pc recording scenario

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brian Ferrell
  • Start date Start date
B

Brian Ferrell

New member
Could someone paint a scenario of what it would be like to lay down a four track song with one track each for guitar, vocal, bass. and drum machine on PC. Let's say I'm using an SB Live Platinum card. You've already outlined the basic equipment requirements for me (thanks again), but I'm concerned that recording with a PC is going to be a lot more complicated and expensive than I want to handle. Would it be something like this: I run my drum machine thru the soundcard onto the hard drive using the software I've chosen, say, Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.0. Now, I want to record the bass. Since the SBlive card is 2 ins and 2 outs, I listen to the drum track on one 'out' as I record the bass on one 'in'. Now, I have two tracks. Now, I record the guitar thru an 'in' as I listen to bass and drums on the 2 'outs'. Now, when I want to record the vocal track, will I be able to adjust the output of my three previous tracks as they are delivered thru the 2 'outs' so I can achieve a nice balance for monitoring while I record the vocal track? If so, after the four tracks are laid down successfully, will I be able to master them direct to my PC's CD-RW from the sound card's 2 'outs'? I've heard of a step in between calling for mixing to Sound Forge. Can't I just mix down from Cakewalk's software without Sound Forge? Why do I read of some people using Sound Forge and also running multiple 'outs' to an external mixer. Why not just use the internal software mixer? Sorry if this question is rather lengthy and the questions answered some where else, but this gets pretty confusing when you're a newbie like me and are trying to piece all this info together from the posts on this site. Also, if I use a PC for recording, will the sound be 'uncompressed' as I've heard some DAW manufacturers brag about? Thanks for your patience.
 
I didn't think the SB live had two inputs, so I will give scenario as if it only has one.

You pretty much have it.

From the output perspective - The two outputs of the live are left and right. You would typically use these as your main output for monitoring, panned hard left and right.

From the input perspective - You have a single line in. This will be fed from hopefully a mixer or sometype of preamp. What would be handy here is if you use a cable that gives you input to either Left or Right (stereo 1/8" male to 2 female 1/4" mono's) I don't think you will be able to tell Cakewalk to just record the left or just the right input. Where this cable would be handy is if you were recording 2 different sources, for instance a stereo mic setup.

Sorry to get off track. So you put down the drum machine track, may as well do it in stereo, using both L and R inputs. After you do that, VIA cakewalk you will be able to control the level when you put down your bass line with the 'virtual' faders. Each virtual fader represents a virtual track - All of which always come out of the main outputs of your SB.

So you can keep adding multiple tracks until your machine can't handle it. I don't know what your machine spec's are, but if it's anything current you can expect to get more than 4 quite easily.

You can create a good mix for overdubbing using the virtual faders.

As for Soundforge. After you have your song down as 4 tracks or 8 or however many there are, you want to output it to a stereo wave file. 2 tracks, left and right. The advantage of using something like soundforge (or goldwave, wavelab, cooledit) is that it is designed to work with stereo (or mono) wav files. Good for editing out noise at the start/end, adding some compression to the whole mix or whatever.

Yes you could just output a stereo wav file from Cakewalk, but it would be hard to judge what it actually turned out like (suppose you could import it into another session of Cakewalk). Goldwave, Cooledit all have demo's available.

Using the internal mixer is fine. I guess routing out to a mixer would give a more hands on control - maybe the mixer has better EQ than the software, maybe it's being run to outboard gear, compressors reverbs etc.

Some stand-alone digital multitrackers compress the audio for storage reasons (I think, never used one), so no, PC's don't need to do this.

Hope this helps,

Emeric
 
Dear Emeric,

Yes, that's a BIG help, because I was really just guessing. You may be right that SB Live Platinum only has one input. Creative Labs website says that it has an S/PDIF input. I can't find info on what S/PDIF stands for, but I thought that maybe the 'S' stood for stereo. Also, SB Live Platinum supposedly comes bundled with Soundforge XP, among other software.
As for your comment that I wouldn't have a clear idea of the final mix if I mastered direct to CD, yes, I skipped a step in my description of the recording process. Before mastering, I would have run the outputs of the SBlive to either headphones or an external monitor system, then if I liked the mix, rerouted it direct to CD-RW. My guess is that Sonicforge somehow skips the rerouting process? Anyways, you've cleared up a lot of doubt in my mind as to what goes into computer recording and I greatly appreciate it. I was thinking of going back to my original plan of buying a DAW, but now I feel that using a PC will be almost as easy.

Brian
 
Thanks Gaffa,

I had to fiddle with your link a little before I could get on it. I knocked off 'current' and was able to find it. The link was then: http://www.recordist.com/rap-faq/. It's a great link with lots pro-recording questions answered. I now think I know what S/PDIF means. On the other hand, I'm now not certain what SBlive Platinum uses for analog inputs. I don't think it shows this on their site. I'll have to look further- it must be there somewhere. The reason I'm interested in SBlive Platinum is because I want one card that will do both gaming and high quality recording. I've read that some of the prosumer cards don't fully support gaming. Any suggestions?

Brian


[This message has been edited by Brian Ferrell (edited 04-05-2000).]
 
I too, am looking at the SoundBlaster Live Platinum. The Platinum, unlike the other Live versions, DOES have two inputs and outputs - as far as I can tell - the Live Drive that goes in the front of your computer has seperate input/outputs from the ones on the back of the PCI card.

However, the analog inputs, and the A/D converters all operate at 48khZ, 16 bit. If you use different sample rates on the software end of things, the card still samples at 48KhZ, and converts and dithers to other sample rates internally.

