computer recording

Champers · Post by **Champers** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:28 am

ok something for you more technically minded members. my computers crap and i need a new one, ive got a mate whos said hes gunna build me some awesome games machine but i want something where i can record guitar tracks onto it, what would i need to do this? i wouldnt mind something where i can put in a drum track and bass line as well would getting something like that add to much to the price. also my boss gt-6 pedal has a midi in/out thing and a digital out for computer use what do i need to get that going?

any help would be greatly appreciated

VillageIdiot · Post by **VillageIdiot** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:30 am

The MIDI in/out can't be used for recording. It can be used for editing *MAYBE*, but probably for external switching.

Post by Bg » Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:33 am

If you can play games with it, its plenty fast enough to do some awesome recording

you just need a reasonable soundcard - i.e. soundblaster live minimum, don't rely on the inbuilt soundcard on motherboard thing. SB Lives are dirt cheap anyway so you can throw one in for the price of a couple of bottles of wine

VillageIdiot · Post by **VillageIdiot** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:36 am

Yeah I've got an SB Live, and my stuff sounds pretty good.

Champers · Post by **Champers** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:45 am

yeah it said the midi was just for switching, i dont want to skimp out and regret it later is the soundblaster live lacking any features i should really look for? also what program do i need to add a drum track or other instruments like bg's pink floyd recording?

Post by Bg » Sun Mar 28, 2004 12:51 am

nope for home recording the sb live is adequate... if you want to go for noiseless tracks you need ot start spending BIG CASH, it helps if you do it outboard too so not to pick up noise from the PC, but lets face it, if the monitor is switched on you're going to get a shitface of noise anyway.

software starts at freeware/shareware/expensiveware and pirateware. I like Cooledit Pro, Goldwave, Cubase and Cakewalk. Look at the first two as they are shareware then build up to the others. I bought Cakewalk but have a trial version of Cubase that doesn't seem to run out - both have their uses but if push came to shove, I could live without cubase.

Polar Bear · Post by **Polar Bear** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 2:38 pm

if you want to record get a Mac. can't be beaten.

offender · Post by **offender** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:08 pm

If you find any of my clips in the tone/clips section you can see an example of recording done on a computer with a lower-end spec.

The recording is done using the line-out port of my Marshall practice amp to the line-in port on an old Sound-Blaster 16 (circa 1994) which is plugged into an old Pentium 200 (circa 1998). Recording and track-mixing was done using software that costs though! This is where expense can come in.

Its moderately trivial to get the sound onto your computer.
However you need some decent software then to make that sound into the end result you want!

Getting drum and bass tracks is an interesting one - if you want to generate your own then again you'll have to look at software to do this. Otherwise there are lots of MIDI files out there that you can download, and using the software you can mix the tracks into what you have recorded.

My usual procedure is

1. Start the software recording
2. Start the song/track I want to play along with playing (the computer can't 'hear' it though - playing through my stereo or something)
3. Play along to that
4. Save the track I recorded
5. Mix in the song I was playing along with (I always have a copy of the song on my computer so this makes it easy)
6. Save the master file (usually 15-20 mb)
7. Then go about using the various compression options to produce a smaller file which is a good tradeoff of size and quality.

offender · Post by **offender** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:10 pm

(note I haven't done any recording for a good couple of months now - I find it a somewhat frustrating process, not because things go wrong - but just the drive to make it sound how you want it to - after 20 takes you end up thinking "is this really worth it?")

However, thats just because my focus is on learning the guitar rather than recording stuff - if you're keen the results can be worth it!

Richy11 · Post by **Richy11** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:08 am

Champers wrote:ok something for you more technically minded members. my computers crap and i need a new one, ive got a mate whos said hes gunna build me some awesome games machine but i want something where i can record guitar tracks onto it, what would i need to do this? i wouldnt mind something where i can put in a drum track and bass line as well would getting something like that add to much to the price. also my boss gt-6 pedal has a midi in/out thing and a digital out for computer use what do i need to get that going?

any help would be greatly appreciated

Most new computers will come with a sound card, that has a mic plug in it.
So you don't even need midi. You can run a mic or your line out straight into the computer. Also get a programme called "Reason" it comes with hundreds of drum tracks pre programmed. You can change the pitch & tempo. And it come with heaps of inbuilt effects that you can put onto your guitar tracks after you've recorded them.
You'll need a mixer and a special after market sound card to record multiple tracks at once though. Ohterwise they will all end a up in mono. So you won't be able to pan and fade individually.

Champers · Post by **Champers** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 12:22 pm

offender wrote:The recording is done using the line-out port of my Marshall practice amp to the line-in port on an old Sound-Blaster 16.

that reminds me my marshall head has a XLR out for silent recording could i get an adapter to plug that into my computer?

Post by Bg » Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:00 pm

yeah that should be fine..

Recording yourself is a good tool in the process of learning though - you can find out how bad your timing really is, after 20 takes it should be a lot better

Gelato · Post by **Gelato** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 12:10 pm

I've been working on this at home for about 8 years now, and I've only recently got it right. My current setup is a AMD Athlon 2400 PC with 1Gb of RAM, an Audiowerx soundcard (semi-pro 16 channel card) and ATA133 disks. All the hardware, except the drives and case, were bought off TradeMe for a total of <$500. For software I use CuBase SX and Reason. On my old PC (Celeron 800, with SB Live! card) I could only record about 10 tracks before things would start dropping out and sounding pretty bad. Now I can get at least 32 tracks (haven't tried any more than that) with barely a blip on the CPU usage meter.

I use the drum machine in Reason to create drum loops and fills and import them into CuBase. Bass is an actually honest to goodness bass guitar (not that I condone the use of such things though

).

Before the PC I run my guitar straight into a Zoom 9150 effects unit, then run a stereo lead from the headphone jack (because it has amp modeling on it) into left and right RCA leads into the Audiowerx card. From there I can export to mp3 or wav in CuBase and burn to CD etc.

I've used Cakewalk for most of my home recording life, but prefer CuBase by miles now that I've used both.

VillageIdiot · Post by **VillageIdiot** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 11:35 pm

What inputs does that card take?

I'm sick of the line in on the SBlive- seems like a dirty way to record. More then one in would definitely be nice.

Post by Bg » Sun Apr 04, 2004 1:46 am

quick and dirty though... thats all I use - do you need higher quality as a learning tool? I use an outboard mixer etc too, as long as you turn off the monitor its pretty quiet - if you want better quality get one of those extigy external usb sound cards. If you're serious about it you will have to spend big cash! You only need one input at a time unless you're playing two instruments at once

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