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Araganzar
May 24, 2003

Needs more cowbell!
Fun Shoe

NTT posted:

Ableton (and Garage Band) are more for conceptualization and beat making. You want a dedicated DAW. Cubase is very cheap and usually comes bundled with affordable, bare bones hardware accessories to interface mics/lines with your laptop/desktop. I like Sonar myself.

The absolute bottom of the barrel for a 'true' DAW is going to be Reaper. Free trial, 60bux for personal use.

Cubase LE came with the TASCAM - but I don't mind getting Sonar. I just need it to be easy because I am struggling with the core concepts of recording at the same time I am learning the software. How "locked in" do you get to the software, is it easy to learn Sonar or Pro Tools if you know Reaper or Cubase? My friends use Pro Tools.

Is the TASCAM US-200 okay for an entry-level audio interface? I do get some lag, and I have a firewire input. It has 2 SLR inputs, is that enough?


Southern Heel posted:

FWIW: I am considering M-Audio Axiom/Novation Impulse/Akai MPK for fully functioned devices and the M-Audio Keystation for plain keys. I'm fairly certain at getting 49 keys, but I've got a tiny voice in my head that says getting 61-keys would make it possible to 'learn to play piano' too.

If you want to do more of the kind of music on that sample, 49 keys will be fine, and also fine for practicing if you have access to a full keyboard elsewhere. But most "real piano" in songs is 2-handed chords with the left hand providing bass/movement/contrast, so if you have the room for 61 keys I would get them. You'll have less fun missing a full octave and you'll lose the big piano sound the range will provide. Not only that, it will limit how you think about that instrument musically.

Make sure you get an instrument with weighted keys and an octave button if you have any thought of learning piano. I don't know poo poo about which to recommend since it's been a million years since I bought one.

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its curtains for Kevin
Nov 14, 2011

Fruit is proof that the gods exist and love us.

Just kidding!

Life is meaningless
Studying all this stuff really makes me listen closer to music on my computer. I'm noticing that a lot of instruments are being mixed incredibly light, and I guess that's because if they weren't the mix would sound like poo poo. I suppose at the end of the day a complex series of tracks really does need to be gutted on a lot of EQs and turned down to maintain a good mix, huh?



And when they have two things they want to be prominent in the mix they pan them out so they don't have to remove the mids from one of them.

Interstitial Abs
Jul 11, 2008

NTT posted:

Studying all this stuff really makes me listen closer to music on my computer. I'm noticing that a lot of instruments are being mixed incredibly light, and I guess that's because if they weren't the mix would sound like poo poo. I suppose at the end of the day a complex series of tracks really does need to be gutted on a lot of EQs and turned down to maintain a good mix, huh?
http://youtu.be/_5ps9kjlzzo

This might interest you. All the tracks from "whole lotta love" soloed, then put together. Granted we are talking great ears, great players, great gear... But a few of the sounds might feel a little "meh" on their own (like the bass), but all piled together you have a classic rockin track.

Plus this is straight forward rock with ten or so tracks, so things can be on the thicker side. If you do a wall of indie 5 guitar rock drone and full choir plus glockenspiel, yeah, you gotta thin each thing out a little.

PS soloed Robert Plant "mangasms". :stare:

Gym Leader Barack
Oct 31, 2005

Grimey Drawer

Southern Heel posted:

I've been playing with Reaper after deciding to embrace DAW instead of physical 8-tracks and drum machines. Everything is going quite well, after an hour or so I had this composed:
https://soundcloud.com/williamayerst/beowulf

I'm familiar with both music theory and generally how to play chords and melodies (in theory) on the piano (with much headscratching).

I'm looking at picking up a keyboard midi controller to make composing synths and strings more easily, and I've really only got two questions which will help guide me towards keys-only, and what size:

Question 1) For those people who bought a controller primarily for backing tracks and simple chords/melodies during production, did you find yourself branching out to actual piano playing?

Question 2) For those people who didn't go into production with experience using pads/faders, did you find yourself using them (or wishing you had them?)

FWIW: I am considering M-Audio Axiom/Novation Impulse/Akai MPK for fully functioned devices and the M-Audio Keystation for plain keys. I'm fairly certain at getting 49 keys, but I've got a tiny voice in my head that says getting 61-keys would make it possible to 'learn to play piano' too.

