Where to start!?!

[thommo09]

G'day,

my name's Jimmy and this is my first post here

Ok well the story goes something like this, one of my good mates and I have been jamming together for a while now and we are both interested in doing a little bit of recording. I've had a bit of a look around and I'm not really sure where to start, like what gear to get.

At the moment I'm thinking my best option may be to buy an (oldish) iMac (say 500Mhz, 256mb RAM, approx 20Gig HDD,firewire ports etc) for a coupla hundred dollars and then maybe get hold of a Digidesign M-box with ProTools LE. As far as i can tell this is about all I'll need to start recording (I have a mic already but I'm not sure if it's any good...does Sennheiser MD431 mean anything to anyone? I'll be using it for instruments and vocals)

I currently have a laptop that i use for my studies (i think its a 1GHz AMD, 256mb Ram, 18Gb HDD...) but I'm under the impression a dedicated Apple will be better for the job and I'm not sure if the laptop has all the ports I'd need.

As I said, I don't know where to start and the budget isn't very big either. I know that I would like to keep it simple for the time being so that i can get my head around it all.

Thanks all
-Jimmy

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Welcome to the BBS Jimmy, a few questions for you.

What type of music will you be making? What instruments? How will you be wanting to record (how many tracks will you want to record simultaneously)? What is your budget?

If you answer these you'll probably get more useful answers.

I wouldn't get too hung up on getting a mac, especially if you're on a low budget. They do have their advantages but you'll get less performance for your money.

 

[thommo09]

Well I'd have to say my budget will be about $1200 AUS, to start with, but I have no problem saving up for a while if it will help in the long run.

We'll be mostly recording pretty basic acoustic guitar and vocal (roots i spose??) to start with, but we both play a fair bit of electric guitar as well and we're looking for a drummer and bass player, so eventually we'll be doing a bit of proper rock too.

I was thinking about the mac for a few reasons,
1) my uncle does a fair bit of video editing and he swears by them, and
2) the laptop has all sorts of crap on it like games and mp3's etc

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

PC or mac is your choice but I'm very happy with my Dell PC. I would have payed a lot more money for an equivalent spec mac.

You'll need an interface (your stock soundcard will give you crappy sound quality and all sorts of headaches with latency), some preamps for the mics and some software.

If you can get by with only 2 inputs then I'd recommend the M Audio Audiophile 24/96. For 4 inputs there's the M Audio delta 44 which also has a breakout box (rather than just having all the ins and outs hanging out the back of the comp).

Possibly a bit out of your price range for now but if you're going to be recording more simulataneous tracks in the future (drums?) then the 1010 LT by M Audio will give you 8 ins and outs. If you stretch to this now it will save a costly upgrade in the future. This card also has two mic preamps built in to inputs 1 & 2. The M Audio stuff is solid entry level gear and it's what I have experience with. There are other manufacturers out there if you want to do a bit of research.

A good entry level mic pre is the M Audio DMP-3 (yes them again!).That'll give you two very clean channels. A small mixer is also a good idea as it'll give you a couple of extra mic pres and headphone monitoring etc. The yamaha MG and Soundcraft Compact series are both good bang for the buck.

Lots of software out there so do some research. I use cubase SE. It's the stripped down version but it's fine for my needs, you can upgrade to the fuller SL and SX versions at any time at no extra cost.

Just as an example- at UK prices the M Audio 1010LT, DMP-3 preamp, Cubase SE and Soundcraft Compact 4 mixer would come to around £520 which is roughly AUS$1200.

Of course there are all the other bits and bobs like cables, headphones etc.

This would get you off the ground recording, your priorities for when you could save more money would be monitoring and probably a few more mics suited to recording.

 

[thommo09]

thanks a lot Kevin,

would the sennheiser mic be ok for guitar and vocals as a start? and I was under the impression that the digidesign M-box came with software and was pretty much plug it in and start recording sorta thing (they sell on E-bay brand new for roughly $500)

with something like that would i need mic pre's?

without having any recording experience I wouldn;t know how many tracks i would want to record simultaneously. I could see drums and bass at least within the next year or thereabouts, with guitar and vocals on seperate tracks.

Thanks again, and I'll have a look into the M Audio stuff

could anyone give me an idea of a basic recording set-up for acoustic guitar and vocals......like how does it all happen (signal path or whatever its called)

cheers
-Jimmy

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

The M-Box has only two inputs so that's the number of tracks you could record simultaneously. So when it comes to recording drums and you'll want a mic on the kick, one on the snare, one on each tom, a stereo pair of overheads etc. then you'll be struggling. Those two inputs do have preamps though and it does come with a stripped down version of Protools.

You could mix all the mics live through a mixer and go from the main mixer outs to the two tracks of the Mbox but you'd be left with a stereo track in protools for which you wouldn't be able to adjust levels for all the seprate elements. You'd have to get it right first time and of course you wouldn't be able to process the seperate elements either, just the one stereo track with all your drums (or whatever) on it.

I've never used an MBox but this is how i understand it. I'm sure if there's a way of recording multiple tracks with it someone will correct me soon enough.

Funnily enough I record a lot of what you described. A friend and me, we both play guitar and we both sing, here's a typical mic set up:

Stereo pair of mics on one guitar
Single mic on the other guitar and also plugged direct (so I can blend the miced and DI'd sound)
main Vocal mic
Background vocal mic

So that's six inputs needed to record it all live. A lot of the time we find we don't get as good a performance if we don't record it live but if you can do one track at a time then 2 inputs could be enough for you. But if you're wanting to record a full band in the not too distance future then you'll need more than two inputs into the computer.

The Sennheiser mic you have is apparently a good live vocal mic (I don't have experience with it myself). For acoustic guitar and most vocals, condensor type mics are better, that senn is a dynamic. The mic forum here is great for info and the pinned thread at the top is well worth a read.

Your signal path will be mic-preamp-soundcard input.

This forum is a great resource for info, make good use of the search function.

This website is also a mine of information:

http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.htm

Good luck with it all