Newbie - setting up & need advice

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chuck Bevitt
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Chuck Bevitt

New member
Hello all.

I've recently gotten into singing 4 part harmony (aka Barbershop) and I want to set up a 'recording studio in a computer'. I've never been involved with audio recording before, so I'm starting from square one.

One requirement I have is to be portable and to be able to input at least four simultaneous inputs so as to be able to capture each of the four singing parts at once and on separate tracks. Portability means looking for a laptop; so far, I looking at a Lenovo IdeaPad Y570 Laptop with Win 7 Professional. It has a quad core processor at 2GHz, 8GB ram, and USB 3.0. That shoud give me plenty of horsepower.

Then I was thinking that to have more than 2 inputs at once, there must be some kind of hardware gizmo that would accept the inputs and then pass them into the computer via USB. Doing some research, I've seen a couple of things: a Tascam US-800 and a OCTA-Capture. Are something like these what I need?

I really don't know anything about what I looking for in the software package or for microphones.

So I'd appreciate any and all advice. Is this a good choice for the laptop? I don't mind erring on the side of power. I'd preferr to stay with Windows rather than Mac, however. Is USB the way to get the inputs into the computer and what are some good choice for the hardware piece that collects the inputs and channels them into the computer. What would be a good software package? What kind of microphones (four of them) should I be looking for? Do I have to worry about compatibility issues between the microphones, the input hardware, the computer, and the software package?

Thanks in advance for all suggestions. I'll be sure to post with the system specs when I've put it together. I'm sure I'll have lots of questions once I start recording and mixing.
 
USB is fine - read the sticky posts in this forum. There are good stereo mics if you don't want to mic each person separately. And you can get an all-in-one device like a Zoom r16 that doesn't require a laptop at all
 
Ok, here's a few articles which I hope you might find useful to look at:

Here's an overview of what's worth getting when it comes to recording software that that will allow you to record edit and mix (see Reaper at the end of that article)

next is a page covering info on a multi-channel recording interface

(can't help you with the laptop, but if you go for REAPER you probably can't go too far wrong with compatibility)

As regard mics, well you can spend as much as you like on them, but as arcadeko says sm58's are pretty cheap, decent AND indestructible here's some SM58 info

If you have a bit more budget on mics, then have a read of this article which covers which kind of microphones to invest in

Really hope it's useful to you.

Let us know how you get on!
 
Update - I got the laptop mentioned in my original post, the Tascam US-800 interface, and four SM-800 microphones (with stands & cables). I'm going to be use the Cubase LE5 that was included with the interface for now.

I initially had a problem with the US-800. The software loaded OK and the mixer app worked. Both Cubase and Audiacity saw the US-800 driver inputs and outputs and allowed selecting them, but neither would get an audio signal. I was thinking I was going to have to return the interface when I finally figured it out. It's an incompatibility problem with USB3 and either the US-800 or both Cubase and Audacity (or maybe all three). The laptop comes with USB3 ports; however, they also included one USB2 port, probably for just such a situation. I reloaded the (latest, which I downloaded) US-800 driver, this time plugging the interface into the USB2 port when the install procedure said too. Shazam! Everything worked like a charm.

I did some initial testing by recording five tracks at once with five mics pointing to different sound sources. The laptop wasn't even breathing hard. I also testing doing some crude overdubs and mixes. The mp3 encoder that came with the Cubase LE5 was only a 20 use trial version, but the upgrade to full version is only about $15.

Anyway, I'm taking my new setup to the men's chorus that I sing with (the Santa Monica Oceanaires) tomorrow to try recording some quartets. Just getting the raw recordings shouldn't be too difficult; then the learning process starts trying to mix raw recordings to something like a finished product.

Later I'm going to want to record the chorus as a whole; I'll need different mics for that.
 
They make some good mics for just that purpose. Check the mic forum or ask Moresound.
 
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