Before you buy a controller check out the midi guitar software from jam origin, it lets you control anything midi with just a regular guitar and an audio interface. No bullshit, it works staggeringly well and tracks notes and chords fast. I had a keyboard midi controller for a while but it didn't really help me too much as I'm not a keyboard player so most of the time was spent locating the notes I wanted and then tapping them in with terrible technique, only to clean them up later on in the DAW anyway so I may as well have just penciled them in. Having the guitar as the controller gives me the freedom of an interface that I am already fluent in and gets me better results because I don't have to worry about which keys to press as well as what notes I want to play, I would like to learn piano but my time is already stretched between guitar, drums, vocals and production. There's a full function demo so it can't hurt to give it a shot.


Sometimes when I am mixing in Logic it would be nice to have some physical faders, I have a nanokontrol which is ok for small projects but after I do a bunch of sends and returns the project easily balloons out to 20+ tracks so the non-motorised faders just become a hassle after a while. The Behringer X control looks pretty good in pictures but I will wait for reviews. I saw some product which was just a single motorised fader that is active for the selected track, that could be a good compromise as I don't really need to move multiple faders at once and if I did I could just buss them to a single channel and use the single fader there.
Pads are great for drums, much easier to capture a beat in your head by tapping it out rather than drawing it in, so if you do get something I'd recommend to have pads on it.

Axeman Jim
Nov 21, 2010

The Canadians replied that they would rather ride a moose.
As decent as guitar-based midi controllers are getting these days, nothing beats a keyboard-type input for midi, for a host of reasons, and I speak as someone who has been playing guitar for 25 and piano for 9 months. First up, with a guitar controller you're much more limited in the notes you can put down - only 6 notes at a time max, with severe limitations on how far apart they can be, whereas a keyboard you can have up to 10, several octaves apart. Your control over note lengths is much less and unless you combine a piano-style footpedal with a guitar controller (which I can tell you is not easy to do) you'll have gaps in the midi while you change chord.

Plus the way you play a guitar is going to sound a lot different to how you play a keyboard, and many synth or sampled instruments are just going to sound wrong if played on a guitar. Not only pianos obviously, but organs, synths, mallet instruments and others.

I'm a lovely keyboard player, but even with my minimal skills I reckon I can put down chords and backings three or four times as fast with a keyboard controller than with a guitar controller because it's just less hassle - simple parts you can do with just one hand.

If you're in any way serious about production, sooner or later you're going to have to bite the bullet and learn to play the piano. It's like becoming a serious car person without learning to drive stick - the more serious it gets, the more you are limited, and the more you're going to have to do workarounds to get around that huge gap in your skillset.

To answer your second question, I've never used hardware faders. My production style isn't very "ride the faders" anyway, and I've never had a problem doing it with a mouse on software faders when the need has arisen. I think if you didn't grow up on analogue gear (I've been using DAW-based recording since day one), it's not something you miss.

Edit: I do have a set of pads but I'm too unco-ordinated to do much with them - I'm an even worse drummer than I am a keyboard player. Most of the time I just program them or bash a key on the keyboard for simpler parts.

GreatGreen
Jul 3, 2007
That's not what gaslighting means you hyperbolic dipshit.
Has anybody heard anything good or bad about JBL LSR305 and/or JBL LSR308 studio monitors?

They seem to be getting really good reviews around other gear forums and they're priced extremely competitively. Just wondering if you guys have any experience with them.

A MIRACLE
Sep 17, 2007

All right. It's Saturday night; I have no date, a two-liter bottle of Shasta and my all-Rush mix-tape... Let's rock.

I have the 5" ones actually. Not sure what questions you have but I have no complaints. Picked em up cause they're self powered and were reasonably priced. I keep em cranked all the way and just dial in the master fader on my mixer for listening. Haven't recorded anything with them though, just use them for live monitoring with my D888 when friends come over to jam, or solo jamming.

GreatGreen
Jul 3, 2007
That's not what gaslighting means you hyperbolic dipshit.

A MIRACLE posted:

I have the 5" ones actually. Not sure what questions you have but I have no complaints. Picked em up cause they're self powered and were reasonably priced. I keep em cranked all the way and just dial in the master fader on my mixer for listening. Haven't recorded anything with them though, just use them for live monitoring with my D888 when friends come over to jam, or solo jamming.

