Recording to HD

[petemoore]

What's a good way to record to a Hard drive?
 I have Cakewalk, and Im simply running a mic in the soundcard...it works but there is probably a better way.
 Any suggestions welcome.

[Ansil]

build the speaker simulator from the sansamp units.    or check the schematic two section for the transformer one.   try a zoom wedge set on clean bypass with just the speaker sim ingaged.

doesn't someone have the scehmatic for the hughes and kettner rted box???

[DaveTV]

There's nothing wrong with using a mic to record to your soundcard. Using a quality mic sure helps, but you'll get the best results using some sort of mic preamp going into the soundcard. I think I've seen a few mic preamp schematics out there, so you should probably be able to build a simple one yourself, in the spirit of this forum. Even a really basic preamp will be better than nothing.

[casey]

well, it depends on what type of soundcard as well.
the analog to digital conversion on alot of those soundcards
is poor.  i would first get a quality soundcard from sweetwater,
musicians friend has one or two as well.....  just dont use
a soundblaster or other comparable cards....the A/D conversion
on them is poor.  Here is an affordable card...

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=031027135621209205186138988248/g=rec/search/detail/base_id/52393

it's an m-audio Audiophile 2496 PCI Digital Audio Card

now, if money is not an object, then i would go with motu or
a system from mytek.....

Digidesign has their digi 001....it's a little more money though

Then I would get a tube pre amp, like a presonus tube pre.
make sure you use good cables, and get a decent mic and
you should be ready to role.

of course there is the studio standard sm-57...it's cheap and decent...
or if you want a condenser, i would go with an audio technica 4033.

i hope this helps.

[casey]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2566688377&category=41787

i heard that this is a decent card as well for the money.....

[Ammscray]

Right, best card for the buck: Echo Mia midi soundcard..."prosumer"

stay away from anything soundblaster live! Mia is two inputs, if you need more then get the Echo layla...

I got my OEM Mia on ebay new for $100! It kills lots of soundcards that cost 5 times as much trust me I've tried 'em all and I'm an engineer...

After that it's just my trusty old SM57 for electric stuff and I use
a semi-cheap large diapragm condenser for acoustic and vocals...everything goes through an Art TubePac before it hits the comp...awesome tube mic pre/compressor but hard to find now...

 I use Acid, Sound Forge, Sonar, etc...sounds awesome!

[moosapotamus]

I would suggest using what you've got and understanding it's capabilities and limitations before spending more mony on upgrading hardware that you may not need to replace, at least for now. If you want to add something, add something that you don't have yet, like a decent preamp. If you don't have a decent preamp, believe me, you need one for computer-based recording. Also, if you change more than one thing at a time on your set-up, you won't be able to tell what's making the biggest difference.

I also think you should consider your objective(s) and your audience. For example, will your recording be for commercial mass distribution CDs, or friends & family. A Soundblaster card should be perfectly good for recording demo CDs to distribute to clubs and even sell at gigs (with appropriate packaging, of course). BTW, Computer Recording magazine ranked the Soundblaster and the Audiophile about the same.

Just MVHO...

~ Charlie

[petemoore]

And Behringer board [great value even if they do the 'fake tube thing']
 The board's preamp is about to be implimented between Mic and soundcard...Thanks for the Tip.
 The meters were getting plenty with just the mic and I didn't think to try the mixing board in there.

[Ammscray]

I would suggest using what you've got and understanding it's capabilities and limitations before spending more mony on upgrading hardware that you may not need to replace, at least for now. If you want to add something, add something that you don't have yet, like a decent preamp. If you don't have a decent preamp, believe me, you need one for computer-based recording. Also, if you change more than one thing at a time on your set-up, you won't be able to tell what's making the biggest difference.

