Recording Equipment

tacticaltal
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Thu Nov 01, 2012 1:50 am

tombo1230 wrote:
tacticaltal wrote:
One thing I'd like to do is to use both mics (one for voice & 1 for guitar), but I'm not sure how I will hook both up to the computer. Maybe I'll need another adapter?

:ohmy: :unsure: :silly: :blush:[/quote

You are still missing one piece of hardware for a couple of reasons. You would bi-pass the computers inherently poor sound card by getting an analogue to digital external sound card/box. The box plugs guitar and mic straight in and digitizes them into you DAW preserving the sound, this is key! You can record two tracks together (normally) or more depending on your inputs and outputs. The box connects to the computer via USB connection. Some of these boxes can do midi as well, but I am complicating things now. If you are happy with the sound without the box then that's fine, but you won't be able to record two sources at the same time using two mics or a mic and lead plugged into your guitar. Using one mic you could catch the singing and playing together or you could do a playing pass and a singing pass seperately, just depends what you want to achieve. There are other ways to do this as well.


Tom N.
Tom,

Hang in there with me, buddy, as I'm getting closer.

I have only the acoustic (no pickup amp), so I'm not concerned with that, I don't think - I do want the guitar to be heard above my singing, as I seem to be losing volume with finger-picking.

Can you recommend a DAW? I assume Audacity won't cut it, as there's no physical way of plugging a mic into the software. Money is tight, so I would need something low cost.

What are those other ways? :)


tombo1230
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Thu Nov 01, 2012 3:01 am

tacticaltal wrote:
tombo1230 wrote:
tacticaltal wrote:
One thing I'd like to do is to use both mics (one for voice & 1 for guitar), but I'm not sure how I will hook both up to the computer. Maybe I'll need another adapter?

:ohmy: :unsure: :silly: :blush:[/quote

You are still missing one piece of hardware for a couple of reasons. You would bi-pass the computers inherently poor sound card by getting an analogue to digital external sound card/box. The box plugs guitar and mic straight in and digitizes them into you DAW preserving the sound, this is key! You can record two tracks together (normally) or more depending on your inputs and outputs. The box connects to the computer via USB connection. Some of these boxes can do midi as well, but I am complicating things now. If you are happy with the sound without the box then that's fine, but you won't be able to record two sources at the same time using two mics or a mic and lead plugged into your guitar. Using one mic you could catch the singing and playing together or you could do a playing pass and a singing pass seperately, just depends what you want to achieve. There are other ways to do this as well.


Tom N.
Tom,

Hang in there with me, buddy, as I'm getting closer.

I have only the acoustic (no pickup amp), so I'm not concerned with that, I don't think - I do want the guitar to be heard above my singing, as I seem to be losing volume with finger-picking.

Can you recommend a DAW? I assume Audacity won't cut it, as there's no physical way of plugging a mic into the software. Money is tight, so I would need something low cost.

What are those other ways? :)
Not everyone chooses to use a DAW and isn't neccessary really if you want to keep things straight forward.

Buddy has great sound from his setup and records onto a stand alone hard drive not connected to his computer, no DAW involved. He takes the output from the record box, probably a wave file or maybe an mp3 and marries it up to the video in his video editing software. This is one way to do it and a good way if you don't want to be spending a lot of time messing around with computer and latency issues. :blink: Willem uses something similar, but he uses a DAW as well. Either way, maybe one of them can advise you on the make, model and price.

The other way is using a DAW to record like Audacity. You can plug in straight through your computer sound card, a poor way to do it sound quality wise.
The best way to do it when using a DAW is via a digital usb interface box. This gives you good sound. You can plug in two mics or a mic and a jack depending on what inputs you have. This is the more difficult way to do things and has a few pitfalls. The digital interface I use is Guitar Rig, when I first started I bought this and got a light version of Cubase as a free DAW. I now use the full blown version, but I make cd quality recordings as a hobby. This is not neccessary for what you are trying to do and you need a very good spec computer or you can have drop out problems.

These are your main two options. Hope this helps.


Tom N.


willem
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Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:53 am
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Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:59 am

tombo1230 wrote:
tacticaltal wrote:
tombo1230 wrote:
tacticaltal wrote:


Tom,

Hang in there with me, buddy, as I'm getting closer.

I have only the acoustic (no pickup amp), so I'm not concerned with that, I don't think - I do want the guitar to be heard above my singing, as I seem to be losing volume with finger-picking.