It's not the best card for recording, but is cheap, especially when considering the bundled software. Some of the recordings available in the 'mp3 mixing clinic' section make quite good use of the card.

On usenet discussions, other people don't seem to find the SPIDF ports very useful.
 
Thanks for your input Eric.

I don't fully understand the concept of the 'Live Drive' or its uses.

I emailed Echo and asked if their Echo and Darla cards support most pc games and their reply was, " many, but not all".

Brian
 
First of all, the soundblaster live platinum is the same card as the soundblaster live, but includes a lot of gaming and music software. It also includes a 'live drive', which is a 5 1/4 inch panel that plugs into the front of your computer, where your CD and floppy drives go. This has extra sockets for midi, headphone jack, and a 1/4 inch input that you can plug an electric guitar (or whatver) directly into - it looks the same as a big headphone jack. The PCI part of the card has line in,2 line outs, mic, and joystick/midi connections. These are all seperate and distinct connections, and are labelled mic1 and mic2 by the computer software.

As for recording, as per your first post, the 'tracks' all come out of your computer already mixed. A multi-track recording program will allow you to add tracks to a recording, but only one (or two, if you use the two inputs both from the back and front of the computer) at a time. When you play any sound back from your computer, all the sounds are mixed inside the computer, and you only get a stereo output from the computer.

To get track1 and track2 (and so forth) to play as seperate audio streams, you will need a fancier card, like the layla. I think that with the platinum you MAY be able to use the two seperate line outs (they are meant to be front and rear speaker outputs for surround sound)to have seperate audio tracks assigned to the two different outputs.

Hope that helps.
 
Here's the deal with games and Prosumer cards...

Get a prosumer card for recording. Gadgetlabs wave/824 is killer. Then, buy a $50 sound card for games. If you're recording on the PC, I suggest 24bit instead of 16, but that's just me. If you want medium results and only using 1 card, then I guess the SBLive is good. I'm using the SBLive, but the Wave/824 is my very next purchase...much better for recording.
 
In reply to Eric:

So......., if you use Live Drive II, then you would actually have THREE inputs; two on the front Live Drive and one on the back where the Sblive card's is!?

One thing's not clear to me in your post. You say that the computer will only have a stereo output after multitracking unless you have a better card. Then you say that the Platinum only has two outputs- one for front and one for rear channels for surround sound. Isn't stereo two outputs? Or are each of the outputs wired for stereo- like a stereo headphone jack? In that case, you'd actually have four potential outputs, right? :-) If you're looking for a pro card that also plays games, I was given advice that the Guilemot Maxi Studio Isis is good, cheap and has 8 inputs and 4 outputs! 300 bucks at J&R Music World.

Enigma, thanks for your advice. I intend to study the Gadgetlabs card before I buy something.



[This message has been edited by Brian Ferrell (edited 04-10-2000).]
 
Number of inputs and outputs:

The live drive (I) input on the front of the computer is only one input - it's a 1/4 inch input, a 'big' headphone jack. It can be mic or line, depending on what you plug into it. But, it's only one input. I assume it's stereo so you could (with a Y-cord) put two inputs into it, on the right and left.

On the PCI card, on the back of your computer, are 'mic' and 'line' inputs, like on every regular computer sound card. I am assuming that the mic input is mono, and the line stereo.

There are two stereo line-level outputs. I do not know if you can route different signals to them. If possible, then thereotically, you should be able to have four ouputs, IF the software you are using allows it, by sending a seperate signal to each of the stereo pairs of the outputs. Any 1/8 inch (mini-headphone jack) plug to rca cable would work for this.

Keep in mind that I do not have a Soundblaster Live in front of me, I have gathered this information from looking at the thing in a store, and extensive web-reading, both on the creative site, and in the soundblaster live newsgroup.

The Live drives, I and II are now available as accesories, if you already have a late soundblaster live. The live drive I comes with the soundblaster live platinum in north america. The live drive II comes with the platinum in the UK.
 
As I have said, a Soundblaster anything is not meant for serious audio recording.

However, it is about half the price (at least where I live) of the bottom end of prosumer cards. For the half the price, and 'average' fidelity (that would have been pro-audio 5 years ago) I think it is a good bargain.

If, with a bunch of Y-cords, you can fudge multiple ins and outs, why the hell not?
 
Well, I have a Soundblaster Live and I can tell you with a degree of confidence that you can not use the two 'surround' stereo outputs as 4 seperate outs (at least, using the drivers that I have). I don't have the live drive thing, but I would hazard a guess that, despite the increased number of physical inputs, they will be switchable, ie only one will work at once (like the mic/line ins on an SBLive!). It's sad, but I think the Live would be a whole lot more expensive if you _could_ do all this.

Hope this answers questions,

matt
 
Yes, things are a little clearer for me now.
So, in general, it's then safe to say that when the terms 'line input' or 'output' are used in conjunction with PC soundcards, we're talking about one STEREO connection per input or output.- except of course when talking about mic in.
It's also clearer why you can't route four tracks from the Sblive. As anyone knows who's ever hooked up a surround sound home stereo amp, you don't get the same power out of the surround channels as you do out of your main channels. I would imagine that PC cards would pretty much use the same differences and, therefore, be unsuitable for 4-track routing- even if such routing WERE possible.

Thanks again, guys!

Brian
 
Yes, like you say, one in/out means a stereo in/out. I have a suspicion that the mic in is also stereo (from looking at the crappy mic I got with my SBLive!) but I would recommend not using the built in mic-in on any SB as they sound like poo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top