I guess the biggest question I have, mostly because I'm not intimately familiar with the studio monitor market and everything it has to offer, is basically whether or not I made a good purchase.

Are they acurate? Are they good relative to other speakers in their price range?

VoodooXT
Feb 24, 2006
I want Tong Po! Give me Tong Po!

GreatGreen posted:

Has anybody heard anything good or bad about JBL LSR305 and/or JBL LSR308 studio monitors?

They seem to be getting really good reviews around other gear forums and they're priced extremely competitively. Just wondering if you guys have any experience with them.

I have the LSR308s. They're pretty good for the money though this is coming from someone who spent his entire audio engineering career having to make do with the lo-fi aesthetic and squeezing whatever lemons to get lemonade. In any case, they sound pretty neutral, pretty good bass response.

Southern Heel
Jul 2, 2004

^ thank you both for advice - I went for a cheaper Korg MicroKey. I did some research on the ASBRM Grading and it looks like if I wanted to learn to play 'piano' (versus adding synth lines to songs) then this will at least get me a year or so in, at a very low cost.

Anyway, now I also have my Scarlett 2i2 and I got it working, with some wierd idiosyncracies that I need to work through (like how after hibernating and resuming, all sound was going through the 2i2 instead of the system default, there was distortion everywhere, etc.) - hopefully you guys can give me a hand a little later.

One specific question I have is best-practise for recording/monitoring: should I try and record using direct monitoring, or should I try and tweak my DAW so I can monitor through that with as little latency as possible?

Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jul 11, 2014

Gym Leader Barack
Oct 31, 2005

Grimey Drawer
Depending on what I am doing I will use either direct or DAW monitoring. For jamming and writing I run my zoom multifx and mic through the direct input and just capture a stereo track so I can revisit ideas later on, but when I am producing I will generally run it through the DAW because I record a clean DI guitar signal and use Guitar Rig or Scuffham S-Gear to give me the sounds I want as I track it while also letting me doubletrack and change effects easily later on. Latency on the guitar sound is practically nil when recording this way, but if I have a bunch of other tracks with effects and sends already in place then it can take a few hundred ms for the system to process all that information so what I record will be slightly offset to the track when played back later (this would also appear even if you direct monitored your guitar), so the best practice would be to freeze or bounce all other tracks to plain audio files when recording to prevent this alignment issue happening.

Also, when you say that

Southern Heel posted:

after hibernating and resuming, all sound was going through the 2i2 instead of the system default, there was distortion everywhere, etc.
do you mean that you have instruments in via the 2i2 and your speakers plugged into a different sound card? If so then you should make it so everything passes through the 2i2, all ins and outs, otherwise I don't think direct monitoring will even function properly. Both interfaces I have owned did their direct out from the unit itself, so much so that they can be used standalone independent of a computer, and looking at the specs of the 2i2 it does say that the direct option routes the sound from the ins to the outs on the device. You might need an adapter cable or two depending on what speakers you use (I'm guessing computer speakers instead of monitors as you only just got the interface), but the quality of the audio from the 2i2 will likely be much better than the sound card in your computer so endeavour to have all your sound coming in and out the one unit, this will avoid any latency that could happen when traveling between the two interfaces.

Southern Heel
Jul 2, 2004

^ It seems it's just an idiosyncracy, after some research - unplugging and replugging the USB connection sorts everything out.

Having so many options has put me in a state of analysis-paralysis compared to my Tascam 8-track's single bass, single drum, double vocal, double guitar layout. I'll try and reign in my expections.

autistic cum slut
Jun 3, 2011
Dumb question but I have a Saffire Pro 40 - if I am using my Casio Privia PX-350 in a DAW like Ableton Live should I connect it to my PC via USB, should I connect it via the MIDI port to the Saffire or does it not make a difference either way?

I am getting the Axe-Fx II XL soon as well - is it better to connect that via USB or via an instrument input on the Saffire?

GreatGreen
Jul 3, 2007
That's not what gaslighting means you hyperbolic dipshit.

autistic cum slut posted:

I am getting the Axe-Fx II XL soon as well - is it better to connect that via USB or via an instrument input on the Saffire?

it would probably be better to record it through USB. There is zero lag relative to the normal outputs and your signal will have to go through one less pass of DA:AD conversion. Plus, you'll want to connect your Axe-Fx to your computer through USB anyway so you can use the Axe Edit software when you make patches. It's a big time saver compared to front panel editing.

