Recording setup advice...?

TheAlex

TheAlex

TheAlex

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I don't have much of an idea when it comes to setting up a PC for sound recording, basically I want to record keyboards, guitar, vocals and have midi too...I'll be using software to create drums.

I've had a trawl through the forums here and from what I can gather M-audio wouldn't be a bad choice for a soundcard, I have a friend who's recommended the M-audio 2496. As I'm a complete beginner to this I've no idea whether I can manage with just a soundcard or whether I'll need a mixer too. I've just upgraded my PC to an Athlon 64 X2 4200 with 2gb of RAM and my remaining budget for the sound setup is about £150...

Thanks for any suggestions. :)
 
The 2496 is reccomended and will do what you want. You will also need a mixer yeah. to record vocals, you'll of course need a mic too.

What kind of guitar are you using? Electric of acoustic? If acoustic, then you can use the mic, if electric you can either record the output from the amp using the mic (depends how good your amp is), or DI the guitar into a mixer line-in channel through a FX box or similar (if you have one). Keyboards connect straight to line in no problems. Do you intend to record all at once though?

Here are some suggestions assuming you don't:

mixer - Tapco MIX 50 or Behringer XENYX 502 around £30

mic - Shure SM57 £70

And the soundcard is the 2496. You will also need some cables, I can help with those too if you need :)
 
It'll mainly be electric guitar.

We'll never be recording vocals at the same time as anything else, but if it's easier not to do anything at the same time it doesn't matter too much. I already have a mic that cost £20, so hopefully that'll be good enough for now.

Those mixers look pretty good for the price and as for cables, any help you can give at all is much appreciated. :)
 
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Ok, bear in mind most those "kareoke" mics you can get arn't very good, but it is possible to get a decent mic for £20 so perhaps yours is alright. The SM57 is more or less industry standard and good all round if you do need to upgrade.

Still a few things with the guitar. Do you have a multi effects pedal or similar? If you do, this might offer the cleanest recording path. Otherwise, miking up the amp will do, but the quality depends a lot on how good your amp is, plus recordings tend to sound better with the amp cranked up high :eek:

For cables, you'll want 2x phono to 6.35mm mono jack cables. I know a place that sells a pair for £7 which are 2m length, but it's a competitor so if you can't find them at all yourself, msn me and i'll tell you (it's the same place you can get the mixer, soundcard etc anyway). These are to connect the mixer output to the soundcard input (with the 2496 card).

With your mic, do you have a detachable cable? It connects to the mic by 3 pin XLR? Or is it a fixed lead, in which case terminated in what? If it is detachable, use a normal XLR mic cable. If it is terminated in a 6.35mm jack like some cheaper models are, you'll need and adapter and unfortunately will miss being able to use balanced connection (possibility of more hissing, buzzing).

To connect the keyboard depends on it's available outputs. Is it only a headphone output, or are there master outputs? With only headphone out, you'd need a 3.5mm stereo minijack to 2xphono cable, most likely with a 3.5mm-6.35mm adapter also. They are quite common since they are used to connect hi-fi's to pcs, ipods to hi-fi's etc.

Photos of the mic and keyboard connectors would help :) . Oh, and the effects board too if you have one.
 
We don't have any effects pedals for the guitar and the mic does have a detachable cable with three pins.

The keyboard has all sorts of line-outs, including MIDI and 5mm (I think) jacks. I use it for gigs and in proper recording studios if that makes any difference, I'll try and get a photo of the back tomorrow. It's a Yamaha PSR 9000 and I can't find any pics of the back on t' Internet.

You've already been 100 times more helpful than a few hours trawling the Internet, thanks again!
 
Good that the mic has a detachable cable, it still may or may not be balanced, but should be easy to use either way. Was it supplied with any cable? It may have came with the right one, which has an XLR 3 pin plug on the other end. It may have a 6.35mm jack on the other end thogh, in which case a normal XLR mic lead will need to be bought.

To record the guitar, miking up the cab seems to be the main option left (alternatively, the amp may have a headphone out or similar which you could connect directly to the mixer?). Many guides on good miking techniques exist on the internet.

I see the specs on the PSR 9000. It does have master outs, but it didn't say if it was via phono or jack connection, so the photo would clear that up :)
 
Personally I would go the USB/FireWire interface route rather than the "cheap mixer and a soundcard" route. The pre's on these cheap mixers are often very nasty indeed.

Look at reviews for something along the lines of the E-MU 0404 USB 2.0 and PreSonus Inspire 1394 (I would get the PreSonus over the EMU).

If you're determined to get a PCI card in there (and I don't blame you - it's a more tried and tested way of doing things), then a combination of something like an M-Audio Delta 44 (or 66 if you need S/PDIF) and some cheap pre's (such as the M-Audio AudioBuddy, or ART Tube MP Studio V3), would produce far nicer results than a cheap mixer, while remaining well within your budget.

You get less routing options this way - but do you really need fx send/returns et al. at this stage?
 
That is another option yeah. With the PreSonus Inspire 1394, you will require something else to take care of MIDI by the looks of it. I haven't used these type of boxes before, though once our music tech lecturer used one so I've seen it in action (with a mac though).

I would say the analogue mixer is an easier route to use once it is setup, but may not produce such good recordings? With the £20 mic, i'm not sure how much difference it would make personally, but with the box I suppose you have that bit more scope to upgrade it in the future.

