Please be gentle on the newbie, I need Help

[DNGRSCRVS]

Ok let me start out that I am not a musician, My husband is. I am concidered the matriach of his band (the longest lasting wife). I am the computer literate one of our little tribe (the Crossroads Band) and have been apointed to set up the home recording studio. I have a great computer, pent IV processor 768 mb ram 80 gig hard drive cd/dvd burner. My husband has a 16 chanell mixing board that was formally used to mix for the stage. In all my reading from this site it's that I gotta get a sound card, but when shopping for one specifically for home studio I was told (from the music store) that sound cards are out and USB2 is all the rage now. So we were thinking lexicon????? To make a long story short we want multi line in's (around 8) as for software well I plan to play with something cheap till I get the hang of it. Please be gentle with my lack of knowledge but I would love any advise yall could throw out at me. I want to add that I want to start out with Quality and keep working our way up with Quality.

 

[Carter]

The Lexicon Omega is a good choice and it comes with Cubase LE, perfect to start out with!

 

[scrubs]

Ok let me start out that I am not a musician, My husband is. I am concidered the matriach of his band (the longest lasting wife). I am the computer literate one of our little tribe (the Crossroads Band) and have been apointed to set up the home recording studio. I have a great computer, pent IV processor 768 mb ram 80 gig hard drive cd/dvd burner. My husband has a 16 chanell mixing board that was formally used to mix for the stage. In all my reading from this site it's that I gotta get a sound card, but when shopping for one specifically for home studio I was told (from the music store) that sound cards are out and USB2 is all the rage now. So we were thinking lexicon????? To make a long story short we want multi line in's (around 8) as for software well I plan to play with something cheap till I get the hang of it. Please be gentle with my lack of knowledge but I would love any advise yall could throw out at me. I want to add that I want to start out with Quality and keep working our way up with Quality.

For 8 ins, USB probably won't cut it. I personally use USB, but only do 2 simultaneous tracks, maximum. A band needs more. I also wouldn't say that soundcards are out. You would probably be best off with a soundcard like the M-Audio Delta 1010. You could also chain together 2 smaller 4-input cards like the Delta 44/66 types, if you have the PCI slots. FireWire is another option. The presonus firepod has 8 built in preamps and is reputedly very cool.

 

[MadAudio]

USB2?!?! Let me guess, you went to Guitar Center, right? Soundcards are not "out" by any stretch. USB2 might be "the rage" but for quality audio it still cannot compete with a PCI card or even a FireWire interface.

Exactly what mixer do you have? It will need to have 8 channel inserts in order to get 8 independent sends to the computer.

 

[DNGRSCRVS]

back with info

Ok first of all I can do fire wire I need to get a card for other stuff (video imput for collage prodjects) second the mixing board is a Peavey RQ 1606 M p.s. Thank You for your help!!!!!!!

 

[MadAudio]

I researched that mixer, and even though it's intended as a monitor mixer it should work just fine. It has 8 channel inserts and enough features to do the job.

 

[DNGRSCRVS]

I got another question, as to the sound cards suggested by scrubbs. The Delta 1010 looks good but I was thinking that two 66's would give us 2 more imputs. My question is which one would be better for bandwidth purposes?

 

[noisedude]

Are you sure? The Delta 66 is 4 in and 4 out. The other two 'inputs' are SPDIF digital - which I guess you don't need?

As for bandwidth - it shouldn't make any difference. In terms of ease of use I'd rather have one card in my machine instead of two if possible, but you should be fine with two 66s if you choose that route. Sooner or later I expect to add a 1010 to my 44 (the 66 without SPDIF).