I also think you should consider your objective(s) and your audience. For example, will your recording be for commercial mass distribution CDs, or friends & family. A Soundblaster card should be perfectly good for recording demo CDs to distribute to clubs and even sell at gigs (with appropriate packaging, of course). BTW, Computer Recording magazine ranked the Soundblaster and the Audiophile about the same.

Just MVHO...

~ Charlie

Both the Audiophile and the Mia are better than the soundblasters...the SB uses alot of compression and you can't get your levels above the "consumer" threshold!!

No good!!

The SB's are designed for gaming and besides the Mia is a bit cheaper than the audigy II anyways...

[aron]

I love the m-audio 2496. Lot of card for the money.

[MarkB]

at very least you should go MIC->MIC Preamp-> GOOD SOUNDCARD!!

You will likely not get pro-quality recordings out of a soundblaster type card.  The suggestions above (M-Audio/Echo) are good and not too expensive.
Some of the good soundcards even have Mic Preamps built in.  

I use an M-Audio Delta 1010 with the optional (and now discontinued) 1010AI box which does ADAD/Lightpipe conversions.  For most recording, my chain is
Microphone (mic selection depends on sound)
Mic Preamp (typically a TL Audio tube preamp)
Mixer (Yamaha 01V - AD conversion done here)
from the Mixer, it goes out the ADAT card into the M-Audio and into the computer.    this is a fairly new setup - I used to let the M-Audio do the AD conversion (I still do sometimes)..  

Experiment!!  Sometimes you'll get a great sound while doing things the 'wrong' way anyway..  

REMEMBER!!  there's a tone for every use, and a use for every tone.

[petemoore]

It appears this getting a good recorded tone is just as variable results as anything else to do with the guitar.
 
 Art tube OPL preamp [59$] claims to to wonderous things to mic into computer...from audio MIDI news ad.
 But these opinions on soundcard preference seem convincing.
 I'm actually getting 'better' demo quality recordings with the Soundblaster, but the above descriptions coincide with the recording latest results.

[Rob Strand]

the SB uses alot of compression

The compression problem on the soundblasters is only on the mic input, and the problem isn't on all models.  The A/D's on some sound blasters are actually OK.  Where the SB's fall down is for real time DSP with plug-in etc.  Recording into the line-input is usually OK- on some models the high frequencies aren't that great but for guitar recording this shouldn't be an issue.  Having said that, the SB models are a mess for the consumer and it's very difficult to find out the good and bad ones - for this reason I would never buy another SB for serious work.

[sfr]

I'm using a MOTU setup right now - it's got 8 balanced ins on the box itself (1 rack unit size), plus more via ADAT inputs and runs into the computer via firewire, so it plays well with my mac, (which is a laptop, so I can take the whole rig with me to record at places other than home) and it seems to work great with a variety of software.  The preamps (only on the first two channels) on it aren't the greatest, so right now I'm using a cheaper rack mount 8-channel mic preamp, with a couple of nicer hand-built preamps for when it counts.  The A/D conversion seems great, as far as I can tell.  I don't have the nicer ones that go to 96khz, but I'm still at better than CD quality conversion (don't remember the numbers) I'm looking to get an 8 channel A/D converter with ADAT light-pipe out, or possibly even a nice mixing console with ADAT out to expand things to more tracks for my band -

and that's the thing I'd recommend looking for most - expandibility.  My setup is great for me, and I do recommend MOTU stuff a lot, they're a bit expensive, but have a variety of products for different tastes, and their stuff is readily available on eBay.  There are other products that do similar things.  For me, it was nice having an external box that works well with a variety of computers.  but expandibility I think is the important thing - I bought my setup because I got a great deal on it - all I really planned on doing was recording scratch tracks of songs as I worked them out on guitar, laying down ryhtym tracks so I could work on lead stuff on my own, and recording things in simple demo form for my band as we worked out songs, that sort of stuff.  I suppose a nice tape deck might have been fine, or a good soundcard setup.  But after I got the stuff, I got hooked, and it was nice to have gear that did a bit more than I originally wanted, and is easily expandable, because unbeknownst to me, this turned out to be something I want to play with more.  If I had spent a chunk of change on something that did just barely what I wanted, or didn't expand at all, I'd be stuck having to sell what I own to get new stuff to do what I wanted to do later on.  (I'm not knocking anything anyone's recommended, and I don't know the costs or limits of any of those other devices - just what I bought and what other things I was looking at at the time) Portability also turned out to be really helpful - even w/o a laptop, and external box (and external drive) means with an install CD, I can set up recording gear pretty much anywhere there's a decent computer (which doesn't help when my friends band rehearses in a shack, but has helped in countless other situations)

