| Home recording and general music post from the archived Yabb Recording Website Message Board. Some of the info here may be outdated but many of the audio recording and home studio tips are still good. Note: The only tags I made and attempt to convert are italics, bold, center and underline. So if you see some gibberish surrounded by brackets, just ignore it.
Recording Website Archived Yabb board Post
Febuary 2001 Yabb Message Board Archive
Subject: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by RR SOUNDER | 06/02/01 at 02:58:01
I just purchased an awesome Kurzweil 88 weighted key workstation. I have a 3 Shure mics and a Pentium2 Dell333 puter with 192mb ram and a full duplex Turtle Beach Montego soundcard. Cakewalk pro-8 and cool edit is also residing on my system. I am a singer/musician coming out of a 25 year cocoon so bear with me. :-/ The question is....What do I need to really make some good recordings at home??? This is what has been "thrown" at me in terms of ideas.... mackie 1202 or a 1402 mixer.....gina soundcard......midi interface....tascam 428...Is there anybody out there who can offer me meaningful advice on what would REALLY work well in my case? I usually bump myself up in features and quality and usually end up being pleased :)
Subject: Re: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by RR SOUNDER | 06/03/01 at 11:40:09
OK LISTEN UP GUYZ/GALZ....I am sure you all could tell that this was just a phoney baloney question ;)...I really wanted to look for anybody interested in accompanying me and a bunch of Victorias' Secrets models (they are all off for 2 months) for a 3 month Gulf of Mexico excursion in a 56 ft Ocean Charter cabin cruiser with 4 state rooms. There will an incredible array of beautiful woman of all ages as well as 3 notable chefs to tickle every pallate. Music will be provided by various artists who will be ferried to our predetermined locations every night. Now, answer that phoney question above and you're IN!
Subject: Re: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by old_dan | 06/03/01 at 18:53:24
ROTFLMAO!
Actually, you don't need much of anything. I think I would get the Mackie 1402 to start with. That way you would have some decent preamps for you mics. And your keyboard should work in Cakewalk. I'm not a Cakewalk expert but I'm pretty sure you can multitrack with it. Plus the turtle beach card is pretty good. You can always upgrade as you outgrow your present setup.
But I'm sorry I can't join you on the cruise. I spent way too much time in the Navy and hate boats ;D ;D ;D
Subject: Re: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by DanS | 06/04/01 at 07:40:20
Is Tyra Banks going?
She owes me $5!!!! ::)
Subject: Re: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by Liana | 06/04/01 at 08:26:56
Seems too hard a question, or maybe too many answers so nobody responds..I have similar predicament and will be finally getting a new soundcard for starters tomorrow, cant even remember what they ordered for me right now, I have just bought a shure 58A mic, it was the only thing they had in stock and a behringer mx602A eurorack, dont really understand how to use it yet. I know that at zero and standing back 2 feet I still get way to strong vocals and the sounds explodes on my speakers causi ???ng great hum even on low. I can't give advice but I'm hopeful someone will respond to you and I will learn something:) You didn't mention what instruments you are going to record besides vocals.
Subject: Re: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by Harry | 06/05/01 at 03:15:44
RR: Yes all you need is a mixer - that is if you want to record non-electronic instruments. I even know people here that don't use mixers and connect direct to sound-card, or use separate mic-pre-amps, but I think a mixer is really convenient.
I expect your sound card is 2-channel, for that a small mixer like the Beringer (is there an 'h' somewhere?) Eurorack 602 is good.
Liana, that's strange. What do you mean by 'zero'? I find the 602 a great little box. Do the levels on the 602 look OK? and if so, what's in between your 602 and your speakers?
Subject: Re: Hey Harry
by Liana | 06/05/01 at 04:20:09
My speakers are butt into my computer right now, and they are really crap. I wasn't given any connections with the mixer and cant put my speakers into it. Tomorrow...as my card didn't arrive, I will pick up some ideas on what speaker connections I need to use my stereo speakers straight out of mixer. I am still trying to work out how to use the mixer and I agree, this is the best way to do it, money wise $250-290 australian, pre-amps are the same cost without the options. Your question on what Im doing- gain control -
I turn it all the way right which I think is -40 or -60...I have mic on O (zero) and in record/play back control(desktop) I set mic + boost on very low and music on nearly nothing-because it is sooo loud, I still get bad noise when I belt out vocal high notes...it fuzzes. I now am trying to stand about a metre away and have instead of zero on the bottom level control I have about +8 level...it seems ok...strange thing is..when I mic only track in soundblaster 3 record...you can hardly hear vocals...I go back to reset and ...
back to turning up vocals to full bore in desktop and turning down level to -5...I feel like a yoyo...I hope my problems are solved with the new soundcard, it has multitrack recording software that hopefully will be much better and so it should for $600 australian!!
Subject: Re: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by pcrecord | 06/05/01 at 20:35:03
Hey !!! Stop that you're gonna damage something!!!! :-[ :-[ :-[
Lianna, you have a serious level ajustment issue !!! Do your mixer have a PFL option ? If so, punch it in and ajust the gain so the led on the meter play around 0db. After that, you can use the fader to change the output of the line. If you put the gain all the way up, it will surely create alot of distorsion and capture too much noise. A decent distance from the mic wolud be between 6'' and 1' in studio and near lips contact in live situation.
Now you can send the source from the mixer to the pc, using the direct out of the mixer (if you have one), a sub mix or an aux send. When you record in your pc, you should make sure you send the same level (near 0db) to your software ( Cakewalk right ?? ) Be careful not recording the playback at the same time you record the source. I meen, if you record voice with a mic and you listen to the music already in the pc without using direct out, you can record by mistake the complete mix on the new tracks (should'nt want to do this). So don't use the output of the mixer directly plugged in the input of the PC.
At the end, if all your track on the pc, contain only an instrument, you just need to ajust each recorded track volume to hear them clearly.
Hope, I helped !! ;)
Subject: Re: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by Liana | 06/05/01 at 21:04:06
You're just gonna laugh...I can tell!
I actually have no music software. I play the midi file or ram or wav (already completed)directly from realplayer and record from sblive3 record. I dont have any multitrack options..hey I cant even stop the effects going onto the music and vocals!! But never fear...el stupida here is getting new soundcard with software for multitracking...just have to find out the best way to open the book and get someone to translate it to me
Subject: Re: COMPUTER AND MIXER QUESTION....
by RR SOUNDER | 06/05/01 at 22:50:41
Thanks for all the responses..... and this thread is even getting more interesting! Thanks again ;D