Starting up

[Gearheart]

i am such a rookie at recording, its sickening. please bare with me...

i'm trying to get really good quality, the cheapest way possible. I have a really good laptop with Acid Pro 5.0 on it. Should my next step be to get a new soundcard? the one i have in my laptop is pretty bad and i experienced alot of latency when trying to record on my keyboard. i was thinking after the soundcard, i should spring for a preamp. do preamps usually plug right into your usb port? does a soundcard increase quality? or does a powerful preamp take care of that? or is it just the quality of the mic that determines that? should i get condenser mics AND dynamic mics? Any advice is GREALY appreciated.

 

[bennychico11]

my first suggestion would be to just search this site. there have been tons of questions just like yours in the past.

a sound card is also sometimes called an audio interface. The sound card you are familiar with is something that is hooked physically into your computer by means of a PCI card usually. Audio interfaces are hardware boxes that sit outside of your computer where you can plug all your mics and stuff into. The interfaces will also usually have knobs to adjust signal going into the computer.

Most interfaces you will look at will have preamps in the already. There are also standalone preamps that you can buy which a lot of the times can offer better quality than your stock preamps on an interface you buy. Of course, this can get more expensive. If something with microphone connections plugs into your computer directly via USB, firewire or PCI....it is considered a sound card/audio interface. If it doesn't have those connections, it's just a preamp.
A preamp amplifies the signal and a sound card acts as an Analog/Digital/Analog converter.

Everything in your chain determines the quality of recording...starting with your instrument. As far as microphone type....depends on what you're recording really. Condenser usually offer more clarity and capture the nuances better, while dynamics handle louder instruments and more transient material better.