What should I buy to record?

[jcreamer89]

What all should I buy to start making good recordings? I am going to get a laptop in August, and at that time I would like to start recording my playing to songs, and just alone. I want as high quality I can get, for the cheapest price. I guess I need mics, recording software, and I am not sure about a mixing box. Is somthing like DIGIdesigns Mbox benifical? When it comes to recording drums I am totally clueless. I am rather well knowledge in working recording programs, and have minimal experience in ProTools, Acid, and Reason. So what all should I get for the best recordings for the cheapest price.

EDIT- I researched the subject and am considering just getting a condenser mic and postioning it in front of my drums. What all do I need to get the sound on my COMP now?

[dairyairman]

i'm a big user and fan of the free sound recording program "audacity". it can handle a bunch of tracks. it supports plugins and has all kinds of features you'd find in expensive programs. i know that protools is better, but you said you want value for your money. it's hard to beat free.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

[jcreamer89]

if I am using audicity do I need an external mixer if I am using a condenser mic, if not what are the advantages to it?

[DxRocker]

If you use just one mic, then you should be able to just plug it into the line-in on your pc.

[dairyairman]

i'm not totally clear on that. can a condenser mic be plugged directly into a pc, or does it need to go into some kind of preamp/mixer first? i'm pretty sure you can do that with a dynamic mic, but i don't know about condenser mics.

[DrummerJonny]

a condenser will need phantom power. some come with a battery slot

[Chippy569]

what's your budget? and how decent of recordings are you looking for?

[Seafroggys]

I've done the one condensor microphone setup with quite good results. If its a bad room, you could put a little gate on it to clean up some of the bad reverberation you get.

[CasB]

If you want decent recordings, bear in mind that you will have to spend a lot of money.

Do you want to close-mic the kit (mic every snare/tom/bass, and use overheads for the cymbals), or do you only want to use as few mics as possible?

Either way, check this site out to gain some knowledge:
http://www.tweakheadz.com

[some jive turkey]

For anything that I would call "acceptable" sounding, you're going to need at least 3 mics for a drum set. you can do triangular miking with 2 condensers as overheads and a mic on the kick and get a pretty lively drum sound. if you want more clarity and definition you need to start close miking the snare, toms/and whatever else.
As someone stated ,....be prepared to spend a bundle. I would get a mixer and a few mics to start with.

If you're planning on manipulating your audio on a laptop, you'll have to consider some clean way to get it in your laptop (hint: USB) so maybe look for something like that on a mixer or multitrack recorder box.
To me it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy nice mics and a good mixer to then run it through an 1/8" unbalanced output into your pc soundcard.

[CasB]

I'd use firewire instead of USB.

[Trev]

I'd use firewire instead of USB.

This.

USB mixers condense all the tracks into a stereo mix on the PC, whereas Firewire mixers let you edit each track individually. Pretty expensive though, a Firepod's about £300.

[DxRocker]

Forget the firewire while we are at it...

PCI is where it's at for multi track.
I mean, seriously, if you are gonna go down the multi track road, it's gonna cost you a lot of $, no matter what quality you take. You're gonna need mics, a mixer and some form of storage disk. Even going down the "cheap" road, you are looking at 5-600 $ right there.

So, instead of spending 600$ on pretty much crap, just spend 1000$ on good material and do it gradually.

I don't have anything against budget stuff though... But when it comes to electronics, it's gonna be expensive no matter what you get. So chip in the extra few hundred dollars for wich you'll have SO much more.
If you don't, you're just gonna wonna replace everything in a year or two at most.

[The Chemist]

DX is right. If you want to record, get good gear first thing. Something like an ESI maXiO XD would be perfect.
http://www.esi-pro.com/viewProduct.php?pid=55&page=1

[CasB]

Forget the firewire while we are at it...

PCI is where it's at for multi track.
I mean, seriously, if you are gonna go down the multi track road, it's gonna cost you a lot of $, no matter what quality you take. You're gonna need mics, a mixer and some form of storage disk. Even going down the "cheap" road, you are looking at 5-600 $ right there.

So, instead of spending 600$ on pretty much crap, just spend 1000$ on good material and do it gradually.

I don't have anything against budget stuff though... But when it comes to electronics, it's gonna be expensive no matter what you get. So chip in the extra few hundred dollars for wich you'll have SO much more.
If you don't, you're just gonna wonna replace everything in a year or two at most.

But I love my firepod :(

;)

[Seafroggys]

And I love my Firestudio :D

YEah I'd rather have a PCI interface but my Firewire will do just fine. Maybe in the far far future after I have all the mics, rooms, etc. that I need, a new PC interface would be just child's money.