Then again, I'm not totally sure you can record via USB if you don't make the Axe-Fx pull double duty as your sound card. If you can't use the Axe's USB output and your other chosen interface simultaneously, I'd at least try and connect the Axe-Fx via s/pdif for digital signal preservation.

GreatGreen fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jul 16, 2014

Dudebro
Jan 1, 2010
I :fap: TO UNDERAGE GYMNASTS
I'm taking up something new again and using my DSLR to make some youtube videos. I'd like recommendations for a cheap-ish mic (lavalier mic) that I can use to help me improve the sound when recording with my Canon T3i. I'd prefer one that doesn't require batteries unless it's really recommended. This is going to be mostly indoors recording and just for myself, one person speaking. I want to plug in the mic directly to the camera. I won't be more than a few feet from the camera, at most two metres. If a lav mic isn't recommended, then what else can I use? I'll spend more if it's really recommended.

Basically, I want my videos to have an upgrade in sound, but doesn't need to be professional quality obviously.

Thanks for any help!

OhNoLookOutRUN
Nov 8, 2004

dorito dave
Upgrade time.

My old recording PC, which I threw together five or six years ago out of spare parts I had laying around, is finally making me want to put an axe through it. So I'm going to assemble some new poo poo, but I'm half a decade out of date of what's out there now. I'm currently using an ancient version of protools with a digi002 rack, and my first thought was just build new pc get new version of protools, but the internet tells me that the new versions of protools don't play nice with pc's. I'd like to keep using the digi002, but have no idea what newer software it will work with, or whether or not I should just pony up the money and buy a God Damned Mac.

I just feel overwhelmed with options and am not sure whether or not any of them will be compatible and stable with my ancient interface and new PC. I'd appreciate any advice at all.

edit; I guess my question is, what newer software will work well on a new PC with my old, no longer supported Firewire interface?

OhNoLookOutRUN fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jul 22, 2014

strangemusic
Aug 7, 2008

I shield you because I need charge
Is not because I like you or anything!


Dudebro posted:

I'm taking up something new again and using my DSLR to make some youtube videos. I'd like recommendations for a cheap-ish mic (lavalier mic) that I can use to help me improve the sound when recording with my Canon T3i. I'd prefer one that doesn't require batteries unless it's really recommended. This is going to be mostly indoors recording and just for myself, one person speaking. I want to plug in the mic directly to the camera. I won't be more than a few feet from the camera, at most two metres. If a lav mic isn't recommended, then what else can I use? I'll spend more if it's really recommended.

Basically, I want my videos to have an upgrade in sound, but doesn't need to be professional quality obviously.

Thanks for any help!

Rode Smart Lav and iPhone?

Any lav you use will likey be on a wireless pack, and this gets expensive and uses batteries. The whole point of a lav is untethering your subject from the camera/recorder - they're generally not intended to be run wired. If you absolutely need the mic connected to the camera, go for a Rode Videomic or something similar. At short distances a decent on-camera mic should have no issues picking up a conversation indoors. Most on-camera mics of this type will have a supercardioid option which is very good at zooming right in on a particular sound source while rejecting surrounding noise.

strangemusic fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jul 22, 2014

Dudebro
Jan 1, 2010
I :fap: TO UNDERAGE GYMNASTS

strangemusic posted:

Rode Smart Lav and iPhone?

Any lav you use will likey be on a wireless pack, and this gets expensive and uses batteries. The whole point of a lav is untethering your subject from the camera/recorder - they're generally not intended to be run wired. If you absolutely need the mic connected to the camera, go for a Rode Videomic or something similar. At short distances a decent on-camera mic should have no issues picking up a conversation indoors. Most on-camera mics of this type will have a supercardioid option which is very good at zooming right in on a particular sound source while rejecting surrounding noise.

Is there a site to get really cheap mics? Because I think that's all I need.

The Rode videomic looks interesting. I may get that. It looks pretty cool too. Any idea how far the speaker can get before sounding like they're not beside the camera?

strangemusic
Aug 7, 2008

I shield you because I need charge
Is not because I like you or anything!


