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Slash1337

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Okay, so I'm 19 years old and im a guitar player, I've been playing for 5 years. Anyways, I want to start a mini home recording studio. I mean, I dont want shit gear and I don't want top of the line either right now. I just recently bought a computer built specifically for this purpose. (ie. No internet, no word processor, no anti virus, no firewall, only itunes and some other small stuff. I got 1 terabyte of hard drive too. Now my question what else do I need exactly? I mean I know I need a mixer and a interface but how do I go about finding the right one plus price wise...? Alot of this stuff is just greek to me right now. I mean, do I need an interface when I have a mixer or do I need to the interface and NOT the mixer? I know I need mics, and monitors. So here are some of my questions.

1. Do i remove my computer speakers and replace them with the monitors?
2. Do I need BOTH a mixer and a interface going into the computer?
3. Should I buy SM57 mics to start?
4. Cakewalk, Cubase, or Pro Tools? What's the difference?

Also, this will be for a whole band Guitar, vocals, drums, and bass.

Thanks, you guys probably get this all the time... sorry!
 
Slash1337 said:
Okay, so I'm 19 years old and im a guitar player, I've been playing for 5 years. Anyways, I want to start a mini home recording studio. I mean, I dont want shit gear and I don't want top of the line either right now. I just recently bought a computer built specifically for this purpose. (ie. No internet, no word processor, no anti virus, no firewall, only itunes and some other small stuff. I got 1 terabyte of hard drive too. Now my question what else do I need exactly? I mean I know I need a mixer and a interface but how do I go about finding the right one plus price wise...? Alot of this stuff is just greek to me right now. I mean, do I need an interface when I have a mixer or do I need to the interface and NOT the mixer? I know I need mics, and monitors. So here are some of my questions.

1. Do i remove my computer speakers and replace them with the monitors?
2. Do I need BOTH a mixer and a interface going into the computer?
3. Should I buy SM57 mics to start?
4. Cakewalk, Cubase, or Pro Tools? What's the difference?

Also, this will be for a whole band Guitar, vocals, drums, and bass.

Thanks, you guys probably get this all the time... sorry!
Click to expand...

The first question you need to ask of yourself is "how many tracks am I likely to want to record at once?"

If you are going to be recording just one or two tracks at a time, then you can start off with a simple, reasonably cheap, two channel interface. Look at Tascam, Edirol, Lambda and similar. All of these provide for a variety of uses, e.g. mike inputs, line inputs and midi. An interface like this takes the place of your computer's sound card, and takes the place of a mixer.

If you want to record more than two tracks, then it gets more complicated and more expensive. You can do simultaneous multitracking by getting, say, a firewire interface with eight inputs (e.g. Presonus Firestudio or similar). Again, you don't need a mixer.

Another option is to go for a mixer with built in USB. This means the mixer acts as a mixer and an interface. However, even though the mixer may have quite a few channels, unless you get something like the (expensive) Allen & Heath Zed R16, you will only be able to record these channels mixed doqwn to two outputs (e.g. left and right).

Your monitors (I'm assuming powered) connect to the interface or the USB mixer. You can throw out your PC speakers.

SM57s are good general purpose mikes, and will come in handy even when you get other (and better) mikes later on.

There are differences in recording software, but they all do basically the same stuff. Some interfaces come bundled with software (e.g. Tascam includes Cubase LE). You might as well start off with what you can get free.
 
another thing you will want to take into account is the fact that your recording drums and the way i see it you have two choices...

like gecko said you have to decide now how many tracks you want to record at once, the only problem with getting an interface with only two inputs (left and right) is that you can only record two tracks at the most at once. this is a very big problem with tracking drums unless you plan on either
A). recording one to two drums at a time until you have all of your drums recorded or...
B). getting an electronic/midi drumset which then allows you to record each drum all at once as you play.

a way to get around this is to get a mixer but even then you would have to do all of your processing before your mixer "mixes" all of your tracks down to two tracks (left and right) and that seems easy enough but remember this, once all of your drums are mixed down to those two tracks you can never unmix them to tweak your drums(say you want to eq your snare or kick drum a little differently).

so in your case i would look at getting a higher end interface and just forgetting about the mixer.

it would also help to know exactly how big your budget is so that way we can point you in the right direction (interface wise)

this is only my opinion...

