Home recording help please!

[NancyJohnson]

I want to set up a very basic (cheap - heh) recording set up on a PC running XP Home...I want to throw as little money at this as possible...this is just for track building and ideas. Additionally, if I have to buy any external hardware, I need to be able to break it down easily.

I've got, and am adept at, Adobe Audition 2.0 (I have a friend who works for Adobe...); I generally use this for editing of existing tracks recorded elsewhere, so I'd like to keep using this. Gearwise, I have an Alessis SR16 drum machine - which for the purpose of this, I will fire fills and stop it via a footswitches...I don't want to program it - and a Line 6 bass POD, Line 6 guitar POD which I will DI and guitars.

All I want to do is plug something into my PC (preferably via the USB), and play along with the drum machine, then add bass and vocals later.

Can someone let me know what I need to do (or buy) and what I need to set the PC to do. Keep it simple!

Cheers
P

[Archetype]

Hrmmm. Lets see if i can have a bash at this one.

You could use the line 6 POD's via USB and get a pretty good sound from them doing that.
However the problem there is you can only select one POD at a time as they are 2 interfaces. you would need to tell the software or windows which one to look at each time you decided to record bass or guitar.
The drum machine... You could MAYBE run the MIDI from the SR-16 to one of the PODS and record the MIDI signals, however that would mean you would need a virtual instrament to then play the drums and im not sure if your software would support that. Or line out from the drum machine into one of the PODS and record that, but again not sure how well that would work.

The Easiset way would be to buy a cheaprecording interface that supports a few inputs.
you could get one that is USB or Firewire, and will allow you to keep all you devices connected at the same time, so no messing about with cables etc.
And personally thats what i did. I got an idea, spent 20 mins getting the cables and settings then hit record to get... nothing, gone!
Very annoying but thats just me (you might have a better memory!)

So give it some thought. I will be more than happy to help with any questions you may have.
G

[Chappers]

I want to start recording my playing onto my computer, adding bass, guitar and vocals, but I don’t have any gear like the Pod etc.
What is the easiest (cheapest!) method of doing this?
What additional hard/software is required to get decent results?
Cheers

[SkiingLizard]

it depends on your computer really... if you've got a PC look at getting a presonus or maudio audio interface and either run whatever software you get packaged with it as an audio sequencer or look at reaper which is free/shareware and supposed to be excellent

if you have a mac then you probably already have garageband then just get the audio interface and plug it in...

as with everything you get what you pay for to some extent

you may or may not want to get a pod or something to use as a DI... the pod 2 is not bad and really cheap on ebay

[WalMan]

You might try Audacity from [url="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/"]HERE[/url] or generally find it on computer magazine cover disks. It is free and you can build up multitracks within it, but actually mixing them would probably be a trial as there is no form of automation.

I have used Mackie Traction 2 for a while now, upgrading to v3 recently. V2 you can pick up now for about £30 [url="http://www.dv247.com/invt/27495/"]HERE[/url]

I find Tracktion really easy to use and logical in the way it works across the screen from inputs on the left to outputs on the right, and it includes automation for mixing.

Perhaps consider getting (asking for Christmas) for one of the baby Pocket Pods that came out recently. They seem to be about £70 universally and will give you both modelling and a USB connection to the PC, so no need to worry about getting signal in through an 1/8 inch jack socket on your sound card (or motherboard if it is on board sound). You ought to be able to select a DI only setting to get the bass in by the same means

[Archetype]

[quote name='WalMan' post='84141' date='Nov 5 2007, 06:46 PM']so no need to worry about getting signal in through an 1/8 inch jack socket on your sound card (or motherboard if it is on board sound).[/quote]

Rule number 1. Stay Away from ALL onboard soundcards for recording. and most PC "soundcards" in general for recording.
These were never really designed for anything more than playback and one of those cheap mic's for talking over MSN or whatever.
a few like the old Creative Labs Audigy cards had various inputs on them, but again not really for music making.

Best thing anyone can do is get a good Audio Interface. I started on an M-Audio Delta 1010lt card (which i will be selling soon!) which was designed for recording. and it made a huge diffrence over the old Audigy 2 card i had!

It really depends on how serious you and how important quality is! I know the guitarist in my band is more than happy with his Boss multi-effects board doing some half assed distoirtion into his onboard soundcard becasue all he wants is a rough guide rather than a recording. He just fires up Windows sound recorder and goes!

But for anything semi-serious you need to spend a little bit on a soundcard first.

The great part is alot of fantastic software (alot of which can be be free!) can really help you acheive a good sound. Such amp Amp sims, virtual synths, reverbs and all sorts. you dont need to fork out thousands to get a good sound.

