What Do I Need To Record

[brandonleitch]

I am a highschool kid who is lookin to record some music at home. What do i need to buy? I wanna record my own drumming and guitar. I dont need anything fancy, but i do need something. Just list off the bare essentials and prices to doing some home recording...PLEASE

 

[Synkrotron]

I am a highschool kid who is lookin to record some music at home. What do i need to buy? I wanna record my own drumming and guitar. I dont need anything fancy, but i do need something. Just list off the bare essentials and prices to doing some home recording...PLEASE

What do you have already? If you have a half decent PC then there's a whole jost of free/trial software out there. If you do go the PC route then you will need something slightl better than a soundblaster (or clone) sound card.

If you don't have a PC or don't fancy upgrading it then you can't go wrong by getting one of the many reasonably priced Hard Disk Recorders (I'd recommend Fostex). Or if you are on a really tight budget you keed even try a multi-track tape recorder... the choices are endless and much of it depends on what you want to record, how you want to record it (one track at a time or multi-track) and what kind of results you are after.

There is a real load of information around these parts so get searching and come back here when you've developed your ideas a bit further.


cheers and good luck


andy

 

[brandonleitch]

Ok

Yeah i have very new PC. I am just looking to record tracks of me and my friends making some music...drums guitar bass vocals, what am i gonna need to make a cd of music?(i have a cd burner on the computer) What microphones to get? what kind of imput things will i need to get the music on the computer? What software should i get?

Thanks a bunch

 

[pouxhawk]

A few thoughts from an old guy

brandon,
First of all, what audio equipment do you have access to?
Computers get old very quickly, regardless of quality.
Well made mikes and electronics will work for decades.
Which do you think you should buy first?
If your good at troubleshooting computers, use a computer.
If not, get a little Portastudio.
As you can imagine, this is an open ended discussion. Once you start down the path of self recording, countless perils await. "For a few dollars more" is no longer a Clint Eastwood movie, but the mystic chanting of a Banjo mart salesman trying to extract his pound of flesh from your tender ass.

Either way, I would start with a few 57's, 58's, and a Mackie or Behringer mixer. Add a couple of bigassed powered speakers, and you have a basic PA system too.
Keep it simple for as long as you can. Once you get to the point of reading the recording mags, your toast. You'll lose your girlfriend, alienate your family, get fired from your job, and generally act like a heroin addict trying to find the next fix.
The words "warm" and "warmth" will be used to conjure delusions of grandeur, and ultimately make you blow your car payment on something with tubes.

Save money for decent professional equipment.
Buy used when you can.
Use what you have until you have learned how it works.

This got too long... sorry
later poux

 

[cawhite12]

Also, we would need to know how many tracks you need to record at once. You mentioned drums and guitar, did you want to track those separate or all together? Do you want to use lots of mics on the drums and have them all as tracks?

I will add to pouxhawk's suggestions of equipment:

First starting out (and probably budget minded). I would get a couple of Shure SM58's and SM57's. Get a Behringer, Mackie, or Yamaha mixer that has enough inputs to hook your drums and guitar up to. If you want to record the drums fairly seriously, you will need to get some overhead small diaphragm condenser mics, and a dedicated kick drum mic, then you can use an SM57 on the snare.

Then...you need to decide how many tracks at once you want going into the computer. You could mix everything on the mixer then go stereo in to the computer via something like the M-Audio 2496, E-MU 0404, or Echo MiaMidi. For starting out, I would highly recommend the M-Audio Delta 44. It's got 4 ins so it can get you more tracks to start, plus you can add like 3 or so more cards to one computer. It's been around a while so the drivers are very mature and stable, and it still sounds good.

 

[pouxhawk]

The Delta 44 is a great card.. I have one hooked up to my old DAW, now my regular home computer, in place of the onboard chip. I found it much quieter in my system than the Audiophile 2496, which seems to pick up hum, and some other weird stuff. I blame the computer not the Audiophile. M-Audio seems to be pretty good about updating drivers.

DinoG