And don't underestimate the value of of added software - certainly there are lots of great software programs out there, but I was very happy to find that the software included with my MOTU box was just right for my tastes, and it was included in the price of my unit.  Other similarly priced units at the time (again, this was a while ago, things may have changed)  came with software that was somewhat limited versions of full programs, and I would have had to pay a good amount to get the same functionality of the software I have now.  (Again, I'm not knocking or extolling any software, just like some people prefere different fuzzes to get the job done, software preferences vary, and whatever you feel comfortable with and gets the job done is the best in the end - just mentioning some things to think about when looking.)

[MarkB]

sfr - MOTU stuff is great, as long as you're on a Mac...  I wouldn't touch it ever again on a PC (I think Pete is a PC guy)...  One of the guys I work with has both Mac/PC and he has noticed the same thing - their stuff just doesn't seem to work as well on a PC..

I also have had lots and lots of bad experiences with MOTU personally - they're notorious for dropping support for products and telling you 'buy the new version'.   Otherwise, it's GREAT hardware, I just don't like the company.

I have since switched to all Midiman/M-Audio for that stuff (I also use a Midisport 8x8 for MIDI on my rig)
"-)

[Ammscray]

the SB uses alot of compression

The compression problem on the soundblasters is only on the mic input, and the problem isn't on all models.  The A/D's on some sound blasters are actually OK.  Where the SB's fall down is for real time DSP with plug-in etc.  Recording into the line-input is usually OK- on some models the high frequencies aren't that great but for guitar recording this shouldn't be an issue.  Having said that, the SB models are a mess for the consumer and it's very difficult to find out the good and bad ones - for this reason I would never buy another SB for serious work.

"The compression problem on the soundblasters is only on the mic input, and the problem isn't on all models"

I'm not sure about that Rob, not according to the guys on rec.audio.pro...

and also not according to MY personal experience...I have the SB
Audigy II which is one of their "high-end" models, and on the line input your levels can only go so far before they're squashed down...I can't even get close to the +4 "pro" levels I can get with the Mia...

Also, apart from the difference in high freq's like you mentioned, the difference in sound quality with the SB and the Echo stuff is really night and day to me, whether just recording guitar soundclips or complete CD mixes...

The only reason that I keep the audigy around is for using soundfonts, and I wish I didn't have to but for now it's the easiest way for me to access them...

[MarkB]

Ammscray -
not sure what you're using as a sequencer, but if you can handle VSTi plugins - there are plenty that play sound fonts!!

try these for starters...
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/182.html
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/629.html
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/347.html
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/337.html

that ought to get you playing your soundfonts without the need for a soundblaster.
"-)

[Ammscray]

Ammscray -
not sure what you're using as a sequencer, but if you can handle VSTi plugins - there are plenty that play sound fonts!!

try these for starters...
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/182.html
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/629.html
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/347.html
http://www.kvr-vst.com/get/337.html

that ought to get you playing your soundfonts without the need for a soundblaster.
"-)

thanks man I'll check into these!

[Rob Strand]

I'm not sure about that Rob, not according to the guys on rec.audio.pro...

Well  put it this way, your comments don't surprise me - so I'll take your word for it.  I guess that's part of the problem,  each model has it's own set of flaws.