Dudebro posted:

Is there a site to get really cheap mics? Because I think that's all I need.

The Rode videomic looks interesting. I may get that. It looks pretty cool too. Any idea how far the speaker can get before sounding like they're not beside the camera?

Not exactly sure - generally as far as shotgun mics go, longer mic equates to more reach, but you may still want to use a boom pole with a shotty to keep the mic near the subject if possible - it's not a "zoom lens", it just has great external rejection of ambient noise. And then you're dealing with off camera mic techniques again.

I did sound for this video with a lav on the singer and a shotgun maybe ten feet back, as close as we could get it without interfering with the video lines of sight. It was a while ago so I don't remember exactly, but that's all we had - no outlet power, so I needed to run off my Mbox with a maximum of 2 inputs. I was surprised at the time that the guitar could punch through the drumming or that harmonies were even decipherable, but we had to trust the setup and it worked pretty well.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8QLx5Mql_-w

strangemusic fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Jul 24, 2014

Barnaby Rudge
Jan 15, 2011

so your telling me you wasn't drunk or fucked up in anyway.when you had sex with me and that monkey
Soiled Meat
Hey thread! I make guitars and I've been thinking about uploading some videos to youtube, however anything recorded on my realtek on-board audio sounds kind of.... Crap. Anyone got any decent soundcard recommendations? I've been told that the Asus Xonar cards are pretty good value but they mostly seem to be aimed at gaming, which puts me off a little.

Hopefully looking to spend around £50/$85, but I'm not sure how realistic this is. I don't need anything fancy (no front-panel interfaces or anything), just something that's better than on-board audio any maybe with a built in headphone amp, although it's not essential.

Gym Leader Barack
Oct 31, 2005

Grimey Drawer
Most of the standard PC sound cards aren't really suited for quality recordings, a USB audio interface will get you much better results. Prices are generally higher than the budget you're allowing but there are still a few possibilities especially if you go second hand. Are you recording the direct guitar signal or using a microphone pointed at an amp?

The M-Audio M-Track looks to be pretty decent for around the $100 mark, I've never used one but the reviews seem generally positive, and this will let you either plug the guitar directly into the computer for recording clean and using amp sims, or will let you connect any XLR mic if you are recording an amp. Also has headphone out with low latency monitoring so you can hear what's being recorded as you play.

Barnaby Rudge
Jan 15, 2011

so your telling me you wasn't drunk or fucked up in anyway.when you had sex with me and that monkey
Soiled Meat

RandomCheese posted:

Most of the standard PC sound cards aren't really suited for quality recordings, a USB audio interface will get you much better results. Prices are generally higher than the budget you're allowing but there are still a few possibilities especially if you go second hand. Are you recording the direct guitar signal or using a microphone pointed at an amp?

The M-Audio M-Track looks to be pretty decent for around the $100 mark, I've never used one but the reviews seem generally positive, and this will let you either plug the guitar directly into the computer for recording clean and using amp sims, or will let you connect any XLR mic if you are recording an amp. Also has headphone out with low latency monitoring so you can hear what's being recorded as you play.

Thanks! I've been a bit suspicious of the USB interfaces (my friend spent about £200 on one years ago and it was terrible), but they seem to have a lot of fans, so I'll give it a whirl.

I'm aiming to plug the guitars right in to the computer to keep things as simple as possible, maybe with a pedal or two in the chain if I want to record with some distortion/reverb etc.

iostream.h
Mar 14, 2006
I want your happy place to slap you as it flies by.

The apogee jam is nice, if you're on a Mac.

Selim Sivad
Sep 2, 2008

by Ralp
Real quick question. If I were to buy a USB console like this, would I be able to use it to multi track in Reaper? or would I still only be able to record one channel at a time (which would defeat the purpose). I'm Sick of using VSTi drum machines. I want to record real drums damnit.

iostream.h
Mar 14, 2006
I want your happy place to slap you as it flies by.

Selim Sivad posted:

Real quick question. If I were to buy a USB console like this, would I be able to use it to multi track in Reaper? or would I still only be able to record one channel at a time (which would defeat the purpose). I'm Sick of using VSTi drum machines. I want to record real drums damnit.
You would be able to multi-track with that, yes.
That said, the pre's in those low-end Mackies absolutely suck rear end, horribly. If you can find a used Mackie Onyx, they're much better for not much more money (I sold an Onyx 12 with the Firewire card not too long ago for right at that price).

