Home Recording...on a recession budget

[MarkThomas]

Hey All-

Long story short, me and my buddy are looking to do some recording this winter...just want to let our creative juices flow and have a good time.

He plays guitar (Charvel Model 3 through a Digitech RP250 through a Randall RC-235 combo) and I play drums (acoustic set) and a little guitar (1987 Bently Series 10 - loaded with Jackson PUs through a Digitech RP150 through a Randall RG200DG3).

Last winter we messed around a little bit with Kristal (the free PC mixing/recording software) and had a good time listening to our guitar tracks, but monitoring latency was horrible (I probably need a better sound card) and you are really limited on bass and drum loops, etc. Plus, this time around, I want to be able to record my own drum tracks, not use drum loops.

So here is my loaded question:

We currently own just the gear indicated (both Digitech's have USB) and an older computer with onboard sound. What software should I look into (M-Audio, etc) and what hardware do I need (soundcard, drum mics, USB hardware to allow for drum mics to feed into computer, etc)? Also, should I be sending the Digitech's directly into the comp via USB, or should we be miking our amps?

I am new to all of the recording stuff, but we are a couple of old school 80s rockers who want to have some fun but not break the bank.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated...thanks!

[Spivonious]

If you're looking to do simultaneous multi-track recording, you'll need some software that supports it. The ones I know of are ProTools and Cubase, both of which have stripped down versions that are a little more affordable.

As far as hardware, you'll need something that allows for multiple simultaneous inputs. My friend got a card from M-Audio that did the job. I believe it was the Delta 1010LT.

Another option is to get a mixer and run everything through that into the computer. This way you'll only get one track at a time (so no post-recording mixing of drums, for example), but it's much cheaper. Some nice programs for that are Sony ACID, Cakewalk Guitar Tracks, and there's a free one called Audacity.

My friend and I do the latter option. We record songs track by track (drums first, then guitar 1, then guitar 2, then synth, then vocals, etc.) and then mix and master from there.

There's also a very good sticky thread on home recording at the top of the MP3 Submissions forum.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

go the m-audio rougt with m-powered protools.

[Danno]

yeah, check out the digidesign m-box.

[Skully]

I suggest picking up a used 8 track stand alone recorder and a couple of good mics then use something like Sonar to mix everything down on the computer. I personally use a 4 track with a smart card to record drums, guitar and vocals to goof around and lay tracks down, in hindsite I should of bought an 8 track for more versitility. The stand alone seems a lot more convienent than having to pipe into a computer live.

[DumpyWumpy]

Get Reaper for software, it's free and professional as hell, I use it in my studio and prefer it over Cubase, ProTools, Logic, etc.

Soundcard-wise, look into a used Presonus Firepod, they are cheap and you can record 8 inputs at once so it will work great for you. Latency on them is good as well. Not a super professional option, but for messing around at home on a budget it will be awesome, I promise! If you wanted to take it up a notch you could look into one of the more expandable options like an M-Audio Profire 2626, Mackie Onyx 1200F, or Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 i/o.

Drum mics, you can look into a cheap Audix Fusion drum mic kit, or the Shure PG series. A little more expensive will get you the Audix D series stuff which is what I use and find to be excellent.

[Tim]

I'd recommend buying something like an Mbox, and plugging the guitars straight into that and maybe buying an amp sim to use as a plugin, something like Amplitube. If you want to go the mic'd route, you can't really go wrong with an SM57, they're fairly cheap and will do the job well. For drums, if you're on a really tight budget, you can get away with using a single condensor mic as an overhead. The Behringer B1 is a decent enough mic and heineously cheap, so if you were to buy one of those and an SM57 you'd be able to produce some decent stuff. If you decided to record drums and guitar separately, you could stick the 57 on the kick or snare along with the condensor as an overhead. A condensor fills out guitar sounds nicely too, if you use it as a room mic stood a few feet away from the amp or up in the corner of the room.

Spending the bare minimum on mics (but still good ones) will give you more to spend on the software side of things and something like the Mbox to plug into.

Just my opinion, but that's what I'd do in your situation.

[Fragle]

frankly, i think you should invest most of the money available on upgrading pc hard and software rather than mic's and stuff...

starting with hardware, you just said "an older machine"...which could mean a lot, so this is mere guesswork right now.
imho, you need at least 2 gb of ram, a decent low-latency soundcard (the cheapest m-audio audiophile works great for me), fast HD, and a decent cpu...preferably dual-core, but that's just me really. it depends on whether you only want to record some tracks, or actually mix whole songs....for the latter, a dual-core and lots of ram is a MUST imho, while for recording only a decent soundcard would be sufficient imho.

software wise, i'm a fan of cubase sx3, but as suggested above reaper is said to get the job done as well. if you're only trying to record some tracks without actually mixing them yourselves, audacity is a great one as well.

as for guitar recording...frankly i'm not familiar with the digitech stuff you mentioned.
as far as i am concerned, the line 6 pod xt sounds great for recording some demo tracks...search ebay, it shouldn't be too expensive anymore as of right now.
moreover, imho you should definitely go for direct recording rather than micing up cabs and stuff...there's so much that can go wrong with micing up cabs, plus you need a whole lot more of gear that shouldn't be the lowest quality available either. with today's digital technology, recording some basic tracks has never been easier and cheaper.

and last but not least, i STRONGLY recommend you program your drumtracks using e.g. guitar pro, then export the midi and use a drum sequencer like addictive drums for all your drum sounds. recording real drums is a BITCH, especially if you got zero experience, and aside from that you need a whole lot of expensive gear to get any halfway usable results.

[Robert Burns]

GC sells used 4 track digital recorders for around $225.00 Heck ive seen
Boss 8 tracks with CD burner going for $350!

[Inazone]

Since you are recording acoustic drums, the number of available mic pre channels and the computer's capacity to record them all is probably the greatest "challenge" for you. First of all, you're probably better off with a FireWire interface than USB. I think that the M-Audio NRV10 is the most interesting interface out there, and although it costs more than some others, the features are about the best you'll find while keeping the price reasonable.