Recording: Newbie Style

[birdland]

hey everyone, so basically I know absolutely nothing about recording, but I've recently acquired some equiptment. Specifically, here's what I'm working with an alesis mixer and an sm57 mic and Cubase LE.

here's how I initially set things up, mostly because it seemed fairly logical this way. And I got no results, so I obviously didn't do something right:

Mic plugged into mixer which was plugged into the pc via USB.

feel free to inform me of any missing components or suggestions.

ps-does anyone know of an online guide or something where I can go to firgure out how to work this Cubase program?

Thanks!

 

[peritus]

Expand upon the "no results" part please...

 

[TimOBrien]

My obligatory standard reply that I keep in Wordpad:

Immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07...ce&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Good Newbie guide that also explains all the basics:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

Other recording books:
http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html


Plenty of software around to record for free to start out on:

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com

 

[birdland]

Expand upon the "no results" part please...

basically, there are no signs of any sound coming into the computer. no extraneous mic noises and no sound coming through from the mic (I'm not too familiar with all the lingo as you can probably see)

 

[BlackoutRick]

I think you need some kind of interface. Something to convert an analog signal to digital.

 

[scrubs]

The help menu in cubase should contain both a "getting started" guide and the full software manual. It's probably a driver/routing problem where cubase isn't recognizing your USB mixer and/or you don't have the mixer inputs routed to the correct channels in the software. Go to the cubase "Devices" menu and select "Device Setup." Make sure your mixer is the selected device for recording. Then, go to "VST Inputs," also in the Devices menu and make sure the inputs from your mixer are active. Then, on the cubase software mixer, make sure the correct inputs are routed to the channels to which you are recording. Then, on the software recording channel, click the record activate button (with the black dot) and the monitor button (the speaker icon). Play your instrument. You should see signal. Hit record and you're good to go.

 

[whjr15]

i have an alesis multimix 16 usb, and the one thing that is usually the cause of "no results" when trying to record is:

go to start > control panel > sounds, speech, and audio devices >

then click on the "audio" tab.

see what you have selected under "sound recording." if its your computer soundcard, it wont pick up the mixer if you have it connected via usb...

change it so that it says "USB audio CODEC."

if "USB audio CODEC" was already selected, then you will have to go into the recording program and change some settings.... very simple fix, (as long as this is the ONLY problem haha) but it can be pretty tricky to figure out the first time using it...

i have only used cubase once or twice, so i have no idea how to do that...IF thats the problem...sorry

hope this helped, considering im a newbie myself!