Also, You can build it up. Start with a sound card and maybe a line out from your Amp's. Get a good basis and build songs up from there, perfects if you just want to record demo's to hear how a song sounds. Then you could build it up with some POD's or Mic's, better software etc.

As said above i know there is alot of free software out there. And for the semi serious budget people you could run Ardour which is a fully featured DAW and FREE!!!

You could even miss out the PC and go for an all in one studio! I know tascam to name but one make several all in one studios where you record to an internal disk, mix, add effects etc on one small box. Infact if i rememeber right there is a thread not too far down about a guy making his bands demo with one on this forum.

best thing to do is work out what you have and what you want. Do you want to record your own albums? just record basic riffs as a memory refresher? start up your own studio? your own portable studio!?

the options are sadly endless about how you could record things. so try and be specific and im sure we could point you in the right place.

But my main advise to anyone is to start with a good interface such as a PreSonus Forbox. And plan to expand for what you want.
And of course, feel free to ask questions! Its the best way to learn.

[NancyJohnson]

In answer to one question here, I just want to keep it as basic and as simple as possible...I neither have the money nor inclination to throw loads of money at this (my guitarist co-owns a studio so go figure), I just want to be able to put ideas down on the PC, play around with them in Audition and then cut a CD of any end product mixdown.

P

[cheddatom]

Why don't you set up one of your pods as a usb interface, and then record everything through that? You can have it all clean for when you're using the other pod, or the drum machine etc etc. If you don't need to record more than one thing at once, then you have enough to do what you want.

[WalMan]

Oh good grief Al, as they say on all good exam courses "read the feckin question!!!"

You've got the Pods & the software - DOH!!! So as before push it through the Pods & USB. If you want to noodle along to stuff GearBox should let you do that, and hear the track / Drum Machine all through the headphones on the POD.

Using the POD ASIO & USB should also allow you to record stuff while listening to tracks on playback with low latency & looking at Audition you can track plenty of stuff.

Probably once you are in Audition & with a Pod plugged into the USB with up to date Line6 drivers installed (download & install the Line6 Monkey - free - then start it up with the Pod attached to find what updates are available) you will be able to set Audition to record & playback through (Bass) Pod ASIO somewhere in preferences.

Use the Pod set to the DI setting (ie no models) to get vocals in and Bod for the bass.

Changing from Pod to Bod will almost certainly require you to dive into Auditions preferences to change these to Bass Pod ASIO. And if you want to mix on speakers rather than headphones then change the setting to the internal soundcard.

So really you are down to possibly throwing some money at a better soundcard some time down the line with a better selection of ins & outs rather than a couple of 1/8 inch stereo jacks

Edited November 7, 2007 by WalMan

[NancyJohnson]

OK reading into this, the M-Audio PCI card looks ideal...remember this is just for very basic recording. I can achieve an awful lot in Audition, which I know backwards.
P

[WalMan]

[quote name='NancyJohnson' post='84750' date='Nov 7 2007, 08:19 AM']OK reading into this, the M-Audio PCI card looks ideal...remember this is just for very basic recording. I can achieve an awful lot in Audition, which I know backwards.
P[/quote]
Turnkey have the M-Audio Audiophile 192 in their [url="http://www.turnkey.co.uk/web/productAction.do?dispatch=showProduct&SKU=MMAN-AUDIO192&context=CLEARANCE"]Clearout[/url] section although bizarrly that appears to be more expensive than their normal price.

For a few quid more they do an EMU bundle that has the same ins & outs plus a load of extra sounds in the bundle if you want to add more, and effects patching included - though when I have tried to utilise this through Tracktion my machine (3 mhz & max 2 gb ram) could not handle it. If it is the same as the one I bought a few months back you need 2 PCI slots as there is a main card & daughter board.

Both of them have connections on the card rather than breakout boxes, which can be a bit of a pain unless you leave everything permanently wired

[cheddatom]

You wouldn't have to keep swapping between the guitar and bass pod, you can just DI the one you want to use into the one that you're using as your interface. I really can't see the need for you to buy anything until you want to start recording more than one channel at once.

[lowdown]

M-Audio Audiophile 2496.

[url="http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/browse/category_id/f5fd74384cf5fcd74b3d54f516cd5c95/a/m_manufacturer_id/e/54"]http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/br...acturer_id/e/54[/url]

Basic set up [PCI] card...with very low latency...
Very good sound quality...

You have enough gear already...so for what you are after doing...
just a good good quality card is all you need...

These cards used to be about £200 squids...
under £45.00 now...

Never been a bad review about these....infact always good.

Garry

[Archetype]

I agree with Lowdown, the best option will be a cheap m-audio card.
That way youc an just plug in everything and work from there.

If you start going down the route of plugging bass pod into guitar pod then you will no doubt hit a lot of level problems.

Simple solution is a interface card. And M-Audio products are top notch!!!