Recording at home on a laptop

niallo22

Hi,

I want to start recording stuff I play on my acoustic onto my laptop(and maybe mess around with it once on). I have no recording experience whatsoever but I would consider myself fairly nifty with computers.

Can anyone reccomend what I would need in terms of software, microphones etc? Its going to be nothing serious but I would still like a good clean sound at the end of the day.

Baz_Masterplan

Hey,

Line 6 have a good range for what you are looking for that come with everything you need to get started including software and interface. Google it and have a look. I would also recommend an entry level condensor mic (maybe m-audio nova) to get you started.

UX1 is the model. It costs about 140 in music maker in Dublin.

Mic costs about 80 notes if you haggle.

Cheers,

Barry

cornbb

Whats your budget, do you intend to record any other instruments (such as voice), and to what extent do you want to add other stuff (e.g. electronic drums, instruments) after the recording stage?

P.S. if any of our regulars would like to volunteer to write a sticky to answer this very frequently-asked question it would be very awesome indeed

niallo22

All I want is to be able to record voice and guitar, and maybe have the option of adding another guitar track in there as well.

Thanks for the advice so far anyway!

red_ice

Get an mbox, they are great for home recordings. But if you want a cheap alternative, i highly recommend you get your hands on cool edit pro (2.1 pref) and follow the steps in my tut from this sticky.

Unplugged and vocals sound really crisp once its done, and take note, im using an average pc sound card, with a sh1tty pc mic for the recordings. Think of what it would sound like with an alright setup!

Ardent

I'm looking into using a laptop for audio recording myself. What do people think of the Tascam US-122 L interface?

Some questions for those who have it:

What's the latency like?
Can you use it as an audio output device, ie., playback audio, mp3 etc through it?
Also, is it robust enough to take a lot of abuse from travelling?

TelePaul

Ardent wrote:

I'm looking into using a laptop for audio recording myself. What do people think of the Tascam US-122 L interface?

Some questions for those who have it:

What's the latency like?
Can you use it as an audio output device, ie., playback audio, mp3 etc through it?
Also, is it robust enough to take a lot of abuse from travelling?

I have the older version, very user friendly. Nice and simple and it hans't quit on me yet.

1) Not bad for what I need, but I've never been able to work out if I'm running USB 1.0 or 2.0! My PC's pretty old but I use a real time amp sim without any grief.

2) Not sure what you mean...it HAS outputs....but it'll replace your standard soundcard so you can route mp3 etc through it - normally to studio monitors.

3) If you're careful, it's designed to fit in a laptop bag or the equivalent.

Niall0

I can highly recommend the line6 toneport .Ive recently bought a ux2 for use with my laptop and it works very well , great sound no dam latency .Very happy with it .Got it for around 180 off ebay.