soundcard and equipment advice for a newbie--thanks in advance!

[clazymike]

Hi everyone--

I'm pretty new to this and I was hoping someone would be able to give me some helpful pointers or advice about some things.

I'm just a college kid who wants to record his band and vocal group and make some semi-professional sounding recordings with it. I have an extremely small budget, so let me explain my questions.

Right now, I am currently recording through an 8 channel mixer into a Soundblaster Live! Value on a PIII-800 Mhz system with Cakewalk PA 9 as my sequencer. Now, I'm using all bargain basement stuff when it comes to my mics, mixer and soundcard--but I've been pleasantly surprised when it comes to the sound quality. With a little reading and research, I've learned how to compensate the shortcomings of my equipment with recording techniques and post-production.

Now, I plan to have about $400-500 to squelch on recording stuff soon and I was wondering how I should appropriate that. I was thinking of using it all on a soundcard, perhaps an Echo Mia or Gina 24. Unfortunately I'm not knowledgable enough with recording soundcards to make a purchase.

I understand this is kind of a vague question, but does anyone have any suggestions on what I should think about purchasing? Again, I'm interested in recording mainly a band and a vocal group. I'll list the equipment I currently use below, and perhaps somebody could tell me what is worth upgrading for $400-500. Thanks.

Basically I use:
Samson S-11 mics
Behringer Eurorack 802
Soundblaster Live!

on a:
P3-800
128 MB RAM
35 GB 7200 RPM EIDE HD

clazymike

 

[j]

if you are going to record two tracks, then there are a lot of soundcard options....however, if you are using an 8 channel mixer , a pc with the right multi-interface setup would allow you to record all tracks individually.

the audiophile card from M-AUDIO appears to be a nice card...i'm using their DELTA 66.

 

[clazymike]

do you think you can expound on that multi-interface setup at all? thanks.

 

[j]

many soundcards come with more than 2 inputs for multitracking....if you have a mixer with 8 channels and a direct out for each channel you can use a card with an 8 channel interface and record each track separately....i doubt the Behringer has direct outs, though.

of course, there is nothing wrong with just recording it all to two tracks.....you'll definitely save money on the sound card.

aardvark has a new product for multitracking straight to PC....it has preamps on the breakout box....
www.aardvark-pro.com/direct_pro_q10.html

of course this is going to be expensive and isn't shipping yet...but it looks pretty cool..

the main thing is to decide if you even want to try to multitrack on the PC.....a lot of people are doing it by overdubbing tracks , but of course this isn't a solution if you are recording everything live.