Computer Recording Info.

[James L]

Greetings.
I'm a newbie to this newsgroup so please forgive me if this issue has
recently been addressed.
I need some direction as to what recording gear would suffice for entry
level . Musicians Friend
has my head spinning. There's a Presonus Bundle ( Firepod)....M-Audio
package(FireWire 1814 or FireWire 410 the reviews on the 410 were'nt very
good)...I heard that ProTools
is the only way to go. I will be looking forward to discuss anyone's input.
Thanks for your time. Sincerely, Jim

[[email protected]]

Well, you can start for free with your actual computer sound card if
you don't need to record more than 2 instruments at a time, with
unlimited overdubs. There's also a few free audio editors out there.
Depends on your budget and how much you want to invest yourself as
well. Any regular soundcard already sounds way better than 4 track
and 8 track cassettes used to do!

audacity.sourceforge.net/

[[email protected]]

On Jan 31, 8:47 pm, "James L" > wrote:
> Greetings.
> I'm a newbie to this newsgroup so please forgive me if this issue has
> recently been addressed.
> I need some direction as to what recording gear would suffice for entry
> level . Musicians Friend
> has my head spinning. There's a Presonus Bundle ( Firepod)....M-Audio
> package(FireWire 1814 or FireWire 410 the reviews on the 410 were'nt very
> good)...I heard that ProTools
> is the only way to go. I will be looking forward to discuss anyone's input.
> Thanks for your time. Sincerely, Jim

I'd look at Sonar Home Studio because I think Cakewalk products have
the best tutorials for newbies.
For hardware, check out Echo Audio firewire. I started with Cakewalk
Pro Audio 7 and a 16 bit Echo card.
worked great for me.
DaveT

[Laurence Payne]

On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:47:13 GMT, "James L" > wrote:

>Greetings.
>I'm a newbie to this newsgroup so please forgive me if this issue has
>recently been addressed.
>I need some direction as to what recording gear would suffice for entry
>level . Musicians Friend
>has my head spinning. There's a Presonus Bundle ( Firepod)....M-Audio
>package(FireWire 1814 or FireWire 410 the reviews on the 410 were'nt very
>good)...I heard that ProTools
>is the only way to go. I will be looking forward to discuss anyone's input.
>Thanks for your time. Sincerely, Jim


Recording what, how? If you don't know yet, use your existing sound
card and Audacity (both free to you)to find out. If you do know,
tell us?

You might want to record a live band to 16 simultaneous tracks. You'll
need a powerful computer, lots of soundcard channels, microphone
preamps or a mixer, etc.

You might want to build up songs track-by track using synthesised
sounds. A two-channel sound card will be fine.

You just MIGHT need your projects to be portable between lots of
studios all over the world. In this case, ProTools needs
consideration. Otherwise, judge it on price/performance alongside
other available programs. It's expensive for what it does, your
hardware choice is restricted and it's far from being the only game in
town.

[James L]

"Laurence Payne" <lpayne1NOSPAM@dslDOTpipexDOTcom> wrote in message
...
> On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:47:13 GMT, "James L" > wrote:
>
>>Greetings.
>>I'm a newbie to this newsgroup so please forgive me if this issue has
>>recently been addressed.
>>I need some direction as to what recording gear would suffice for entry
>>level . Musicians Friend
>>has my head spinning. There's a Presonus Bundle ( Firepod)....M-Audio
>>package(FireWire 1814 or FireWire 410 the reviews on the 410 were'nt very
>>good)...I heard that ProTools
>>is the only way to go. I will be looking forward to discuss anyone's
>>input.
>>Thanks for your time. Sincerely, Jim
>
>
> Recording what, how? If you don't know yet, use your existing sound
> card and Audacity (both free to you)to find out. If you do know,
> tell us?


I want to put down my guitar tracks in mp3 format. I'm leaning toward
the interface &
software method.
I want to mic my amps & monitor the tracks while recording over. What
concerns me is the latency issue.

>
> You might want to record a live band to 16 simultaneous tracks. You'll
> need a powerful computer, lots of soundcard channels, microphone
> preamps or a mixer, etc.
>
> You might want to build up songs track-by track using synthesised
> sounds. A two-channel sound card will be fine.

I'm not sure that I understand. What is a two channel sound card?

>
> You just MIGHT need your projects to be portable between lots of
> studios all over the world. In this case, ProTools needs
> consideration. Otherwise, judge it on price/performance alongside
> other available programs. It's expensive for what it does, your
> hardware choice is restricted and it's far from being the only game in
> town.

Thanx for the reply. Sincerely, Jim

[Laurence Payne]

> I want to put down my guitar tracks in mp3 format. I'm leaning toward
>the interface &
>software method.

OK. Well, you'll be recording WAV. But if you want to compress the
result to MP3 that's possible.


> I want to mic my amps & monitor the tracks while recording over. What
>concerns me is the latency issue.

Latency only affects you if you want to monitor the sound you're
currently recording THROUGH the program's audio engine. Think
third-head monitoring on a tape system. The heads can be a long way
apart (high latency). They can be very close (but never quite
coincident). But the real solution is to not monitor an input that
way. There are plenty of other ways.

Latency is a non-problem when monitoring already-recorded tracks. The
wav is available to be pre-fetched precisely as early as the system
latency requires. The software takes care of this automatically.




>I'm not sure that I understand. What is a two channel sound card?

One with two audio channels, normally used as a stereo pair. You have
one already :-)