Cheap home studio (beginer)

Brian LeBlanc · Post by **Brian LeBlanc** » 19 Mar 2008 11:52 am

- What do I need...
- or where do I go (!)
- to findout what I need to record some demos @ home
- got a Dell laptop with Vista...
- plan to over lay; vocal, guitar, steel, bass, drums
- Beginer!

Steinar Gregertsen · Post by **Steinar Gregertsen** » 19 Mar 2008 12:12 pm

I'm not sure how many of the better known recording softwares who's developed solid drivers for Vista yet, but for a very cheap solution (in fact it's so cheap that it's free

) that runs on Vista you could check out Reaper - http://www.reaper.fm/download.php

I installed it on my office/online Vista PC just to check it out and was impressed by what it offers considering it's a freebie.
Then you'll need an interface,- there are many cheap and solid USB interfaces available today, and most of them comes bundled with stripped down versions of recording software like ProTools and Cubase. Just make sure they're Vista compatible.

I believe it's easier and cheaper to get into home recording now than it's ever been, but if you have no experience in recording then you might find the learning curve a bit steep at first. Just be patient, don't despair

and don't try to learn everything at once, take it one step at a time.

Steinar

Bent Romnes · Post by **Bent Romnes** » 19 Mar 2008 1:38 pm

Brian,
Exciting and interesting stuff...something about sound that just gets me, plus this thing that you can record "sound on sound" like the old, fancier tape decks.
I have slowly built up a home recording outfit. Now that I have spent the bucks I had better learn how to use it!!
I have received some pretty valuable coaching and advice from a Forum friend, John Roche. I was lucky to hook up with him...or rather he offered to show me some stuff, and continues to help me. I just wanted to say this to let everybody know what a great person John is.

As to my outfit so far:
I bought the MXL 990 and 992 combo mics from Musician's Friend for $99. Even though the preamp that came with it is crap, it don't matter...$100 for 2 good recording mics is a great deal.
On John's recommendation I bought the Alesis Multimix 8 USB 2.0 audio interface. It has 8 channels with preamp& phantom power, plus, if you want to use it all kinds of flavoring of the sound before running it into your recording software, there are eq's and up to 99 different flavorings available ( reverb, echo etc etc). Im not sure of the price on these.. I got a great deal because of a mess-up in the store. I paid $185.

Then, also on John's recommendation, I downloaded the Adobe Audition 3.0 that is on a free 30 day trial.
AA has a fairly steep learning curve for me (contrary to what you said, John) But with John's constant coaching I WILL learn this one also. Who knows, maybe you learn a lot faster than me. Also, I have read a lot if good stuff about Reaper. With Steinar recommending this one, I suggest you go with it for starters anyway, because Steinar certainly knows his stuff when it comes to home recording.

Keep us posted, Brian

Bent

Bob Martin · Post by **Bob Martin** » 19 Mar 2008 2:53 pm

I have to agree with Steinar on Reaper I have it and it rivals a lot of the bigger and much more expensive recording software applications. For now its free but I look for them to go a paid version soon its just to good not to so I'd grab a copy soon. I don't think its an open source project meaning that they never plan to charge I just think they are testing the water for a paid version later on but of course could be wrong

Big Bob

John Roche · Post by **John Roche** » 19 Mar 2008 4:12 pm

Bent, thank you for your kind words, Audition is one of the best multi recording software out there as you will find out when you get the CD's on how to use it that I sent you, for anyone interested in home recording or doing it at a pro level it is a wonderful piece of kit, as we say in the UK. Sonar and Cubase are also very good but over complicated for the beginner and users get lost, Audition makes the whole process a lot more easy and more understandable and will enable you to move on to the big boys if you need to, But my guess is that once you use Audition you will find that it has everything you need and more. IMHO

Tony Dingus · Post by **Tony Dingus** » 3 May 2008 6:20 pm

I downloaded AUDACITY, it's a free download. My son has messed around with it and recorded a little. I'm going to try it out in a few days and see how good it is.

Tony

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 3 May 2008 6:35 pm

I found Audacity frustratingly limited for recording, but loved using Reaper. I found it very easy to get to know my way around (well, I have watched over my sound engineer's shoulder on several projects so I had some clue as to how to do a few things already). I do recommend Reaper.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 4 May 2008 2:42 am

A few months back I bought a Tascam US-144 ( USB) Interface for PC recording , it has two channel MIC/LINE ( high /low level/Guitar ) inputs , midi in's and outs,phantom power, phones out,line out, digital in , all the stuff you need to start PC recording and monitor what you are recording and it came with a copy of Cubase LE. I believe it was $150 @ GC. Regardless of what software you use an interface of some sort is required. This one to me seemed to be pretty flexible and it configured up in just a few moments to the PC.

The biggest issue with some of this PC recording is the interfacing and which inputs/outputs are active and available. Most software packages are pretty strait forward. I also used reaper but decided to just go with the Cubase LE that came with the interface.

Although I generally use a 16 track workstation I have started using the Cubase/Midi/Analog deal for editing. One of the things that I find quite nice is that if you import a BIAB midi file into Cubase ( probably all of them ) it separates the midi file into separate tracks for each instrument so you can edit , copy , paste any single Instrument line within the midi file. This is especially good for drum editing. If you import a Wave file you can do the same thing, edit, copy, paste whatever. This is probably a common feature set with the different softwares out there.

here's the Tascam Interface.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 4 May 2008 9:55 am

Probably the cheapest way to get into digital home recording is to get a small digital recorder such as the Zoom H4. It has decent built in mikes, and jacks for external mikes. You can only record two tracks at a time; but it comes bundled with basic Cubase software that allows overdubbing many tracks.

Randy Cordle · Post by **Randy Cordle** » 7 May 2008 7:50 am

Hi Brian,
If you're new to recording and wish to avoid all of the associated computer hassles, I'd recommend going the stand alone digital recorder route for a number of reasons.

Primarily, you can use a mic and headphones and record anywhere at anytime. When inspiration strikes there's no waiting for a computer to boot or being tied to the interface location.

I've got a number of options available to me, but I use a Fostex MR8-HD for ease of use. It's only marginally more complicated than a cassette recorder.
You can plug a good set of computer speakers in if you don't like headphones. It records 4 tracks at the same time and has phantom power available for condenser mics.

I covered this in one of the first posts in this section, but here's the link if you wish to read more.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=99579