Can you recommend a DAW? I assume Audacity won't cut it, as there's no physical way of plugging a mic into the software. Money is tight, so I would need something low cost.

What are those other ways? :)
Not everyone chooses to use a DAW and isn't neccessary really if you want to keep things straight forward.

Buddy has great sound from his setup and records onto a stand alone hard drive not connected to his computer, no DAW involved. He takes the output from the record box, probably a wave file or maybe an mp3 and marries it up to the video in his video editing software. This is one way to do it and a good way if you don't want to be spending a lot of time messing around with computer and latency issues. :blink: Willem uses something similar, but he uses a DAW as well. Either way, maybe one of them can advise you on the make, model and price.

The other way is using a DAW to record like Audacity. You can plug in straight through your computer sound card, a poor way to do it sound quality wise.
The best way to do it when using a DAW is via a digital usb interface box. This gives you good sound. You can plug in two mics or a mic and a jack depending on what inputs you have. This is the more difficult way to do things and has a few pitfalls. The digital interface I use is Guitar Rig, when I first started I bought this and got a light version of Cubase as a free DAW. I now use the full blown version, but I make cd quality recordings as a hobby. This is not neccessary for what you are trying to do and you need a very good spec computer or you can have drop out problems.

These are your main two options. Hope this helps.


Tom N.
I really do nothing special,,but I have the tools,,I have reaper (also free) and also audacity,,and a digital recorder Boss micro BR(this is a really nice gadget) ..but I try to keep things simple..its a lot of work but the more work you put into it then the best you get,,,and also YT changes things while you upload so the better the recording is (film and audio) the best you get on the net(YT),,BUY for example a high end logitech webcam and you can film HD too..

Maybe you can search on YT examples in ''home recording low price''..
When you have the time it sure is woth it..

Willem

Ps I am no expert,,maybe Al is,, he does something with a mixer too,,He also has the Boss micro BR but I don't know if he works with it everytime..

edit: when you use the video editing program AVS it as a audio tool too.....you can change it a bit..

second edit: i do use the mike from my computer headset,,i think they have very good mikes,,there are one as a usb and there are ones just with the stereo pins..


tombo1230
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Thu Nov 01, 2012 8:48 am

willem wrote:
tombo1230 wrote:
tacticaltal wrote:
tombo1230 wrote:


Not everyone chooses to use a DAW and isn't neccessary really if you want to keep things straight forward.

Buddy has great sound from his setup and records onto a stand alone hard drive not connected to his computer, no DAW involved. He takes the output from the record box, probably a wave file or maybe an mp3 and marries it up to the video in his video editing software. This is one way to do it and a good way if you don't want to be spending a lot of time messing around with computer and latency issues. :blink: Willem uses something similar, but he uses a DAW as well. Either way, maybe one of them can advise you on the make, model and price.

The other way is using a DAW to record like Audacity. You can plug in straight through your computer sound card, a poor way to do it sound quality wise.
The best way to do it when using a DAW is via a digital usb interface box. This gives you good sound. You can plug in two mics or a mic and a jack depending on what inputs you have. This is the more difficult way to do things and has a few pitfalls. The digital interface I use is Guitar Rig, when I first started I bought this and got a light version of Cubase as a free DAW. I now use the full blown version, but I make cd quality recordings as a hobby. This is not neccessary for what you are trying to do and you need a very good spec computer or you can have drop out problems.

These are your main two options. Hope this helps.


Tom N.


I really do nothing special,,but I have the tools,,I have reaper (also free) and also audacity,,and a digital recorder Boss micro BR(this is a really nice gadget) ..but I try to keep things simple..its a lot of work but the more work you put into it then the best you get,,,and also YT changes things while you upload so the better the recording is (film and audio) the best you get on the net(YT),,BUY for example a high end logitech webcam and you can film HD too..

Maybe you can search on YT examples in ''home recording low price''..
When you have the time it sure is woth it..