hope ive been at least a little bit of help
 
i'm a drummer so i've had to deal with this question myself. i can say that it depends on the style of drumming you're going to be recording.
if you're like a folk, classic, light rock type thing than you can get away with one or two mics. but if you're doing intricate metal drumming with a lot going on at once then you will more likely than not HAVE to get a mixer or jus an interface with more than one input. but a mixer at this point would be cheaper.

you can get an alesis muti mix usb 2.0 for around 150 bucks. I believe its currently one of the only USB mixer/interfaces on the market (at its price range) that unloads all the tracks individually into your DAW. which alows you to mix each part of the kit better.

another thing to think about is how many mics you'll need.

get back to us with that kina info :)
 
Well for an interface. I'll probably want 8 inputs then. We're gona be doin hard rock, blues, funk, basically me and teh drummer will be doing alt of different projects. But as a drummer, he does do alot while playing, and he has has a 5 peice with about 5 or 6 cymbals, maybe 7 or 8 cymbals.. I dont really know how many cymbals he really has.

For an interface, I'll prolly be looking at around 500-700 bucks, with an included software as gecko recommended.

I dunno what to get for monitors, I don't really know any good brands, but maybe spend 200-300 on monitors?


And for mics one sm57 for me, one for bass, and what 3-4 for drums? maybe 5 for drums?
 
as far as monitors for a beginner goes i would say the best beginners model would be the yamaha HS50 but they're 400 a pair

all the cymbals can be captured through spill over and overheads/rooms.

i suggest an SM57 on snare, a beta on bass, and a couple condensers on toms and TWO overheads. you don't need to mic every singe drum. at least not yet
 
Alright, so after searching around on ZZsounds and Musiciansfriend for some stuff here's what I cam up with...

Interface:
http://www.zzounds.com/a--2676837/item--MDOPF2626
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.co...io-26x26-Firewire-Recording-System?sku=241848

Monitors:
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.co...MHS10W-2.1-Powered-Monitor-Package?sku=601435
OR if I can save alittle more:
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.co...MHS10W-2.1-Powered-Monitor-Package?sku=601436

What do you guys think?
And so for starting, what do you think? ! Sm57 on guitar, one sm57 on bass? What about vocals? and what are the models and brand you would recommend for maybe 4 or 5 mics for drums or something? Like actual models. For mics right now, I dont want super amazing, just ones that are for now standard and good.
 
When you say a 57 for bass, are you talking about bass guitar or bass drum? I wouldn't bother mic'ing the bass guitar amp. Just DI it (run it straight to your interface).
 
Not that I've got any suggestions, but what OS are you running and do you have firewire on your machine?
 
I do indeed have firewire ports. And by OS do you mean what version of Windows I'm running?

I got it built with Xp as I was told by many many people Vista won't let some Software run.
 
If you want to save some money, pick up some GLS ES-57's. Great mics for really cheap. You can use them for snare, elec. guitar, toms...I have 2 of them and can tell very little difference between those and my SM57.

http://www.speakerrepair.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=genem&Category_Code=microphones

You should be able to get a very good drum sound by mic'ing the snare, kick, & two overheads. That leaves you with 4 other inputs on you interface for guitar, bass, vox, & backing vox.


Also, either one of the interfaces that you mentioned would be good. Just make sure that you have firewire on you computer. And it seems that T.I. (Texas Instruments) chipsets are preferred.

I know that it all seems overwhelming at first, but do your research and spend your money wisely. AND HAVE FUN....:D
 
the chipset of your firewire card. If you already have firewire in your computer, then I would try it first.

but you can check by going to:

Start>Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>...you should then see 1394 or Firewire or something like that. It should tell you there what chipset you have. I'm at my work computer (w/o firewire) so I can't remember exactly what it says. OHCI compliant, or TI, or Ricoh...at least I think I remember that right.:rolleyes:
 
Okay so this is what I found on the computer doing what you told me.

IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controller then I opened it and it then said:
OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
 
No. I'm talking about firewire. Does your computer have built-in firewire (like on a laptop) or do you have an add-on card?
 
It's probably not Texas Instrument, but that doesn't mean that it won't work. Definitely try it before you spend money on a firewire card.

Also, you might want to consider two hard drives. One for your DAW & other programs and the other to record your tracks onto.

And you also need to budget in cables & stands. Those can add up pretty quickly.
 
My sound card is Xonar not texas instruments. But I have a firewrire port on the back of my computer that is OHCI Compliant.
 
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