Spoon feed me some musical wisdom

  • Thread starter Thread starter dubiousalibi
  • Start date Start date
D

dubiousalibi

New member
Hey guys,

I've been writing and singing songs for quite a while now and it's about time I started to record them for posterity.

What do I want:

A basic clean recording that's easy on the ears and encapsulates the essence of the song. I'm not looking for broadcast quality, merely a high quality demo that I can play with and craft.

Here's what I have:

Powerbook G4 500Mhz (OSX 10.3)
512MB RAM
Extrenal Firewire Drive (80Gb)
Maton Electric-Acoustic (EM-325C)

Here's what I presume I need:

A condenser mic
Some software to manage and mix the tracks
An interface to get my guitar and voice into the Mac
A keyboard to add some background body to the song

Here's what I also presume:

a) that I can program drum/rhythm tracks through the software.
b) that I will be able to somehow record the guitar and vocal track at the same time.
c) that the software will have a substantial amount of effects that can be added to the recording

Questions:

1) Have I forgotten anything major or significant in my 'what I need list'?

2) Will my PowerBook be sufficent to produce this?

3) Will £700 cover me?

4) Can anyone recommend the products to look at?


I'm quite a novice when it comes to recording, however, I'll pick it up quite quickly if I'm pointed in the right direction. I recently visited a music store with this quandry and he suggested a) Rode NT-1 b) Logic Audio (boxed package of 3) c) Tascam US-122 d) a dummy USB keyboard (sounds come from the Logic package). He didn't fill me with confidence, however is he on the right track? Other's have suggetsed that I look at the Digidesign M-Box instead.

There look to be so so many options, technical hitches, differing standards and pitfalls out there in the home recording world that it just looks to daunting to enter. I feel like an old lady trying to connect to the internet for the first time without a computer, just no idea!Confused? Advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
I'm not playing on Mac field nor familiar... :) Anyway, you also need Phantom powered mic preamp to work with condenser mic... :)

;)
Jaymz
 
dubiousalibi said:

Questions:

1) Have I forgotten anything major or significant in my 'what I need list'?

2) Will my PowerBook be sufficent to produce this?

3) Will £700 cover me?

4) Can anyone recommend the products to look at?


I'm quite a novice when it comes to recording, however, I'll pick it up quite quickly if I'm pointed in the right direction. I recently visited a music store with this quandry and he suggested a) Rode NT-1 b) Logic Audio (boxed package of 3) c) Tascam US-122 d) a dummy USB keyboard (sounds come from the Logic package). He didn't fill me with confidence, however is he on the right track? Other's have suggetsed that I look at the Digidesign M-Box instead.

There look to be so so many options, technical hitches, differing standards and pitfalls out there in the home recording world that it just looks to daunting to enter. I feel like an old lady trying to connect to the internet for the first time without a computer, just no idea!Confused? Advice would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

You're closer to being on the right track than most people on their first post!

1) You will need a USB interface with phantom power as Jaymes said, some do have it. You will want some good nearfield monitors, too and some decent headphones for tracking.
2) The Powerbook should be great for this, just research the software, make sure what you get works great for Mac. Not as many people use mac for audio around here, so the pitfalls I would not know.
3) Probably not.
4) Look around this site man . Every question you can think of has probably already been asked many times over, and answered a hundred different ways. The search function is a great tool, use it.

I'd check this out, though it doesn't have midi.
Edirol has some cool looking stuff, but I've never heard any of it.
 
Excellent feedback guys. At least I feel I'm asking the right questions.

Do I need a MIDI interface also if I want to get a keyboard?
 
If you plan on using MIDI - you will need a MIDI interface of some sort. You may have one on your computer but I know nothing of Macs
 
if you use usb for the keyboard you won't need another midi interface unless you are doing more complicated stuff. ive got one called the oxygen 8 which fits my needs fine.

for the audio in and out you could go with usb or firewire. if you've got the extra cash i would say go with the firewire. i just got a m-audio firewire 410 which has midi in and out (i dont use these)
also it has two preamps built in with phantom power. it is powered by the firewire port so theoretically you could record in the middle of a field if you wanted to. i suppose the quality of the preamps is debatable, but they sound fine to me. you'll probably need some monitors as well.

47ronin
 
dubiousalibi, welcome to our home here ar HR.COM.... ;)

spin
 
Re: Re: Spoon feed me some musical wisdom

maestro_dmc said:
You're closer to being on the right track than most people on their first post!........
Click to expand...

I TOTALLY agree with you, maestro_dmc
 
dubiousalibi said:
........
Questions:

1) Have I forgotten anything major or significant in my 'what I need list'?

2) Will my PowerBook be sufficent to produce this?

3) Will £700 cover me?

4) Can anyone recommend the products to look at?......
Click to expand...

1- In an ideal setup you would need to add some monitors to your list.

2- Yes, it should be adequate to get you started.

3- I doubt that 700 will cover the cost.

4 - Most of us here at HR.COM are PC based. However, you should look at the MOTU 2408 MK III as an interface. But..... it lists at $1,000.00 USD

So that would already put you over budget. :(

spin
 
You may want to note also, that Spin is showing you how to get a really high post count, too!:D
 
hahahaha. Intriguing thought ;)

Thanks for the help guys!

(dubiousalibi says as he adds another post count to himself).
 
maestro_dmc said:
You may want to note also, that Spin is showing you how to get a really high post count, too!:D
Click to expand...

Who MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE???????????????

:eek: :D :cool: ;)

spin
 
The best recording advice I can give anyone is that if you decide to use tape as your recording medium don't ever rush when you are splicing, and don't ever... ever... ever...
run with scissors.:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top