Cakewalk and home recording questions!!

[jgcable]

I posted this in the classifieds too.
My new band uses Cakewalk Pro Version 9.0. Its the latest version. They told me that version 7 and 8 are identical.
Currently I am using Cool Edit Pro 2.0 and my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Pro card and plugging processors or modelers into the back of the sound card through the mini 1/8" stereo in jack one at a time. My bandmates mentioned I should get a small mixer, a card that has a midi port on it and the new software. They even mentioned that there are mixers that plug in via USB.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have to stick with Cakewalk though. My computer is a dual processor tower with tons of hard drive and DDR2 ram etc.. and I run Windows XP Pro as my operating system.

[Infernal Death]

Re: Cakewalk and home recording questions!!

Well it depends on what you really want to do. If you want to mic a full size drum kit you should have a soundcard with 8 ins or more. For this you could try a M-Audio Delta 1010 or 1010LT soundcard.
If you "only" want to record guitar 2 ins are fine. Maybe you should look into the M-Audio Delta Audiphile 2496. It has midi in/out, decent quality and is cheap. Sometime ago i installed one into the pc of a friend and he never had any problems with it.
I don't think you need a small mixer. Honestly all the small mixers are far worse than what your software mixer sounds like. If you want to mic amps better buy a dedicated mic preamp.
Analog mixers only make sense if you go way above the $1K. Just get yourself a decent frontend and do all mixing and eq'ing inside the computer. Best way without spending several thousands on a decent mixing board and quality AD/DA.
Those mixers plugin able via USB seems to be those control surfaces like the Mackie Control. They "only" are a control for your software. So you can mix with your software but with using real knobs and faders, not your mouse. There is a cheap behringer but most of the other are quite large $$$.
Nothing you really need at the beginning. I would focuse more on mic preamps, a good soundcard and learning the program. You can later add such a control surface if you feel the need for it.

Hope this helps a bit

Flo

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Re: Cakewalk and home recording questions!!

presonus firepod or fire box (8 or 2 imputs), and a good pair of powered monitors.

and for god sakes upgrade to sonar 3 or later please!

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Re: Cakewalk and home recording questions!!

oh, and go to http://musicxp.net/tuning_tips.php
and follow the tips.

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: Cakewalk and home recording questions!!

before you get a soundcard first make sure its on the cakewalk compatability list.