I've thought the same about Protools.
If you don't already own an ilok, you're not going to bother demoing Protools, right?

It's even worse with PT11. You must have an ilok 2!
So even as a PT user with an ilok1, I was considering just not bothering with 11.
 
Maybe we could keep this thread useful for the OP.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Maybe we could keep this thread useful for the OP.
Click to expand...

Hey come ON!
How often do you get a major software company person on a forum ????? We are going to talk!

Sorry Mr C if you feel a bit neglected, You can always butt in and tell us to shurrup and get back on topic!

Dave.
 
Thanks to all who replied. The comments and suggestions are much appreciated and will surely help us as we delve into home recording. As was suggested by Guillermo to use the disk that came with the Lexicon interface, apparently the disk is MIA. I have made the decision to purchase CuBase 7 Elements. Rather than trying different products we are thinking start with one product off the hop, learn it and stick with it. We will be using it on my sons computer which has the interface and all his other mixing components connected to it.
Again, thanks to all for the help. Searching through this forum should provide us with much needed help as well as posting questions.

chessl
 
Good job Chessl.
I was a little off topic but though it was worth sharing incase you were contemplating the other big players.

Best of luck. :)
 
Hello ecc83,

No, my point was that a newbie is not going to fork out 20quid for a months trial of something when he sees lots of other DAW vendors offering their flagship products on trial for nothing. (How many here recall that once upon a time you could not SAVE in trial audio software? How stupid was that!)
Click to expand...

I think I didn't explained it properly, we are not going to replace the dongle, but actually developing a solution that allows new customers to demo Cubase 7 without a dongle ;)

Best regards,
GN
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top