Recording on computer

spunkymunky

I looking to record guitar, drums and vox onto my computer. I have editing programs and the like but how do i go about uploading the music?

Eoin Madsen

In multitrack or just in stereo? If you're never going to need more than 2 channels at the same time then all you need is a soundcard with a line in and maybe a small mixer.

If you're going multitrack then you need a special interface for your computer - either USB (external) or PCI (an internal card). In both cases you may or may not need a mixer as well. The basic signal path is:

sound -> microphone -> [ microphone preamplifier -> ADC (analogue/digital converter) -> computer i/o (input/output) ] -> harddisk

My setup includes a digital mixer (Behringer DDX3216): which has the mic pre, the ADC and a digital ADAT output
Linked to a PCI card with an ADAT input (RME Hammerfall): which handles the computer i/o

You can buy USB boxes which contain both the preamps, the ADCs, and the computer i/o (a USB interface in that case).

Shop in these places: http://www.digitalvillage.co.uk, http://www.thomann.de, http://www.musicstore.de

feylya

One thing I've always found with recording with the computer is that the distortion sounds crap. I was just using zoom 505-2 into the line in on the sound card. The clean sounds lovely but the distortion sounds terrible.

With the zoom going into an amp, it sounds decent enough. What am I doing wrong?

Buddhapadge

feylya wrote:

One thing I've always found with recording with the computer is that the distortion sounds crap. I was just using zoom 505-2 into the line in on the sound card. The clean sounds lovely but the distortion sounds terrible.

With the zoom going into an amp, it sounds decent enough. What am I doing wrong?

When you play the zoom through your amp your are colouring your sound, due to the amps EQ and speaker etc. If you want to record the sound the zoom makes from your amp you need to mic your amp and record that. Alternatively you could try guitar rig guitar rig . Ive been using this for a few months and it sounds fantastic for recording!

feylya

Micing the amp gives the same result tbh and Guitar Rig isn't a great solution cos you have to record the guitar clean.

Buddhapadge

feylya wrote:

Guitar Rig isn't a great solution cos you have to record the guitar clean.

If turn off direct monitoring in cubase and you hear the signal through whatever effect you have selected in guitar rig, or any other VST as you play. The source file is still clean but that means you can change the effects later if needed.

rob1891

if you have an ASIO (low latency) sound card you should be able to monitor the processed sound from guitar rig while play and recording without noticible delay. I did this with a few VST plugins just to try them out but I don't know if there is a vst module for guitar rig, or anything about it t.b.h.

Unfortunately I think only the latest soundblasters are ASIO, so if you haven't one of them, or bought a card designed for recording, then you probably don't have this.

Can you describe (or attach an mp3) of the problem. It's not just clipping is it?


Original poster, how much money do you have? Recording drums is expensive as it needs probably at least 4 mics which means 4 preamps, 4 stands, 8 cables and a soundcard that will take at least 4 inputs. If you don't have any of that stuff already you will be spending at least e1000

I don't want to think about how much we have spent to facilitate recording drum kits!

feylya

Here's a clip of kinda what I mean. I don't think I've anything recent but this is the Zoom going straight into the line in on an Audigy I think. Recorded it about 4 years ago so I'm not so sure...

http://members.boards.ie/feylya/example.zip

rob1891

the audigy has asio drivers afaik, so I'd try what buddha was saying with guitar rig.

The mp3, I don't know ... adding some low end mid on the eq. makes it a good bit better, I think having to do that kind of makes sense. The guitar amp speaker isn't great at reproducing high or bass end frequencies so they'd naturally drop off but by going direct in those frequencies don't get dropped off and you need to push the mid up a little to compensate ... *rob makes things up as he goes along* Anyway, messing around with the eq is one answer

The boss me-30 has a button, speaker cab emulation, and it's purpose is to give the guitar the sound of going through an amp proper when going straight to your recording desk. I'm really surprised that you don't get a much better sound when micing up the amp as that is the way it is normally done. You could still use guitar rig on the guitar+zoom after it gets recorded, pick a clean amp model and see how that effects the sound ....

eoin5

You could try changing the mic position about, also it has to be a good mic like an sm57. If it sounds good from your amp then a mic should do the trick.

spunkymunky

Thanks guys. Definately food for thought. Didnt think it was going to that comlicated. Sounds like a lot of work. Suppose now i got a few ideas for chrimbo presents.

Eoin When you said i/o on the computer form the ADC would it be like.. say through USB from a digital 4 track recorder. If so can you get stuff like that?
And drums mikes!!? Ive looked about and damn it expensive. Just like everything in drumming.

rob1891

I have a document on micing a drum kit on a budget, I'll look for it and post it up. They use 2 studioproject b1s as overheads and two more mics, possibly both sm57s, I dont know ... one on the snare and one in the kick (though you could get a better suited mic for the kick). Each of those mics are 100 ish euro anyway, a b1 will make a nice vocal mic when you come to do that also ... so the money isn't all sunk on doing the drums!

Mr. CooL ICE

rob1891 wrote:

Original poster, how much money do you have? Recording drums is expensive as it needs probably at least 4 mics which means 4 preamps, 4 stands, 8 cables and a soundcard that will take at least 4 inputs. If you don't have any of that stuff already you will be spending at least e1000

Would you not try putting the 4 preamps into something like a 4-track, then put that into the sound card? Would make a lot more sense, methinks.

This might be a bit crazy, but put the mics directly into the 4-track, and then through some sort of amp (such as a stereo amp, maybe something off a 20 year old stereo would work), and into the sound card?

Just trying to reduce the amount of equipment necessary

rob1891

You wouldn't need to use the stereo amp though, we used to take mixer and pan one set of mics to the left and the other set to the right, and then plug that into a regular sound card and record 2 tracks, left and right, the output level from the mixer was sufficient for the line in of the soundcard. Same can be done with a 4 track.

But the results have been much better (and easier to get) with a 8 track digital interface as we can record each mic on its own. If a mistake was made in mixing the tracks with our original setup there was nothing that could be done about it, but by having the capacity to record each mic on it's own and mix them on the PC we can change levels mid track, get the eq right for each, put effects on individual pieces of kit (touch of reverb on the snare) and generally fix things that probably wouldn't need fixing if we had the skill ... we don't, so it helps a lot!!!

So yeah, if you already have a mixer/4 track you just need the mics, but if you can also afford something like a m-audio delta 1010, an 8in/8out pci sound card (250 on ebay which would do the ADC (analogue/digital converter) -> computer i/o (input/output) ] -> harddisk set of stages) then it gives you a whole lot more flexibility and room for expansion, and you can still use the preamps on your mixer via the inserts / aux send / bussing or all of the above.

The whole thing is a big pit that you can throw a lot of money into, all depends on how much you have!

Rob

spunkymunky

Again guys thanks. I think this could take a while to get going but now i have a much better idea about whats going on (from knowing pretty much nothing ).