noob dorm recording

[rocket34bg]

hey, i've been checking out this forum randomly for the past few months trying to learn stuff about home recording. i've been pretty confused so i decided to post and see if anyone can help me. i just want some information leading me to what i should look into, cause i know most everything is discussed on this message board.

basically, i've been playing music for many years, and i'm not a noob to that at all. i live in a small one person dorm room right now, and i get bored easily and thought it's about time to record. i've listed everything i have, and i was wondering what other equipment/software i would need to start recording. i'm interested in getting mics soon, i'm guessing two different ones to record everything from vocals to acoustic instruments to amps should do it. i'm also wondering what kind of soundcard i should get or other hardware to record digitally. all in all, i want to be able to record music on my laptop in my dorm room, and i'd be happy to take any suggestions.

this is what i own and plan on recording with:
trombone
roland v-drums electronic drumset (w/ roland v-drum amp)
gibson sg
takamine acoustic electric
seagull acoustic electric
fender twin reverb amp (only other effect is fulltone OCD distortion pedal)
pod xt live
korg microkorg
violin and sax (my two friends will probably record with me on these)
hp pavillion zd8000 pentium 4 3GHz 2GB of RAM laptop

thanks for takin my noob question. anything to get me on the right track will be greatly appreciated

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Welcome to the BBS.

You have a decent spec'd machine for a DAW. As it's a laptop you'd probably be better off with a firewire interface. You'd need some preamps for those mics you're getting (some interfaces come with these built in) and of course you'd need a recording program.

You say you're only thinking of a couple of mics so presumably we're talking about recording only one or maybe two tracks at a time? That's good as it cuts down on the price of the interface and means you don't need stacks of mic preamps, you can just concentrate on a couple of decent quality recording channels.

If you want to take things seriously you'll have to consider proper monitoring at some stage and this also means treating your room as well as getting some monitor speakers suitable for assessing mixes. Acoustic treatment is also important for the room in which you'll be tracking (like a lot of us homercors it seems that your tracking and mixing will be done in the same room so it's a compromise). It doesn't matter how good your gear is or how skilled you become at using it, if your room sounds crappy your recordings will never sound great.

Anyway back to the gear, what's your budget for this stuff?

 

[rocket34bg]

thanks for the reply! about the room and monitoring speakers, i'm not really sure i understand what that is all for. but i do know that since i have a laptop i can move everything and possibly record in one of our school's practice rooms when i'm recording some acoustic stuff. and i also can record at my parent's house. but i do want to set my room up to AT LEAST be able to record acoustic guitar nicely. and let me remind you again i'm totally new to recording, and to a lot of equipment so i'm still kind of confused.

my budget right now is about $1,000 (american) but i always plan on building on and buying more equipment

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

You need a monitoring setup which is 'accurate', that's to say what comes through the speakers is a true representation of what's been recorded. Many hi fi speakers will hype certain frequencies to sweeten what's coming through them. Also certain features of an untreated room might fool your ears into thinking there is a lack or excess of certain frequencies in your mix. For example if you have a dip in lower frequencies in your listening position caused by poor acoustics you'll compensate by boosting those frequencies so they sound well represented in the mix. However when you take that mix and play it on another system the bass will sound way too heavy. Conversely if you're using speakers which hype bass your mixes will sound bass light when played elsewhere.

Unfortunately recording acoustic instruments is probably where it's most important to have a nice sounding acoustic space. The reality if you don't have a good room is that you'll end up deadening it as much as possible with treatment and then adding ambience and reverb after the event with hardware or software procressors. Don't worry you can still get some decent sounding recordings this way it's just not ideal. The good thing about mobile recording is being able to move around and check out different spaces and see how different things sound in different rooms.

If you only need to record one or two sources at a time and you're using a laptop you might want to take a look at the firewire options offered by presonus and M Audio.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FireWire410-main.html

http://www.presonus.com/firebox.html

I'm a big fan of M Audio stuff (I use one of their PCI cards) but the presonus would work out cheaper. It comes with Cubase LE which is a stripped down version of the fuller Cubase SX. Still very useable though and it might fit your needs quite well. Both those units have mic preamps built in too.

That would leave you with some cash for acoustic treatment and/or monitors. If you read around the studio building forum you should learn a bit about the subject and maybe come up with some ideas for some cheaper home made treatments.

And don't worry about being confused, just keep reading plenty and all should become clear. Also try the search facility here. A search on 'firewire' will probably get you a lot more opinions and options than what I've been able to give.

Good luck with it.

 

[rocket34bg]

hey kevin, thanks for all your help on getting me started!

why do i need monitors? will headphones do the job? i have sony professional mdr-7506.

edit: another dumb question, what does a firewire port look like? i've only ever used usb and i don't see firewire on here. also, i'm not sure what kind of soundcard came with my laptop, should i buy a new better one?

