Which set-up to pursue?

[marshall409]

Alright

Alright here's my plan.

First, I'm going to focus on getting the room playable in. This will involve getting all the crap out of there, decoration (lol), possibly some lighting(its very poorly lit), round up as much old amps, guitars, TONS of cables, anything i can get my hands on and start a sort of music making accesoriy inventory. Guitar hangers on the wall, stands in every corner, getting my drums from my dads house over here. Also, couches, mini fridge, etc. I know it sounds like I'm focusing too much on this crap and not enough on getting recording going, but don't worry, step two and step one will be evenly worked on.

STEP 2

GET A COMPUTER

I've decided I'll probably won't be getting a hand me down and upgrading as i thought i might. I've decided to get a nice solid system from tigerdirect.ca possibly. (anyone had experience with them?) I also have the capability at this point to start simple recording, just not multitrack. A few mics into a mixer, into the generic soundcard, just tpo get my feet wet in recording.

STEP 3

M-Audio Delta 1010. Not sure if ill go for the rack system or cheap, but apparently kind of noisy PCI card system. Any suggestion here? The front will be a mixer of sorts, since the delta 1010 doesnt have preamps on all inputs. Behringer? I really dont even know where to start on mixers. Any suggestion on a CHEAP mixer is very helpful.

STEP 4

"I'd liek to thank my parents, friends, and bandmates, and the academy for this honour. It's been my life dream to win a Grammy, and me being a 16 year old recording in my basement on a Behringer mixer and cheap PCI card makes this all that much better. Pardon my grammar. I'd also like to thank the home-recording.com BBS. You guys rock!

STEP 5

Get laid, get signed, get drunk, get dead.

THE END

 

[JeffLancaster]

I've decided to get a nice solid system from tigerdirect.ca possibly. (anyone had experience with them?)

I use TigerDirect quite often for computer stuff. Always great prices and great service. Highly recommended.

M-Audio Delta 1010. Not sure if ill go for the rack system or cheap, but apparently kind of noisy PCI card system. Any suggestion here? The front will be a mixer of sorts, since the delta 1010 doesnt have preamps on all inputs. Behringer? I really dont even know where to start on mixers. Any suggestion on a CHEAP mixer is very helpful.

Well, I gave you my opinion on getting the rackmount delta 1010 earlier. But if money's a big issue and you want to hurry up and get things going, the other one should work fine too. As far as the mixer/preamps I'd just start out by just using the Gemini you have for preamps. Then, when you can afford it, you can ditch that in favor of some nice standalone preamps. Do your mixing "in the box" and you won't need a physical mixer. If it's hardware faders and such that you like, you eventually can get a control surface for that.

Good luck - I hope your able to get underway with your plans soon...Jeff

 

[SRR]

I have the 1010LT the one without the rack unit, and has two preamps built it (no phantom though). Seems to be very servicable, but I haven't even used the built in pre's, just assumed they sucked. Was a pretty big jump from a Zoltrix sound card to the 1010LT.

Here it is in action, vocals only, wife sang to backing tracks:

http://mysite.verizon.net/resq6asf/

 

[marshall409]

Thanks

Thanks the both of you. Those tracks sound plenty better than I probably even need . I do have one more question...

In the meantime, while I'm practicing with my band, we have lots of issues with vocals. At the moment, we're singing through guitar amps .....sh1tty ones at that. So, this Gemini mixer I've got, it was picked up off my dad when his restaurant closed down. It was a pretty big place, and I;m under the impression all the mics, music sources were plugged into this and that out to the speaker system throughout the building. So......if I'm correct so far this thing should have some power? So would it work as a vocal amp? Mic>Mixer>A set of PA speakers?

Thanks again

Adam

 

[SRR]

Some mixers do have built in amps, but most do not. Do you have a link to the mixer you have? Does it have massive heatsinks on it?

 

[marshall409]

Oh okay

No I don't have a link, and it's not here right now and I can't remember the model number. But if most mixers dont have amps, this one probably doesnt. It's pretty cheap, as far as i can tell. It does plug in to the wall, does that mean anything? Anyway, what could i do for a mic amp? I'm looking at mic preamps at MF, I don't see watts in the specs, as I would look for in terms of power in a guitar amp. Should I be looking for a different term? Decibels? What could i plug a few mics and plug into a set of PA speakers?

Thanks

Adam

 

[marshall409]

Hold on....

Wait a minute...I;m confused again lol. Getting back to my recording ideas...the Delta 1010's both don't have any preamps, the PCIversion has 2, but obviously that wouldnt be enough for normal use. So what happens when you plug a mic into these inputs? They're just unheard? I'll probably have only 3-4 mics for the drums, and most people would probably be recording vocals after the tracks are laid, but I want to have the ability to play "live" and record everything seperate. So let's say I have a guitar and bass going into regular guitar/bass amps with line-outs into 2 inputs, then the drums going though 3-4 mics, each with there own input. Then everyone would just wear headphones and the vocals would probably be done later. Wow I don't even know where I'm going with this. I guess what I need is a whole bunch of pre amps. But at 50$ american each, for cheap ones...I have no idea where I'm going with this. How the hell do you use the 1010 taht has no amps. Are they all just line-ins?

 

[SRR]

Yes, the 1010 that comes with the rack mount unit, has no mic pre-amps, you would need 8 pre's to fill up the analog ins. Six for the 1010LT, although yes the first two inputs on the 1010LT have pre-amps on them, they can be switched over to line inputs so they can accept better external pre-amps as well.