R
Rob Line
New member
This seems like a fine board with knowledgable and patient people. Great resource, it's exciting to see what you can do in your own home!
I'm a movie critic at DVD Verdict (http://www.dvdverdict.com/dossiers/rlineberger.php). I'd like to record audio commentary tracks to be played alongside DVDs.
Here's what I'm working with:
Recording:
Shure SM58
Eurorack Model MX602A 6-channel Mic/Line Mixer
A computer (more on that in a moment)
Grado SR-60 headphones
Playback:
I don't have studio monitors or anything, but I do have a home theater setup (http://www.usacroquet.com/rob/dragonstar/equip.html)
So, here's the deal. I'm interested in voice only, and mainly one voice most of the time. But I'd like to have the ability to record two guest commentators, one in the left channel and one in the right channel for spatial distinctiveness, and a third commentator (me) as a moderator who might be more centered between the two channels.
I want to use the computer because once the sound is in there, I can tweak, add sound effects if nesessary, and convert it to MP3 for internet distribution.
Questions:
1) How do I record three people and have each voice distinct and sounding good? (yes, I know I'll need more mics
) The Eurorack has two of the three-pin microphone jacks (mic 1 and mic 2) so where does the third microphone go?
2) Can a computer handle 2-3 hours of solid recording without stuttering, crashing, etc? The DVD will be playing the whole time people are talking, and i can't pause the recording to "switch tapes" as it were. I'm no math whiz, but it seems like 2 hours of recording three mics adds up to a buttload of megabytes. Will an 80GB hardrive be enough to fit that onto? Will I have to break the recording session up into smaller chunks to make it manageable?
3) Will my open air Grado cans wreak havoc for playback/monitoring purposes? I have a cheap, cheap, cheap set of Rat Shack closed headphones, but they weigh about 2 ounces and feel like plastic on your head.
4) And now the big question: sound cards. I have about 5 different computers available to me. One is an old HP pavilion with their crummy integrated soundcard, and an added on Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card that does optical digital out. That gives me two midi inputs if I'm not mistaken. But that PC is loud. My HTPC is nearly dead silent, but it has a soyo dragon plus MB with integrated 5.1 sound and a PCI card with optical/RCA out. I have a Dell Poweredge 400SC server which is absolutely dead silent, but no real soundcard to speak of. Finally, two laptops.
My plan right now is to use the Dell Poweredge 400SC because it has superquiet fans, and a P4 2.8 Ghz processor with 512 MB of ECC ram. This sounds like a good basic setup to add on 1 or more soundcards. I doubt I'll ever record more than three mics at once, so use that to guide any recommendations.
Because of legal issues, I can't actually include the DVD soundtrack, nor can I package the recording with the movie. In other words, I'm doing the same thing everyone else here is doing: recording sound for CD distribution.
Thanks for your time, hope I've given enough info for you to make sense of.
I'm a movie critic at DVD Verdict (http://www.dvdverdict.com/dossiers/rlineberger.php). I'd like to record audio commentary tracks to be played alongside DVDs.
Here's what I'm working with:
Recording:
Shure SM58
Eurorack Model MX602A 6-channel Mic/Line Mixer
A computer (more on that in a moment)
Grado SR-60 headphones
Playback:
I don't have studio monitors or anything, but I do have a home theater setup (http://www.usacroquet.com/rob/dragonstar/equip.html)
So, here's the deal. I'm interested in voice only, and mainly one voice most of the time. But I'd like to have the ability to record two guest commentators, one in the left channel and one in the right channel for spatial distinctiveness, and a third commentator (me) as a moderator who might be more centered between the two channels.
I want to use the computer because once the sound is in there, I can tweak, add sound effects if nesessary, and convert it to MP3 for internet distribution.
Questions:
1) How do I record three people and have each voice distinct and sounding good? (yes, I know I'll need more mics
) The Eurorack has two of the three-pin microphone jacks (mic 1 and mic 2) so where does the third microphone go?2) Can a computer handle 2-3 hours of solid recording without stuttering, crashing, etc? The DVD will be playing the whole time people are talking, and i can't pause the recording to "switch tapes" as it were. I'm no math whiz, but it seems like 2 hours of recording three mics adds up to a buttload of megabytes. Will an 80GB hardrive be enough to fit that onto? Will I have to break the recording session up into smaller chunks to make it manageable?
3) Will my open air Grado cans wreak havoc for playback/monitoring purposes? I have a cheap, cheap, cheap set of Rat Shack closed headphones, but they weigh about 2 ounces and feel like plastic on your head.
4) And now the big question: sound cards. I have about 5 different computers available to me. One is an old HP pavilion with their crummy integrated soundcard, and an added on Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card that does optical digital out. That gives me two midi inputs if I'm not mistaken. But that PC is loud. My HTPC is nearly dead silent, but it has a soyo dragon plus MB with integrated 5.1 sound and a PCI card with optical/RCA out. I have a Dell Poweredge 400SC server which is absolutely dead silent, but no real soundcard to speak of. Finally, two laptops.
My plan right now is to use the Dell Poweredge 400SC because it has superquiet fans, and a P4 2.8 Ghz processor with 512 MB of ECC ram. This sounds like a good basic setup to add on 1 or more soundcards. I doubt I'll ever record more than three mics at once, so use that to guide any recommendations.
Because of legal issues, I can't actually include the DVD soundtrack, nor can I package the recording with the movie. In other words, I'm doing the same thing everyone else here is doing: recording sound for CD distribution.
Thanks for your time, hope I've given enough info for you to make sense of.