recording and mixing

[jingleheimer]

ok so im new at this, i have my computer and i have a mixer to use. i record with cakewalks guitar tracks 3 and am fairly pleased. so far all i do is mix down all of my stuff on the mixer before recording to the guitar tracks. is there a way i just record each instrument to a seperate track and mixdown on the computer or am i missing something? any imput on this kind of stuff would be great thanks Jingleheimer

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

You need a multi input soundcard, presumably you're using an integrated or cheapo soundcard at the moment? This would only have one stereo input so you're stuck with either mixing everything at once on the fly before going into the comp as you're doing now or just doing overdubs.

I use an M Audio delta 1010LT, this gives me 8 simultaneous analog inputs/outputs + MIDI & SPDIF in/out. I reckon it's the cheapest half decent multi input interface.

 

[puffin]

Make sure your mixer has enough outputs. If you buy an 8 input/output soundcard, you will want the mixer to have enough outputs to go into these inputs on your soundcard. If you are planning on recording drums for example, you will be able to track an 8 piece kit with one track for each drum. This will allow greater flexibility.

Otherwise you'll just have to overdub everything and then mix down the overdubbed tracks on the pc.