What do I need to do the following:

[jeaston]

I want to get a PC system that will do the following: 1)record to hard disk from microphones (acoustic jazz band, no more than 4 simultaneous analog inputs needed, and I will never be using MIDI), 2)avoid getting a mixer or preamps if possible--is the Aardvark soundcard that comes with built-in preamps able to handle high quality mikes? 3)save recordings on CDR disks, 4)record from LP's, cassettes and CD's onto hard disk for editing and mixing back onto CDR's. My question is: what PC system is best (IDE vs SCSI, etc), what soundcard would accomodate these needs, any other suggestions. Thank you.

 

[cwillu]

Hi

Yes, the aardvark (I'm assuming you mean the Direct Pro) works with real microphones (it has phantom power as well), so it could work in this situation. I don't think there are any other soundcards that have four preamps built-in, so if you go another route, you'd need to buy a mixer or preamps.

It shouldn't really make a difference whether you go IDE or SCSI, except SCSI will probably cost more. IDE drives nowadays are quite capable of keeping up with multitrack recording and playback. If you're going to adding effects (eq, compression (maybe), etc.), you'd probably want to get at least a Pentium II, with 64 megs ram. Also, you'll need to buy some multitrack software for the computer... I personally like Cakewalk, but it leans more to the midi side of things. Maybe somebody could recommend something?

Hope this is useful

William Underwood

 

[jeaston]

Thank you cwilli. Interesting that the Aardvark Direct Pro is the only soundcard to build in mike preamps. About the software, I hear CoolEdit Pro would do well for my needs, especially as I will be doing minimal if any adding of effects, and no use of MIDI. I just need to be able to edit the tracks and master CDs. Thanks again.