Thetownend.com

I know some of you dudes are into all this so thought I would try to tap into your knowledge...

Am looking to record some tracks (guitar, bass, keys, vocals, not drums, too complex for amatuers like me)...

Studios are all well and good but expensive and everytime I have been in before, everything is always rushed since you have limited time, and all you end up with is a half finished compromise...

So, am looking to try and do some stuff at home = infinite time to tinker and fiddle..

Can anyone advise on a simple but effective...

 - home recording software
 - sound box or whatever the fook it is you need to connect amps to PC
 - any advice, sites, general tips etc etc.

Also, when replying, dont got too technical, am still very much right at the bottom of the learning curve when it comes to home recording..

Cheers.

Just wrote a long message and then computer turned off...right

First thing I guess to ask is do you own a mac or pc?

More and more people are using mac's for music nowadays for a number of reasons but don't worry you can get a great set up with a pc laptop or desktop.

first thing you'd want regardless is a soundcard/audio interface (soundbox as you call it)

http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/m-audio-fast-track--68396

That one is an Maudio fast track and it's a great price and will give you everything you need.
It has the ability for you to record a guitar and vocal at the same time for say a live performance.
It obviously then can be used to keep adding whatever tracks you wanted to record into your computer whether it be 2 or up to 64 tracks which I doubt you'd get to.

It's also a great unit as it's usb so just plugs straight into you computer without a hitch.
A great feature on it is it has "phantom power" this is need when you buy certain mic's which need powering, often called condenser microphones, they're very common and the maudio will power these fine. You can of course you a more standard mic "dynamic" it tend to be called.

So yep that's a good unit

The next thing is to decide what DAW you would want.
This is the software with your mixer and general control of what you've recorded and where you would mix your tracks.

There are loads about, Pro tools, Logic, Sonar, Cubase, ableton list goes on and all are good
I use a mac and use logic but for pc I honestly think that the pro tools free software that comes with the maudio would do you to start with just to get going.

They all basically do the same job but some come with more software instruments and plugins.

Plugins are just fx such as reverb, delay, compressor e.t.c they can come in handy making the recording sound nice, louder, or anything you want really to just mess about with.

Software instruments are brilliant things, most people use them with a midi keyboard (you can get usb one's now) and then these software instruments can be piano, bass, loops, strings sounds, that you can add to your recordings.

How's that for starters?

One thing I would say is post up your computer or laptop spec so people on here can tell you what your machine is capable of handling when it comes to boring stuff like ram, gb's e.t.c

hope that helps

Kaufman, cheers mate, brilliant. Are you our ex Kempsters, spacehopper now solo friend...I thinks its you, but cant recall?
Anyway...I will have a good read and digest.
Am on PC, I strongly suspect my PC will not be powerful enough, but there are three of us doing this, need to check with the others as to their specs.
Quick question, if you plug guitar into maudio via fx (and maybe even amp), will the maudio pick up the fx and preamp etc, or just the clean sound?

Rumours are true on that one I'm afraid.

Post specs when you have it and I'm sure Someone else or myself can tell you if it's good enough.
If you're just recording audio and not doing much else then it should be ok, it's when you start adding all the plugins which eventually happens as we as humans can't help but click on stuff to see what it does and that's the way it should be.

It comes down to the ram in your laptop or desktop and your processor. You can but more ram though to tackle this and you need to make sure your computer has enough space for all the audio being stored though most people have some sort of external hardrive nowadays so you can record straight onto that and that actually helps the computer run better than way.

You ask about fx when you record, here's kind of how it works.
You can choose to have "direct monitoring on" which means if say you put on a plugin that emulates a great fender amp tone or general guitar amp sound (loads of them about) then you'll hear the guitar being put through that as you record it down.
Problem sometimes is to do with Latency which is where your guitar signal is being changed from analog (your clean guitar sound) through the computer to digital (being processed) and then back to analog again (The sound you hear out of your computer)
Bad latency means you'll hear a gap of delay between what you play and what you hear out of the computer.
Your DAW (pro tools, logic) has a option where you can change this and bring it down so you can hardly hear the difference. Zero latency is what you want ideally but don't worry too much about it.
Worst case scenario (really worst case) is you record it clean and you can put the plugin on after anyway.

You can turn off the direct monitoring to get this option (think I'm right about all this but anyone is free to help me out or correct me

Make sense?

If you want to use your amp (what have you got?) then depending on whether it's a line 6 type things with a proper record out or a more standard amp you'd have to decide whether to put a mic in front of it or record direct in.
For home recordings you can honestly get great guitar sounds with the right plugins nowadays.
In an ideal situation we'd all have our amp's mic'ed up and cranked but it's alot harder to get a good sound that way when you don't have the nice room or experience to make it work.

that does make sense, but I was talking about putting fx on before the m-audio box, e.g. putting a guitar sound through a delay pedal or something...does that get picked up?