 

[rocket34bg]

one more question, i want to get people's opinion and i don't want to ask this on the mic forum cause i'm sure it's been asked a million times.

what are the two best mics for recording that are around the $100-200 range. i figure i want something that can record vocals and acoustic instruments (acoustic guitar/violin/brass instruments) and one that can record guitar amps, everything from clean to distortion. i've read about the shure sm57. and the MXLV63M looks like a good deal, but from what i read it's mostly for vocals. anyways, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jkokura]

LDC's:
SP C1
AT 4040
MXL V67

M/SDC's:
MXL 603s
AT 4033

Dynamic:
Shure SM57 or 58

For vocals I'd recommend an LDC. Acoustics can be recorded with any condesor. Dynamics can always be used for pretty much anything, but they're not always the best choice - They're great for guitar amps, or drums or vocals. Also, you should think about getting a good DI for things like Bass guitar or your Electric drums...

These are all entry level but good value. To keep your price down get em used if you can.

Jacob

 

[travelin travis]

one more question, i want to get people's opinion and i don't want to ask this on the mic forum cause i'm sure it's been asked a million times.

what are the two best mics for recording that are around the $100-200 range. i figure i want something that can record vocals and acoustic instruments (acoustic guitar/violin/brass instruments) and one that can record guitar amps, everything from clean to distortion. i've read about the shure sm57. and the MXLV63M looks like a good deal, but from what i read it's mostly for vocals. anyways, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

If I were you, I would check out a Studio Projects B1 ($100) and an SM57 ($80). You could record alot of stuff with those.

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

hey kevin, thanks for all your help on getting me started!

why do i need monitors? will headphones do the job? i have sony professional mdr-7506.

edit: another dumb question, what does a firewire port look like? i've only ever used usb and i don't see firewire on here. also, i'm not sure what kind of soundcard came with my laptop, should i buy a new better one?

Headphones unfortunately aren't a very accurate method of monitoring your mixes (even good ones). There are a few reasons for this but the major one is that they hype bass frequencies due to 'proximity effect'. That means the closer you get to something the more exagerated the lower frequencies will become. It's the same with mics, try singing into a mic that's 5-6" away from your mouth, then try it with your mouth right up against the grill and notice the diffference. When it's really close it will sound quite bassy and boomy, this can actually be quite useful when recording someone with a thin voice without much in the way of natural low frequencies. Headphones are a very useful tool particularly for editing and listening for certain details. It's also a good idea to check your mixes on as many playback systems as possible and headphones are useful as a part of that too. But as a sole source for monitoring they'd give you all sorts of problems.

If your laptop doesn't have a firewire port there should be some way of fitting one, I'm not 100% sure about that because I've never had to do it myself so that's something you'll have to do a bit of research on. If not you could use a USB interface, not as stable as firewire but seeing as you'll only be dealing with a few tracks it should be OK.

These external interfaces actually do the same job as a soundcard (namely analog-digital and digital-analog conversion) they just do it outside of the box. As I said some of them come with other bells and whistles like mic preamps and headphone monitoring.

So the sc built into your laptop can be disabled (for your recording app at least).

A firewire port looks like this (note the little logo to the left of the port? that's the firewire logo):

 

[rocket34bg]

thanks for all your help, especially kevin. luckily i do have a firewire port (hiding behind my usbs), so i don't have to pay to get a card or something.

i need to start working on my room and monitors. i also need to cut down on the sound from my laptop. it's kinda noisy. same with my external harddrives (i have 3, i guess i can always unplug 2, but 1 is loud enough).

i'm also trying to decide between a firebox and a firepod. it's not worth buying a firebox if i plan on, say over the summer, want to record my whole band. other than more inputs are there any better features on the firepod?
edit: i see the firepod has midi...which hooks up into my drums...nice

i'm trying to decide on mics, and i was wondering if anyone wants to help me out on aim (capturedanthem74) or msn (rocket34bg2@hotmail.com) that would be awesome. anyone that is into anything from indie pop to experimental noise rock whatever, that knows a lot about mics, i'd like to ask you a few questions. just think it would be easier to discuss over a messenger.

 

[rocket34bg]

hi, i have one last question question before i have everything set up. and hopefully someone can answer within in the hour because i have to go buy stuff now before i head back to school.

what is the best way to hook up the microkorg to the firepod? midi? audio inputs?

and also what kind of cable do i need to buy? split 1/4"? midi cables (i don't know anything about midi)?

if anyone can help me out soon i'd be extremely greatful!

 

[Loyct]

If the microkorg is a keyboards, you'd need a spdif/midi cable.

Eg http://www.zzounds.com/a--2676837/item--THKTW12MC1