What system are you recording on? What's your overall budget?

Selim Sivad
Sep 2, 2008

by Ralp
Yeah, I was just using that as a quick example since I'm not at all familiar with USB recording aside from my Line 6 gearbox. I'll probably go up to $500 for a console. I have 3 shure 57s and some other assorted (mostly crummy) dynamic mics lying around as well as a crappy set of Behringer monitors I got for free. I'm recording on a AMD system that's about 5 years old, but I've never had any problems using Reaper on it even when I have a huge FX chain.

I'd like to get at least 2 more good dynamics and 1-2 solid condensers, and maybe a ribbon to use for room sound in addition to the console. Only problem is that money is tight right now, but the only things I feel like I'll absolutely need to lay down some drum tracks are a console and a good kick mic.

Edit: brevity and clarity.

Selim Sivad fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Jul 31, 2014

iostream.h
Mar 14, 2006
I want your happy place to slap you as it flies by.

In my opinion, you're better off using the best interface (with the best pre's) you can buy with a fair to middling set of mics than meeting halfway and having a mediocre set of pre's and mediocre mics.

I'd guess you're probably going to be best served by something along the lines of the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20. 8 pre's with a slew of routing options that should prove flexible enough for what you're wanting to do. It'll chew up your initial budget pretty easily, but you can get GC to price match and at the least they'll usually come down by 15% if you just ask, 20% if you call in to their 800 line and say you found it locally.

Control Volume
Dec 31, 2008

I guess this is the best place to ask for a particular issue I've been having.

I just bought a pair of Eris E5s, and I'm running them through a Behringer UCA202 audio interface, and I've run into a high pitched whine whenever I have both my computer and the monitors plugged into the same power strip. Right now it's been fixed by putting the monitors onto a separate power strip (different socket, same outlet) but I'm interested in what exactly the issue is in case I ever add more poo poo to my setup and start running into problems with running audio equipment through different sockets.

The issue only occurs during the following: Both the computer and the monitors are plugged into the same power strip and turned on, the audio interface is plugged into the computer, and the RCA cables are plugged into the audio interface.

I've done the following when the above conditions are met, but none of them had any impact:
- All peripherals like mouse and keyboard unplugged
- Everything but the computer and one Eris plugged in
- The above two combined
- Different power strip
- Different RCA cables
- Getting the different power cables and RCA cables physically separated from each other
- Lifting the ground on the Behringer USB plug
- Fiddling with all the different dials and switches on the Erises barring the voltage setting.

Everything I've found online says it's a ground loop issue, but the only ground loop downstream from the power strip would have been through the USB cable and lifting that didn't change anything. My theory is that it has something to do with my computer drawing a shitload of power through the strip causing noise and something like a line conditioner would solve it, but I figured I'd get a second opinion from people who actually know what the hell they're doing.

Jared592
Jan 23, 2003
JARED NUMBERS: BACK IN ACTION
I've been out of the loop on recording stuff for about a decade and want to put together a minimalist recording setup that I can easily transport. I've got a cheap but functional laptop (most recent Dual-core Celeron with 4GB ram, Windows 8). What audio interface and recording software would best suit my needs to do simple recording of vocals and electric guitar (mic'd with perhaps a rare direct-in to play around with effects)?

While I'd like to keep this under $200, I can go higher if it means noticeably better audio quality/latency. I'd be most likely monitoring with headphones.

The Shep
Jan 10, 2007


If found, please return this poster to GIP. His mothers are very worried and miss him very much.

Jared592 posted:

I've been out of the loop on recording stuff for about a decade and want to put together a minimalist recording setup that I can easily transport. I've got a cheap but functional laptop (most recent Dual-core Celeron with 4GB ram, Windows 8). What audio interface and recording software would best suit my needs to do simple recording of vocals and electric guitar (mic'd with perhaps a rare direct-in to play around with effects)?

While I'd like to keep this under $200, I can go higher if it means noticeably better audio quality/latency. I'd be most likely monitoring with headphones.

I have an M Audio Fast Track Pro that works well and won't break your budget. It has built in pre amps but they're not great. It will serve you well as an entry level recording interface and allow you the flexibility to upgrade to a better preamp later on.

