Will this setup work for me?

W

waylay00

New member
Hey guys, I'm a guitar player, and I'm planning to getting into this whole home recording thing. However, I am rather lost as to what I need to get. However, I DO know that I want to go with the micing my amp route.

So I was thinking at first this setup -

mic > mixer > line-in of soundcard (Audigy 2 ZS)

However, since I will only be using one track for now, I thought that I should just go with a mic preamp as opposed to a mixer.

So if I go with a preamp, would I be able to run this setup?

mic > preamp > line-in of soundcard

I was told elsewhere that instead of running into my soundcard, I should go from the preamp into an "interface". What does this mean?

So basically, what would be the optimal method for my setup?

Thanks on the front end,
Wade
 
Generally speaking your Audigy is not made for High quality Recording so when poeple tell you you should record with an Interface they mean either a Good Quality Sound card that is Made for Recording audio or some Sort of Firewire or USB Mixer or other Recording Interface .....

Yes you can use the Setup you were thinking of useing with your audigy (You don"t even really need a Preamp as you can use the Output from your Guitar to plug into your Sound Card unless you are also recording Vocals then you will need a Mic Preamp) will work but you will have Problems like Noise and Latency and not captureing the full dynamic Range of the sounds you are trying to record....

You can get a Fairly Half Decent Recording sound Card for about $100 that will allow you to record up to 4 Tracks at once but if I were you I would use your audigy untill it doesn"t serve the Purpose anymore and save up for a high quality multi-input firewire interface......


Cheers
 
Well you can get a Good quality Sound Card for about $100 But it will be a PCI Card which you might not be able to install in a PC in 5 to 10 years as they are Phazeing out Regular PCI cards but if you are thinking of maybe upgradeing the Card in the next 5 Years or so then it might be a Good Buy...

You can get a EMU 0404 in the $100 range which I believe have 4 ins and 4 outs or for about $300 you can get a M-audio Delta 1010 which gives you up to 10 inputs includeing Midi and Spdif.....

As for Firewire interfaces you can get an "Alesis 8 Channel Firewire Mixer" for about $300 which will let you record up to 8 Tracks at the same time to your PC....

http://www.zzounds.com/a--2676837/item--ALEMULTIMIX8FW


Cheers
 
What if I only need to record one track at a time? Wouldn't that money put towards that mixer be better spent on software?
 
Do you think you will Allways Just record one Track?? Are you going to be getting into this seriously or just as something that seems neat to do??

If you aren"t going to be doing this seriously then stick with your audigy card as it will work for simple one tracjk recordings and give you something to listen to that you created .....

If you think you won"t ever need to use 8 Channels or any of the Mixer Fuctions and won"t be recording lots of tracks at once but still want to record better quality than your Audigy will record (Without any Backround Humm) then go for the Cheaper Cards like the EMU-0404 or one of the Cheaper M-audio cards or you can get something like the M-audio Mobile Pre USB which is a single channel Preamp that you connect to your PC Via USB which will let you Plug in a Guitar or Bass or Microphone ect and record with Pretty good quality...There are seriously so many different Interfaces out there that it would take all day to go through them all.....

Most Interfaces will come with Recording Software Like Cubase or Abelton Live or Samplitude and there are a few Pretty good Freeware Programs and Freeware VST and DX Plugins to use with them so you should never have a Problem finding some software that will do what you need....


Cheers
 
Well, I don't want to get into it seriously yet, but I want to at least get something I can later use if I ever wanted to get a big mixing board.

So for that very reason, I might end up going with a simple mic to interface solution for now (like M-Audio FireWire 410, Line 6 Toneport, etc) .

What would be a recommended mic for around $100? I see the Shure SM57 mentioned alot, but I've seen mixed opinions on it.
 
There are definetly better mics for guitar then the SM57 but its still a solid mic and would serve you great especially for that price.
 
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