Oh, and about you needing 3 mics to get a decent recording. No you don't. I've gotten great recordings with 2 or even 1 good mic strategically positioned, they would be even better if the room was much better suited for recording.

[some jive turkey]

Forget the firewire while we are at it...

PCI is where it's at for multi track.

That's what I think, but he was talking about using a laptop.

To be honest, I was talking out of my *** about USB/firewire. I was just going off of what someone I know had mentioned about laptop gear, but I do know that using the 1/8" microphone jack on the pc sound card is definitely NOT the way to go. It's noisy.
I use(d) a desktop, with an aardvark 24/96, which was/is a nice setup.

[abandonthetruth]

if u wanna go straight to computer recordings with a single overhead condensor. Then jsut buy one of these:

http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1810

plugs right into usb.

[The Chemist]

Firewire sounds bad. It's just that simple.

[fishbulb]

How so?

Sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Seafroggys]

Firewire sounds bad. It's just that simple.

:( you don't mean that, do you?

[The Chemist]

Yes I do. Firewire does something to a sound that isn't pleasant.

[CasB]

Firewire sounds bad. It's just that simple.

Bullshit, they're the same 1's and 0's you get with PCI.

Yeah sure, the interface can be different and use different pre-amps, but for the rest it's just 0's and 1's.

[TravisBarkerrules]

Yes I do. Firewire does something to a sound that isn't pleasant.

But your going to have to get a little bit more specific if your going to be taken seriously man.

[Seafroggys]

Yes I do. Firewire does something to a sound that isn't pleasant.

Firewire is just a form of data transfer. As someone else said, its the same 1s and 0s. Now if the firewire line doesn't transmit correctly and omits certain data then sure it'll sound different, but that ain't gonna happen often.

[Caleb3221]

Indeed, firewire dosen't do anything to your sound except carry it. Mabye that A/D converter in your particular firewire interface is horrible or something, but that dosen't make firewire bad.

Anyway, I don't think recording without a preamp is a good idea. No matter what kind of mic you get, I strongly suggest you either get an interface with built in preamps or you get an external preamp. I'm also gonna agree with the at least 3 mics thing, though I personally like to have 4(kick, snare, and 2 overheads) at least. If you can't swing that, you'll just have to make do with what you can afford.


On the PCIvsfirewire debate:

I wasn't able to find a good PCI audio interface with any decent number of ins/outs within my pricerange when I was shopping for equipment, which is why I ended up with my firepod. What are your suggestions for inexpensive PCI interfaces with more than 2 channels?

[CasB]

Hmmz, probably a M-audio Delta 1010.

But!!! The delta 1010 only has 2 xlr-inputs, but if you hook up a mixer to your 1010, you still can multitrack (if you use the direct-outs of the mixer). But you'll have to buy a mixer and the 1010.

And I has the same as Caleb, so I also ended up with a firepod :) And somewhere in the futuru I'll get another firepod so I have 16 inputs :)

[DxRocker]

I got to admit, I know not much about price ranges.
I was fortunate enough to know a guy that works at sydec, and managed to get an audio card (mixtreme 192) with 8 stereo i/o. I got an extension with that wich separated the lefts and rights, turning it into a 16 (mono) i/o.
The mono doesn't matter though, I deal with that in cakewalk homestudio 2005.
I payed that card and the ad-da converters only 500 bucks. It's a lot more in the shop. Got a 24 track (16xlr) behringer from e-bay for 300 and payed full price for my mics, although they came from Germany wich makes it a tad cheaper as well. Together with the snake etc, it came to about 1300 bucks.

So yeah, even with the e-bay and sydec discount, all in all, that still came close to 2100 euro.

[Caleb3221]

Wow, that looks like you got a pretty good deal. But, I haven't heard of that soundcard you got before, I'll be checking it out online.

[DxRocker]

I'll save you some trouble:

http://www.sydec.be/Products/Details/?ID=bff3368f-c161-4c9b-ab3d-779666748d56
http://www.sydec.be/Products/Details/ID/c5c702ba-f5f0-4c18-892f-657783bb0721/iBox+8-LINE+(SS8IO-3)/

:)

The first link is the audio card (pictured without the extension though)
The second one is the ad/da converter. Got 2 of those.

Included was also some software (a virtual mixer and some plug ins).
It's fairly decent material. I know it's a mini version of what they use at radio stations etc. "Starter pack" if you wish.

But it's not really working at the moment :(
Formatted my pc some time ago and had lot of troubles getting those drivers in place again. I thought I got it working, but the sound is very very noisy and "cranky", so I definatly missed something in my settings.

That's the downside of stuff like this... it's one hell of a pain in the a$$ to get it to work. Even a stupid network card can totally screw up the entire system.
But once it's set up... it's great! :D