P
packratlouie
Member
hey guys im 17, i have anywhere between about 800 up front to 1500 long term CANADIAN dollars to spend on some recording equiptment right now. I have a small room which i am turning into an isolation room for recording, it can be anywhere from about 60 -200 square feet if needed.
I plan on recording these following instruments, not at the same, but simply layering tracks over each other to build a final compilation.
-Electric Guitar
-Acoustic
-Bass Guitar
-Full Drum kit
-Possibly midi-keyboard
I am fully capable of recording these all myself, so I am thinking that excluding the drums, I will only be recording 1 track at any given time. I had thought of the idea of somehow taking each mic and giving it a seperate channel In CoolEdit 2, so that if needed I could eq each piece seprately, but then i realized this is not quite possible.
I was looking at getting a mixing board, probably at least 6 XLR inputs, but I havent decided what would be the best for output. Do I want to use High Quality Rca's for my output? Do i want to use a 1/4" output? Do i want a balanced XLR output? These are the questions which often hinder my decisions on which equiptment to buy. I do not know whether or not I want a compresser becuase I do not know where I would use it as MIC>Board>Compresser>Computer... or Mic>Board>Computer>Compresser>Computer. As you can see I am quite uneducated as to what means these units are capable of. I am using cool edit 2 which seems to have a fair amount of compresser plugins, but I find them to be very tedious and my knowledge of terms such as "low noise floor" at this point, is very limited. I figured that the best way for me to learn my terms is to mess around with physical products, such as a hardware compresser. For my soundcard, I simply want something that will not distort my sound, and keep it at the highest bitrate possible. I have seen alot of talk about the audiophile card, and it seems to be a standard in home recording, but once again, my question is whether or not I want a balanced signal into my soundcard or not? Now I was thinking that when I am mixing my audio, a time would come where of course, I am going to have to physically listen to every track, and analyze how they sound in conjuction with others. I am in no way prepared to use my 100.00 computer speakers for this, i know they will not do.
So then I realized why someone obviously reccomended me using studio monitors. I dont exactly know how this would work, and what type of preamp I need and such. Would i plug the monitors into an output on the mixing board? Or would I plug them into an output on the audiophile card so I can preview the digital signal rather than the analog signal from the board?
Also for a headphone amp, I dont understand how if i wanted to have more than 1 set of headphones at once, why this would be necessary? What kind connection is made between the mixer and the headphone amp which makes this unit so vital? Does it even plug into the mixing board, or into the computer? My lack of knowledge has caused me to bounce around from opinion to opinion, leaving me in a blur of choices to be made. My overall goal is to be able to record a drum track, and then layer each instrument overtop of it until it is completed, and if necessary, re-record the drum track to fix any minor errors. I am not looking for the best quality, of course I expect no hissing, and no crackling since I will be recording everything In an isolation room I have built. I also wanty to be able to achive that "studio presense sound." I have noticed using reverb on most every track makes its more life like. Another question I have is whehter or not the newest version of cool edit is going to suffice for my means. I have heard alot of great thing about cool edit, and it seems to look like it is what I need. Overall, i would probably not purchase more than a couple dynamic mics, since I can rent high quality ones at a very low cost, unless someone else has a better idea for me. This would be my plan for products to purchase
-Mixing board (minimum 6 xlr inputs)
- Hardware Compresser (how mny input/outputs are nescessary for a drum kit? is it necessary for drum kit? is software better for this?)
- High quality sound card (which does not limit my options in the future ie. quality limitations, dB limitations)
- A sec of nice dynamic mic's, plyable to either mic'ing parts of a drum kit, or micing an acoustic guitar. (i can rent other high quality mics at low cost at any time)
- Monitor(s) if necessary (i would probaly invest in used ones)
- Monitor pre-amp, if necessary (is there any way around having to purchase a preamp for these? Is there a way around purchasing monitors, and still having accurate output of the audio you are mixing?)
This is a whole wack of information guys, and for all of you troopers who have actually read this, and plan on giving a reply, I thank you alot, becuase although I have read alot of information on this forum, I believe experience comes with time. I have only been in the market to do this for about a month, and if anyone has an suggestions on books, cd roms or dvds to invest in, or if they can offer me some type of e-mail support to a fellow in dire need of suggestions, I would be more than excited. Thanks alot guys... no really, thanks a million.
