No clue what I am doing.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Donny21
  • Start date Start date
D

Donny21

New member
Ok, not completeley clueless but close to it. My knowledge of recording extends to knowing how to mic drums and amps and an extensive knowledge of Garageband and other mixing programs.

I'm looking to set up a small recording studio in a spare room centered mainly around my MacBook. I plan to record basic pop punk songs and use drum loops and possibly a drum machine in the future. I have a guitar, a bass, a wah, pedal and a metal zone pedal along with some 20 watt practice amps.

From what I gather I would need a condenser mic with USB interface, an audio interface, a (possibly jerry rigged) mic stand, a MIDI keyboard, headphones, and an external sound card. So if I need anything else, if you can recomend gear, or more importantly tell me how to set this stuff up I would be forever grateful. Thanks!
 
If you want to program drums from your computer, I def suggest EZ drummer, the best drumming program I've ever found. It's really quite amazing, check it out, it didn't come out too long ago at all, The cymbals sound fantastic...
 
USB condenser not necessary if you have an interface, an SM57 and you'll be ok. Your choice of keyboard controller and Reason, Reaper, and of course a 24 track Studer with a Neve console, and you'll be ready to record.
 
Yeah, those low-cost Neve products. I hear SSL consoles are a bargain as well, and won't run up your electricity bill.

All you really need is an audio interface (USB or Firewire), a dynamic mic and a USB midi interface. If you want to record a bunch of tracks at once you can get an interface that has a lot of inputs. You can use Garageband fo recording but it will only do 16 bit. Interfaces often come with a lite copy of Cubase or something similar, which should give you higher quality than you have now. I hear Reaper is good but have never used it. Garageband is good enough to learn how to do some basic recording and probably the quickest and easiest program I've seen for looping drums. I guess Logic would probably be similar.
 
Donny21 said:
From what I gather I would need a condenser mic with USB interface, an audio interface,
Click to expand...
These are the same thing....

Audio Interfaces for laptop
And why do you need to jury rig a mic stand?


Mic Stands

These are some examples of what is out there. You can probably find them elsewhere, but using MF was just easy for me.
 
my advice is do lots of research from books, people, websites, etc.

first Make sure you have a good undestanding of acoustics, gainstaging.

miking, etc. Then you can get a system that is affordable and expandable

down the road. Make informed decisions about your purchases. I could easily

list about 25k worth of equipment that you could use but u have to be

realistic when you are starting out. for example it might be a waste of time

and money to buy a ff800 and then realize you need the extra 8 channels

and u upgrade to a ad16x.

hoped that helped :)
 
to add on to what rokket said, the "external soundcard" is also the same thing as the usb interface and audio interface.
 
ChuckV said:
If you want to program drums from your computer, I def suggest EZ drummer, the best drumming program I've ever found. It's really quite amazing, check it out, it didn't come out too long ago at all, The cymbals sound fantastic...
Click to expand...

Agreed. For the price it can't be beat. The samples sound very professional. Nothing bad I can say about them.

The only problem I had was recording other tracks 'professional' enough to go with them. So they sounded fake. If you can get good quality recordings then go for it. I can't believe how cheap EZ Drummer is. You can't go wrong with it.

But you need to know how to record good tracks and mix them with the drums or it will still sound like a drum machine.
 
Audio interfaces and mic with USB ae the same, I knew that. Mistake on my part, my bad.

Also sound cards are not always included in interfaces, just a side thought. Lokking into it and talking to a friend of mine I think I'm going to go with the Tascam US122. Sound card two track recording, and is also phantom powered. Anybody have one of these? they look like good value and good quality. Also have been recommended Behringer microphones as a good starter mic. Thet're only 35 bucks, and my friend (he worked as a sound engineer for quite a while) says the sound quality is comparable to the Shure's. Once again, would be great to get a second opinion.

Another question could someone recomend a decent and well priced instrument mic? for bass and guitar.
 
DO NOT spend money on a sequencer before giving reaper a good try. its truly amazing. and FREE! well....pretty much.... its like 40 bucks i think if you wanna make money using it.

Adam
 
Behringer has a pretty bad rep around here. Why not just by the sm57 and sm58? They don't cost that much more.

Well, actually they do. But you won't be sorry like I have the feeling you will with the Behringer mic.
 
Hmm, the sound recording mad with behringers I quite liked. I'll probably rent one and a shure so I can compare. I couldn't find a demo of EZdrummer though so blah.
 
I used the Behringer ECM8000 for acoustic guitar. Sounds fine. The mics are a little noisy but they do a good job.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top