Gotcha....guess I better say goodbye to wife, son and dog. Wont be seeing them for a while!

Take the dog with you.

Yep it sure does, of course then you've "committed" to your sound then so if you've got a very specific delay sound you want from a pedal then go for it, if you want just a good delay then you can just add it after and then play with it. That's how most studios would go about it now.
Also you mentioned you were worried about drums, there are in fact loads of great loops available and drum machines built in or comes with the software which work great to play over or use as a demo or pro recordings.

So much easier to get great sounds now than you would think.

I dont doubt that at all, I was referring to micing up a kit...dont have the correct space and equipment for that...but also it's offending the drummer I am more concerned with!
Cheers for the advice mate anyway.

I was hoping this topic was to do with a home recording that someone had made in the bedroom department!

Dissapointed! Got all excited and everything!

 :D

I think that's how big my smile was until i opened the thread

Back on topic, if i was just wanting to record myself on my acoustic mumbling along in my bedroom, would I be right in thinking i'll be fine with getting a fairly decent mic and this?

http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/m-audio-pro-tools-recording-studio--85479

Also on topic, what's the best free DAW for windows these days?

Yep that is i think the older model but great price for that, I would pay the bit extra for the later model i think.

As for best DAW on windows, I'm not too sure, the free protools one is a great one to start and you can then compare. Sonar and cubase are still the most used I think.
I'm not a windows user so been out of the loop on that.

Don't know about free DAWs but Reaper is only $40USD. I use Ableton Live though that's not really suitable nor ideal for recording a band at home.

The Sound on Sound website is worth a read for anyone setting up a home studio, massive archive of articles though the last 12 months (I think) are only for subscribers. The articles on the recording of singles / albums are always worth a read, interesting one on the latest Foo Fighters album recently.

Pro Tools is the industry standard. It's not the somewhere to start, it's a destination! :) There is no equal. Seriously, learn Pro Tools and you have no need for another DAW, it's the benchmark all the others try and reach.

My mate is a sound engineer by trade, he says Pro Tools is second only to tape. (Which leads onto the Foo Fighters latest album - done on tape - previous albums Pro Tools.) And I think you'll find that's the general consensus in the industry. Pro Tools is the bollocks.

Edit: I see, Pro Tools SE.  :D  :doh:  :-[

Barry, a DAW is more about how it's used not how it's sounds, it's the 3rd party plugins and more importantly audio gear that is used alongside it that makes the records great.
Pro tools has been industry for years but not necessarily the best.
Granted it's used in most large studios though I used cubase for years and never got further than putting on eq and reverb. Logic made me realise the amazing things that can be done with audio and mixing, but everyone is different. I know people who love and use ableton and even garage is excellent.  
I know someone on this forum who uses sonar, so hopefully they can tell you about about that.

But you're right Barry that for a beginner the free pro tools is the way to go. least then they can decide if they like if or not

Complete and utter bollocks. I know Ableton Live the best and it does stuff that Pro Tools can only dream about, yet has weaknesses at the same time - a lot of people move from Live to another DAW for mastering (especially at a pro level) for example. All DAW's are different, good at some things and bad at others.

Exactly

OK, my bad. I think I clearly don't have a varied enough knowledge to knowingly say from my own experience one is greater than the other. :)

All I know is, I used to sequence using Cubase and formerly Logic and perhaps because of misconstrued semantics, never considered them DAWs (yes I know what it stands for) I just thought of them as basic sequencers and a DAW a step up... :oops:

I suppose in my mind I've always looked at Pro Tools as the benchmark because it's on a kind of pedestal due to it's use by professionals.

I mean christ, my mate has a £20k desk for Pro Tools. I remember going to Turnkey on Tottenham Court rd and seeing their sick Pro Tools room. It's things like that, that have elevated it in my mind.

I suppose we all have favourites and stick to them. I thought Sonar was gash, I never liked Logic much (pre Mac) another mate won't touch anything else and I've never seen Ableton. (The early version a mate tried and hated it, so I gave it a wide berth - and I didn't want to change!)

Barry, yep completely understand why you think that and a lot of people will say pro tools is the best and industry standard.
It's definitely the biggest brand.
You're right about logic pre mac, very hard to use i found but now it's one of the easiest to get around and comes with so many included software instruments and plugins.
There's also the fact that there's a nice amount ahem... cracked stuff if you know where to look or who to ask.