Newcomer in recording!

  • Thread starter Thread starter mygh
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M

mygh

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I am not sure how I should start recording at home. Don't have much money but need good quality in recording 'cause I want to sell my songs right away. Is that possible?
I have a good computer and nothing else. Shall I start with an audio interface or those multi-track digital equipaments are enough? Most recording will be acoustic and I don't think i need many input for instruments.
can spend between $500 to $700.

Please help me!
M
 
I guess if I was you, I'd buy an SM-57, a cheap USB mixer, and the rest on as gooda monitors as I could get. That'll prolly get you the best recordings you can expect on that budget. Not to be rude, but if you don't even know what hardware you need, you don't have the skills necessary to record and mix anything that sounds good enough to sell.. If you have time to mess around and figure it out, go for it, you'll be able to utilize that skill forever after. Lotta good info concentrated on this site, if you have the time to learn it. OTOH, if you need something good right now, that $ would buy you enough time in a studio to produce a little something..
 
suprstar said:
I guess if I was you, I'd buy an SM-57, a cheap USB mixer, and the rest on as gooda monitors as I could get. That'll prolly get you the best recordings you can expect on that budget. Not to be rude, but if you don't even know what hardware you need, you don't have the skills necessary to record and mix anything that sounds good enough to sell.. If you have time to mess around and figure it out, go for it, you'll be able to utilize that skill forever after. Lotta good info concentrated on this site, if you have the time to learn it. OTOH, if you need something good right now, that $ would buy you enough time in a studio to produce a little something..
Click to expand...

suprstar! Thank you for helping! Maybe I am expecting too much from a simple home studio and don't have any experience in recording! I would rather go to a professional studio and recording with pros (they spend their lifetime learning the skilss) but I cannot afford right now. Acctually I will be happy if I can record good quality demos for my gigs and maybe some commercial songs if I learn how to extract milk from lion! kkkkkkk I have the whole time in my life and the most important is talent! And I hope I have it!
Also I need to know how my songs are gonna sound like!
 
Well, get some basic gear and jump in then! How your songs will sound, well that depends on too much for anyone here to answer. You g2 start somewhere, read everything you can find, the more practice and experience you get, the better your tracks will sound. Welcome to the journey, it's addicting!
 
Turn around and run. As fast as you can. Find another hobby.

You'll thank me someday.
 
You will want to get yourself a good pair of speakers, anything from $80 to $1000. And then you want a good recording software, I recommend pro tools. And microphones.
 
mygh said:
can spend between $500 to $700.
Click to expand...

That's about what Nirvana spent on studio time for their first album, isn't it? :D

Yeah, Suprstar got it pretty well right. I'd probably say to spend less on the monitors and get a good soundcard instead of just using your onboard sound. I use an M-audio 24/96, and that works pretty well.

As for software, you can legally acquire Audacity or Reaper for cheap and get good results with them. (If you're working outside the bounds of legality, you have a few more options. (But shame on you; that's stealing! :D ))
 
VomitHatSteve said:
I'd probably say to spend less on the monitors and get a good soundcard instead of just using your onboard sound. I use an M-audio 24/96, and that works pretty well.
Click to expand...

A USB mixer *IS* a soundcard, as far as windows in concerned. It appears in the system hardware as a regular soundcard, all windows sounds go to the mixer, etc. I wasn't suggesting he run an analog mixer into the line-in on his integrated sound card or whatever..
 
mygh said:
Also I need to know how my songs are gonna sound like!
Click to expand...

You will find that "you" are a limitation more than your gear until you learn what your doing. As you gain experience your ears will develop too and you will start to realize problems with things like room acoustics and monitoring. I was there recording in a room with crappy acoustics not being able to hear what I needed to hear to do good mixes. I now have a treated room and can finally hear what I need to hear to mix well. My mixes now translate very well. I put off room treatment for various reasons but now realize just how important it is.

You have to start somewhere so get recording interface and mic and dig in. But I guarantee you will not stop buying gear. You will always want more/:D

Then the time will come when you decide you need to do room treatment. That can get very costly with things like buying bass traps. But you can build your own and save a lot of money.
 
Pro Tools costs big bucks. Way too much for most people. Plus I believe it only uses RTAS. So you can't even use VST plug-ins.

I'm currently using Reaper and am experiencing good results so far. Plus it's very inexpensive, loads fast, and installs in about 2 seconds.
 
I, too, am new and learning quickly

Hi mygh,

Yes, therage is correct!

Jump in and get an interface and expect to spend more time and acquire more equipment than you initially might have thought.

I've been playing for a long time but just started doing serious consumer recording. My goal, I think, is simple: to record my live performances in small venues capturing the guitar, my voice, a second guitar, and the audience, all on separate tracks. I haven't a lot to spend. I have a choice between stand-alone digital recorders and interfaces for my laptop. I've pursued the latter and I'm on my 5th audio interface in two months.

Bought an M-Audio Mobile Pre. It was okay, but noisy with piezo pickups. Not enough inputs. Sold it.

Bought a Presonus Inspire 1394 because it claimed to have 4 simultaneous inputs--but I didn't understand the language and it only had 2 preamps plus 2 midi channels. I could daisy chain two of them but that seemed, at the time, like it would be asking for trouble. Returned it.

Bought a used Firewire mixer from the local music store but it was a bad buy-in and the firewire was broken. Returned it.

Bought a Presonus Firebox but only 2 of the inputs had preamps and I need three or four. Returned it.

Finally I bought the M-Audio Fast Track Ultra and it worked great. Sound was absolutely amazing. Worked twice. Now it doesn't work anymore. Someone is currently walking me through manually loading the driver through the MAC OS terminal.

So the learning curve has involved learning about sound and recording in general. But it has also been an experience in learning about the challenges of technology.

I have also learned how much energy I have to invest in becoming more knowledgeable. And that's why I've come here.:)
 
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