TOTAL noob to recording, need some advice...

[yams]

Im a bedroom musician who wants to start recording things digitally. The only instruments that would need to be recorded are an acoustic guitar and vocals... through a bit of research I figured Ill need a mic, a mic pre amp, and a USB interface to connect to my computer, and a program (probably gonna go with Cubase)

this is what I picked out. What im asking is, is this all I need to get started? any other special cords or things I need?

 

[Freudian Slip]

Im a bedroom musician who wants to start recording things digitally. The only instruments that would need to be recorded are an acoustic guitar and vocals... through a bit of research I figured Ill need a mic, a mic pre amp, and a USB interface to connect to my computer, and a program (probably gonna go with Cubase)

this is what I picked out. What im asking is, is this all I need to get started? any other special cords or things I need?

Other than cables and stands, that would get you started. Many interfaces come with pre-amps. You would likely want to get a condensor mic to do the job so the unit would need to have "phantom power".

If you want to record vocals and guitar at the same time you would have to expand and most would still recommend recording them seperatly even if you had multiple mic's, etc.


F.S.

 

[rayc]

What Frood said!

 

[TimOBrien]

My obligatory standard reply that I keep in Wordpad:

First off, 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:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $15
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07...ce&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance
(Wish I'd had that when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/computermusic?entry=free_beginner_pdfs

21 Ways To Assemble a Recording Rig:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

Also Good Info:
http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.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

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
(It's $40 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($20) and Harmony Assistant ($80) have the power of $600 notation packages - http://myriad-online.com
Demo you can try on the website.

And you can go out to any Barnes&Noble or Borders and pick up "Computer Music" magazine - they have a full studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (November 2006 they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150, November 2007-on the racks Dec in the US- they're giving away SamplitudeV9SE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)