Please help a newbie!

  • Thread starter Thread starter justcrash
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justcrash

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I recently decided to get into some light home recording, just so I could have a "scratch pad" to present song ideas to my band. So to that end, I purchased the new Line 6 guitar port (NOW it wont be shipping until Feb 13th. When I ordered it, it was shipping on Jan 26th *grrr*), Cake walk Sonar 1.2, and fruity loops.

That being said, I know NOTHING about using these items. I am pretty good with PCs (what i do for a living actually) but not in a frame of reference for recording. When I say I know nothing, I mean NOTHING.

To make it worse, after reading a lot of posts, this has become intimidating for me. I don't even know what you guys are talking about half the time.

I have an ASUS A7V, Tbird 800, 384 megs of PC133 RAM, geforce 2, Seagate Barricuda 30 gig 7200 RPM hdd partitioned into 3 hdd's and a live sound card. Would I need another sound card? For light recording? If so, since i also play a lot of games, i would need to keep my Live card. How could I run both? Why do people use external mixers? Can't the software do that? :(

So I guess I'm asking if you have any general tips or know of any good sites with extreme beginners info?

Thank you for your time!

Darian S. Kovach (justcrash)
 
well, for starters, since you work with puters and obviously know about them, i personally would suggest building a machine deticated to recording, a.k.a. a DAW machine. but if that's not in your budget i definitely can understand. you might need to get a new sound card geared more towards recording, but i wouldn't advise using it to play your games with. one major reason to use external mixers is if your going to mic anything(amp/vocals), you need a preamp of some sort. aside from that, the best advice i can give you is just get to know your equipment. read the manuals, and above all EXPERIMENT.
 
Good advice. It isn't in the budget right now. Maybe in the future? Do you know of an inexpensive decent mixer? Nothing fancy.
 
For 'scratchpad' recording a SoundBlaster Live card is fine, you should get pretty decent results. If you want to release a demo CD for public consumption, the SB Live can do it, but not that well, the sound might seem a little "tubby" and the high end isn't that great. The good news is that there are a lot of affordable semi-pro cards, like the M-Audio Delta line, that sound good and will work perfectly alongside the SB-Live, and you can still use the SB-Live as a sampler and for gaming.

People still use mixers for a couple of reasons:

1/They are the cheapest way to get several mic preamps. If you want to get anything that even vaguely resembles a decent sound DON'T plug your mics into the mic inputs of your soundcard, they are HORRIBLE, you need to get a real Mic Preamp and go into the soundcard's LINE input.

2/For headphone mixes and additional routing of external effects.

3/Some people mix on an external mixer because they like the feel of real faders and knobs and the ability to use high quality rack mount effects etc.
 
vox said:
For 'scratchpad' recording a SoundBlaster Live card is fine, you should get pretty decent results. If you want to release a demo CD for public consumption, the SB Live can do it, but not that well, the sound might seem a little "tubby" and the high end isn't that great. The good news is that there are a lot of affordable semi-pro cards, like the M-Audio Delta line, that sound good and will work perfectly alongside the SB-Live, and you can still use the SB-Live as a sampler and for gaming.

People still use mixers for a couple of reasons:

1/They are the cheapest way to get several mic preamps. If you want to get anything that even vaguely resembles a decent sound DON'T plug your mics into the mic inputs of your soundcard, they are HORRIBLE, you need to get a real Mic Preamp and go into the soundcard's LINE input.

2/For headphone mixes and additional routing of external effects.

3/Some people mix on an external mixer because they like the feel of real faders and knobs and the ability to use high quality rack mount effects etc.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the info, kind sir. Can you suggest an inexpensive, decent mixer?
 
To answer your question

If you want a dirt cheap mixer just for scratchpad use and you are willing to live with the 'you get what you pay for' condition, you can get a few different Behringer models for less than $100.
The upside is that Behringer, packs a whole shi*load of features into their mixers for an unbelievable price. The downsides are their sound is great for demo stuff, but only barely ok for semipro stuff and they seem to have reliability issues so make sure you have warranty/return options.

The best price to performance/quality balance is probably held by Mackie and Soundcraft, either of which will give you almost pro results.


Before you decide ON a mixer you need to decide IF you need a mixer. If you only plan to record one thing at a time (no multi miced acoustic drums, etc) then you can get by with a stand alone mono or stereo mic preamp. The ART pres are good, M-Audio also makes a couple of good products.

Stand alone mic pres range in price and quality from less than $100 up to several $k.

Good Luck :D

P.S. If you use the search function you will find a ton of good advice.
 
If you're really that unsure of the direction your heading with this, don't spend anymore money on anything yet. You can record to your computer with the equipment you've got. Right out of the POD into your sound card.

Spend some time experimenting with what you've got. Hang out here alot. Read read read alot.

Soon your path will reveal itself to you grasshopper.


Twist
 
Thanks again! I plan on going into my line 6 thingee for guitar, direct for Bass, so I just need something for my vox. I appreciate all of the help. Is there a mackie model I should look at?
 
twist said:
If you're really that unsure of the direction your heading with this, don't spend anymore money on anything yet. You can record to your computer with the equipment you've got. Right out of the POD into your sound card.

Spend some time experimenting with what you've got. Hang out here alot. Read read read alot.

Soon your path will reveal itself to you grasshopper.


Twist
Click to expand...

Thank you! :)
 
All the VLZ and VLZ Pro, XDR models are good, the CFX line doesn't sound quite as good and is really meant for live use. So basically which model you choose is really dependent on what features and how many mic preamps you need.

If you look at Soundcraft, the new 'M' series is supposed to have pro quality preamps.
 
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