I hesitated to pick up a separate preamp but finally caved in and dropped $350 on a GAP 73. It was worth it.

Jared592
Jan 23, 2003
JARED NUMBERS: BACK IN ACTION
Alright, thinking about picking this and an MXL 990 up after being scared off by M Audio driver issue reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Scarlett-2i4-USB-Interface/dp/B009B15N0Q/ref=pd_cp_MI_1

Any gotchas/reasons I shouldn't? I'll probably grab an SM57 as well for mic-ing my guitar amp.

The Shep
Jan 10, 2007


If found, please return this poster to GIP. His mothers are very worried and miss him very much.

Jared592 posted:

Alright, thinking about picking this and an MXL 990 up after being scared off by M Audio driver issue reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Scarlett-2i4-USB-Interface/dp/B009B15N0Q/ref=pd_cp_MI_1

Any gotchas/reasons I shouldn't? I'll probably grab an SM57 as well for mic-ing my guitar amp.

Looks like that will give you a nice setup to get started.

I have a few different mics but I always end up going back to the 57. It's that good. I'd just start with the 57 and see if that does everything you need. Buy a pop filter and windscreen to use it for vocals.

iostream.h
Mar 14, 2006
I want your happy place to slap you as it flies by.

Jared592 posted:

Alright, thinking about picking this and an MXL 990 up after being scared off by M Audio driver issue reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Scarlett-2i4-USB-Interface/dp/B009B15N0Q/ref=pd_cp_MI_1

Any gotchas/reasons I shouldn't? I'll probably grab an SM57 as well for mic-ing my guitar amp.
If it's in your budget, consider adding a Sennheiser e609 for your amp as well. It's about the same price and pairs VERY well with the 57.

Jared592
Jan 23, 2003
JARED NUMBERS: BACK IN ACTION
Thanks fellas. The next hurdle will be learning to use a DAW without it getting in the way of the off-the-cuff enjoyment of making music. It seems like Reaper's the go-to cheap solution of the day, so I'll give that a shot to begin with, especially since the trial is full-featured.

himajinga
Mar 19, 2003

Und wenn du lange in einen Schuh blickst, blickt der Schuh auch in dich hinein.
Do XLR female to 1/4" male cords work identically to those single piece XLR to 1/4" transformer plugs? I feel silly asking, but honestly in 12 years of recording and playing music I've never had to know.

E: I guess on reading the transformers work like DI boxes, right?

himajinga fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Aug 12, 2014

Brute Hole Force
Dec 25, 2005

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN
Cross posting from the small questions thread as it's probably most relevant to recording.

Anyone know if a grounding problems that introduces noise in to an amp, would do the same when using and recording with modeling software?

The actual noise is a high pitched screech, plug any amp in to any socket and it's going to howl. Nothing related to the usual hum and interference from pickups or cables.

Interstitial Abs
Jul 11, 2008
Is there a recording program equivalent to GarageBand (closer the simplified version for iPhone/pad) for PC's?
Like even just drag and drop loops/beats?

I am trying to incorporate some music technology and making beats into an urban middle school, and stuck with Chromebooks. While I think eventually we could work up to audacity I'd love something that is so simple they could make a 16bar loop the first day.

Gym Leader Barack
Oct 31, 2005

Grimey Drawer
FL Studio (formerly Fruityloops) is all about patterns and loops, it's definitely more complex than Garageband but sameday results should easily be achievable.

Maschine is another very straightforward pattern-based DAW and you'll get immediate beats from it but the software can only be purchased with one of the Maschine controllers so expense will be a concern.

PopZeus
Aug 11, 2010

Interstitial Abs posted:

Is there a recording program equivalent to GarageBand (closer the simplified version for iPhone/pad) for PC's?
Like even just drag and drop loops/beats?

I am trying to incorporate some music technology and making beats into an urban middle school, and stuck with Chromebooks. While I think eventually we could work up to audacity I'd love something that is so simple they could make a 16bar loop the first day.

I use Acoustica Mixcraft, and coming from an only-GarageBand background, it was very similar and easy to pick up.

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Militant Lesbian
Oct 3, 2002
Drag and drop loops/beats would be a very accurate description of the entire basis of Acid:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/acidpro

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