I plan on recording these following instruments, not at the same, but simply layering tracks over each other to build a final compilation.
-Electric Guitar
-Acoustic
-Bass Guitar
-Full Drum kit
-Possibly midi-keyboard
I am fully capable of recording these all myself, so I am thinking that excluding the drums, I will only be recording 1 track at any given time. I had thought of the idea of somehow taking each mic and giving it a seperate channel In CoolEdit 2, so that if needed I could eq each piece seprately, but then i realized this is not quite possible.
I was looking at getting a mixing board, probably at least 6 XLR inputs, but I havent decided what would be the best for output. Do I want to use High Quality Rca's for my output? Do i want to use a 1/4" output? Do i want a balanced XLR output? These are the questions which often hinder my decisions on which equiptment to buy. I do not know whether or not I want a compresser becuase I do not know where I would use it as MIC>Board>Compresser>Computer... or Mic>Board>Computer>Compresser>Computer. As you can see I am quite uneducated as to what means these units are capable of. I am using cool edit 2 which seems to have a fair amount of compresser plugins, but I find them to be very tedious and my knowledge of terms such as "low noise floor" at this point, is very limited. I figured that the best way for me to learn my terms is to mess around with physical products, such as a hardware compresser. For my soundcard, I simply want something that will not distort my sound, and keep it at the highest bitrate possible. I have seen alot of talk about the audiophile card, and it seems to be a standard in home recording, but once again, my question is whether or not I want a balanced signal into my soundcard or not? Now I was thinking that when I am mixing my audio, a time would come where of course, I am going to have to physically listen to every track, and analyze how they sound in conjuction with others. I am in no way prepared to use my 100.00 computer speakers for this, i know they will not do.
So then I realized why someone obviously reccomended me using studio monitors. I dont exactly know how this would work, and what type of preamp I need and such. Would i plug the monitors into an output on the mixing board? Or would I plug them into an output on the audiophile card so I can preview the digital signal rather than the analog signal from the board?
Also for a headphone amp, I dont understand how if i wanted to have more than 1 set of headphones at once, why this would be necessary? What kind connection is made between the mixer and the headphone amp which makes this unit so vital? Does it even plug into the mixing board, or into the computer? My lack of knowledge has caused me to bounce around from opinion to opinion, leaving me in a blur of choices to be made. My overall goal is to be able to record a drum track, and then layer each instrument overtop of it until it is completed, and if necessary, re-record the drum track to fix any minor errors. I am not looking for the best quality, of course I expect no hissing, and no crackling since I will be recording everything In an isolation room I have built. I also wanty to be able to achive that "studio presense sound." I have noticed using reverb on most every track makes its more life like. Another question I have is whehter or not the newest version of cool edit is going to suffice for my means. I have heard alot of great thing about cool edit, and it seems to look like it is what I need. Overall, i would probably not purchase more than a couple dynamic mics, since I can rent high quality ones at a very low cost, unless someone else has a better idea for me. This would be my plan for products to purchase
-Mixing board (minimum 6 xlr inputs)
- Hardware Compresser (how mny input/outputs are nescessary for a drum kit? is it necessary for drum kit? is software better for this?)
- High quality sound card (which does not limit my options in the future ie. quality limitations, dB limitations)
- A sec of nice dynamic mic's, plyable to either mic'ing parts of a drum kit, or micing an acoustic guitar. (i can rent other high quality mics at low cost at any time)
- Monitor(s) if necessary (i would probaly invest in used ones)
- Monitor pre-amp, if necessary (is there any way around having to purchase a preamp for these? Is there a way around purchasing monitors, and still having accurate output of the audio you are mixing?)
This is a whole wack of information guys, and for all of you troopers who have actually read this, and plan on giving a reply, I thank you alot, becuase although I have read alot of information on this forum, I believe experience comes with time. I have only been in the market to do this for about a month, and if anyone has an suggestions on books, cd roms or dvds to invest in, or if they can offer me some type of e-mail support to a fellow in dire need of suggestions, I would be more than excited. Thanks alot guys... no really, thanks a million.