Willem

Ps I am no expert,,maybe Al is,, he does something with a mixer too,,He also has the Boss micro BR but I don't know if he works with it everytime..

edit: when you use the video editing program AVS it as a audio tool too.....you can change it a bit..

second edit: i do use the mike from my computer headset,,i think they have very good mikes,,there are one as a usb and there are ones just with the stereo pins..
Hi Willem,
the mixer is just a way of mixing more than one source at a time. You can set your vocal and instrument levels on the mixer and then record. You are stuck with what you recorded level/mix wise, as non of it is seperate. Even using no mixer and recording vocal and guitar on two mics into a DAW there is still a level of spill on both recordings. The only way to get a vocal recording and instrument recording clean with no spillover, is to record the instrument only first, then play the instrument on a channel in the daw while recording the vocal and listening to the music as you add the vocal using headphones to listen. (This is just for info') :)

What someone could do without using a DAW is: Record on a digital recorder Boss micro BR or similar, then join this up to your video by syncing it and reducing the volume on the videos own sound, this leaves only the digitally recorded Boss micro sound. From there if you are using a decent editor you can add effects. Another option if your editor has no audio effects and I just mean a little reverb here, would be to put the Boss recorded signal through a DAW add reverb then output to your video editor. That's all there is to it.

I hope this makes sense as it's a bit wordy and written in a spare moment.

Cheers,


Tom.


MarkM
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Thu Nov 01, 2012 10:40 am

Just going to chime in here with what I use for recording. Pretty simple really. I use two XLR mics (one for vocals and the other for guitar) plugged into an M-Audio Fast Track Pro box which is connected to my PC via USB. I use Reaper as the DAW, http://www.reaper.fm/, as it is a free download. I believe Daryl was using Reaper as well. In reaper I create two seperate tracks for guitar and vocals. That way you can adjust each track independently. Once you are done with the audio recordings you then render it down to a .wav file. From there I take the video recording and input it into Windows Live Moviemaker then add the .wav file from reaper. I turn off the video's sound and use only the .wav file sound. Slide the music starting point to match the video and your all set. I know this is probably easier said than done but once you get the hang of it it is very easy.



MarkM


willem
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Thu Nov 01, 2012 12:15 pm

MarkM wrote:
Just going to chime in here with what I use for recording. Pretty simple really. I use two XLR mics (one for vocals and the other for guitar) plugged into an M-Audio Fast Track Pro box which is connected to my PC via USB. I use Reaper as the DAW, http://www.reaper.fm/, as it is a free download. I believe Daryl was using Reaper as well. In reaper I create two seperate tracks for guitar and vocals. That way you can adjust each track independently. Once you are done with the audio recordings you then render it down to a .wav file. From there I take the video recording and input it into Windows Live Moviemaker then add the .wav file from reaper. I turn off the video's sound and use only the .wav file sound. Slide the music starting point to match the video and your all set. I know this is probably easier said than done but once you get the hang of it it is very easy.



MarkM

good stuff Mark



wiley
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Mon Nov 05, 2012 9:48 am



heyjoe
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Fri Nov 09, 2012 5:36 pm

Just wanted to add my two cents to this.

As Wiley so rightly said, Reaper is available on a time limited trial. After having it for the 30 days, I bought it, and I have to say that for what it is, and what it can do, it was cheap at $60 (approx £38 for UK). I've only scratched the surface of it, I'm busy reading the free user manual, all 400 pages of it, but I already know its the only DAW I'll ever need.

I'm mainly recording electric guitars on it, but I've used acoustic guitars in it too.
Using a cable that goes directly from your guitar into your pc/laptop is in my opinion, and many others, a bad idea. Your computer isn't set up to take this input and it could damage your speakers. So, you need some kind of audio interface to go from guitar to laptop, what you decided to get here is up to you, there are lots on the market, from super cheap chinese copies- of which 1 have one, which cost me less that $10, and works fine, to ones costing thousands of dollars. As Wiley said, your sound will only be as good as the weakest link in your signal chain. The $10 I bought off ebay is ok for what it is, I bought it to see how to use a DAW and how using VSTs, I could replicate the sounds of many amplifiers and effects units through my computer- and record them.

Finally, the hardset part once you have your software, audio interface and programs, cables, headphones and guitar all plugged in and ready to go, is getting all the parts to work with each other. Audio Interfaces, DAWs, and audio codes all need to be talking to each other before you hear a recorded note, it requires lots and lots and lots of patience, and lots of mesing around to find the right settings.

Good luck, and if you decided to use reaper, feel free to ask me anything if you get stuck, I've been writing things down as I progress, and I almost know what I'm doing now :cheer:

Joe


tacticaltal
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Fri Nov 09, 2012 9:54 pm

All you guys who responded, thanks so much, I really do appreciate the info, and Willem, thank you for the vide. I really haven't had a lot of time on here because I've been practicing when I can, and because of that, I've left a lot of posts un-thanked, but, believe me, I do appreciate you all. What a group!

Terry


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