If you arn't planning to buy a new mic, you could actually spend more on the mixer and still fall in under budget. I have a Yamaha MG10/2 mixer here which I find good (£65). The large scale on the LED level graph is very useful, the mic inputs are inaudable apart from at the very highest gain (not a problem recording vocals or miking up guitar amps).
 
Dr.EM said:
I see the specs on the PSR 9000. It does have master outs, but it didn't say if it was via phono or jack connection, so the photo would clear that up :)
Click to expand...
They're definitely jack connections. The microphone is a Shure C606, it has a 3-pin connection on the microphone itself but the lead it came with just has a jack connection at the other end, so it looks like I'll need an XLR3 cable then.

For double the price, do you think it's worth getting an M-Audio Delta 66 over the 2496? I do need a PCI soundcard anyway and as that PreSonus and others don't seem to deal with MIDI perhaps it's the best way for me to go...

I've looked up both of those pre's, but as I'm a complete beginner in this, apart from the lack of MIDI inputs I don't really understand what the pro's, cons or differences would be in getting one of those or a mixer?
 
OK - a mixer will provide you with much more flexibility.
Mixers vary wildly in what inputs, outputs and functionality they provide you with and whether they provide stuff like FX loops. They will usually have some mic preamps in there - which is what you're after.

The way I see you using a mixer is plugging your keyboard into two audio channels at line level (assuming it is stereo), a mic from your guitar amp into another channel at mic level (usually using a 'trim' or gain control to adjust the level), and a vocal mic at mic level.

Often there is a switch on the mixer channel to go between line and mic level - sometimes you just turn the trim down for line stuff. It varies.

The M-Audio cards have jack outputs which would plug into your mixer, allowing you to use it as a master volume control, and giving you some nice routing options. Most people just plug 'em straight into their active speakers/amp though, and control volume in software or via the amp/active speakers.

Bear in mind that having a mixer will allow you to record many things on one audio track simultaniously. This cuts out your options for post-processing radically though. The M-Audio 2496 is a great card, but only allows you to record on two seperate tracks at once (plus MIDI).
The way you generally do this from your mixer is by usign the left and right outputs to go into the different inputs of the soudcard. Then anything you want on Track1 you pan hard left and anything on Track2 you pan hard right. They won't stay panned this way of course - once they are in your DAW software you can pan them any way you like :)

That's mixers in a nutshell for you I guess.

The soundcard + preamps solution is more simple IMO.
You get a soundcard (with as many inputs as tracks you wish to record simultaniously), and some discrete pre-amps. You could still use a 2496 if you only need to record two seperate tracks simultaniously.

Get as many pre-amps as mic tracks you need to record simultaniously if you get a Delta44 or 66, as it comes with a line-level break-out box.

The good thing about seperate pre-amps is that they sound much nicer than the generic ones you find in cheap mixers. When you get yourself a SM58 microphone (or similar, or better!) for vocals you will be glad you got seperate pre's.

Of course, it's possible to run a mixer *and* pre's in all sorts of combinations.

In truth, whatever you get out of these two sorts of set-ups will do the job for now.

I think a 2496 and one pre (or a cheap mixer, now that you know some of the pros and cons - bear in mind that, essentially you will just be using the mixer as one or two nasty mic pre's) might be a good starting point. This won't break the bank and will give you room to expand later on. It would give you an idea of what the whole business is about. It's really hard to explain in text - I think you have to play with audio gear for yourself to have a 'lightbulb moment' ;)

Thinking about it, the Delta44 (or 66) is probably overkill for now - and besides, it doesn't have built in MIDI, whereas the 2496 does :)

Ramble over!

BTW - have a look at WikiPedia for any terminology you don't understand - it's pretty good for audio stuff like that - for instance, here's the page on preamplifiers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamp
:cool:
 
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I would personally go the mixer and soundcard route since I know much more about them (I use that setup) and thats why I suggested it.

I guess the pros of the USB/Firewire box are possibly better pre's and it appears to accept instrument in (ie, guitar can be plugged striaght in).

Pros of the mixer and soundcard setup for me would be simpler to setup and it is more hands on to use (the boxes are controlled through software it appears). The cons might be worse pre's, but since you arn't planning to spend any money on a new mic (the one you have is better than I expected, Shure is a good make) that need not be the case. You can easily afford a better mixer like the Yamaha 10/2 I have. Actually, for you a better option might be the Soundcraft COMPACT 4, since you don't require so many inputs, all your money goes into higher quality parts. Soundcraft is an excellent make.

I don't think you require a Delta 66 card, this is for recording multiple instruments to multiple channels in the software. With that you'd need a 12 bus mixer to fully use it, or more to route the multiple outputs to various headphones etc.

The 2496 should give good quality and be easy to setup, the built in MIDI should be simple enough to get going.

I see you've recorded tracks in studios. You can't expect home recordings with this gear to be to that quality, but you should be able to get decent quality recording. A lot depends on how you mix it afterwards in the software.
 
Thanks folks, you've both been a great help. I've bookmarked this thread for future reference and ordered the M-Audio 2496 & Soundcraft mixer for £115 which seemed like an ocake deal.

I'd already used Wikipedia to look up things like S/PDIF, so yeah...that's about how knowledgeable I was two days ago. ;) I have all expectations that the recordings I'm doing are going to sound crap, so anything better than that I'll be pleased with, we've never really been completely pleased with anything we've done in a studio and I already know from that that paying more money for a studio gives us a better sound...to start with it's just so I can have a mess-around anyway and eventually get some of those 'light-bulb' moments.
 
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