recording software for PC

[snarfmaster C]

hi folks

i'm in the market for a mic for my computer and software to play around with and build some songs.

any insight would be appreciated.

i haven't searched around yet, thought i'd ask the experts here first.

thanks!

mooooose

[Freak By Night]

I can recommend "CoolEdit Pro" which was bought out by Adobe last year. It is now sold as "Adobe Audition". It's a very good mult-track audio editing software package with all the effects. Basically a full recording studio board on your PC. The only drawback - It's expensive.

[Tooly]

I LIKE SOUNDFORGE

[bradm]

The most important question is this: How much money do you want to spend? The second most important question is what do you plan on doing with the recordings?

For instance, if you say you don't want to spend more than $100 or $200 on a microphone, and only want to make demos, a good choice for a mic is the Shure SM-57 (or SM-58), which will handle instruments, drums, or even vocals pretty well. It's also cheap (about $150) and pretty much bulletproof (as well as an industry standard). You should also factor in some bucks for a good mic stand and XLR cables (which professional mics use).

To feed it into a computer, you'll probably want an external pre-amp. Something from Edirol would work, but a cheap option is a small mixer from someone like Behringer. The UB502 can handle one microphone and a couple of line-level sources, so for recording one track at a time, it'll work fine. It can't handle condensor microphones (which require phantom power), though, so the next models up the line (the UB802 or the UB1002) might be better. (Note that the SM-57 and SM-58 don't need phantom power, and so will work fine with the UB502.) I bought a UB1002 at Steve's last year, and it was about $120; the UB802 and UB502 will be even less.

I hope this helps; if it doesn't, ask more or completely disregard my rantations.

Aloha,

Brad

[can-o-phish]

Hey Mooose,

If you have the $$$, here are what I would suggest for the home-recording artist...

MBox-2

Firewire 410

I recommend these items because it's what I do for a living. Both of these units you can record to and if the need ever arose to take it to a professional studio, you can take your home sessions and they can be opened and continued at most other pro facilities.

Bouche just picked up the 410 and is loving it. I don't know the next time that you might be in Hull, but I'm sure he'd love showing off his new piece of gear to you.

[bradm]

can'o'phish, I was wondering what you thought of this unit. It's cheap, has built-in digital effects, digital (USB) outs, and includes CUBase recording software. It could also double as a mixer for live sound if the need arose (or handle recording several sources at a time, albeit to stereo).

Aloha,

Brad

[can-o-phish]

Hmmm, can't say I've had my fingers on those knobs but Alesis has been in the audio game for years so I'm sure this unit would have some nice features for recording and mixing. Great having the USB connection.

[can-o-phish]

Just read more about this here MultiMix 8USB and it sounds like another great piece of gear for the home-recording artist though this would not offer compatible sessions at other studios unless they had CuBase. But great that it comes with Cubase LE as audio and MIDI recording can be done and if you're into creating Loops & Grooves, MIDI is a ton'o'fun

[snarfmaster C]

cool! thanks for all the help!

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

This will by now be perfectly redundant after the weighing-in of the people who actually know what they're talking about, but a) Cubase does do a great job, and Power Tracks, which is a teeny-weeny program I've had on my laptop for around ten years or so, is not only cheap (I'll shoot you the disc) but does the trick for recording, stacking, and editing .wav files.

[TheGoodRev]

can'o'phish, I was wondering what you thought of this unit. It's cheap, has built-in digital effects, digital (USB) outs, and includes CUBase recording software. It could also double as a mixer for live sound if the need arose (or handle recording several sources at a time, albeit to stereo).

Aloha,

Brad

This looks like exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for, at a fraction of the price I thought it would cost. Let me get this straight: this is a mixer that will allow 6 tracks to be recorded simultaniously (4 XLR plus 2 stereo channels); and it will go straight to CuBase via USB? Is USB even fast enough to handle that kind of action? I thought Firewire was necessary for that kind of simultaneous recording.

Any idea of the MSRP on that thing, Brad or CoP? Or, uh, anybody?

EDIT: They seem to be going on Ebay for about $150 US

The 16-track version is going for $175 on Ebay! Did I miss the memo that said that quality home recording got infinitely cheaper all of a sudden? Or have I just been missing these affordable products all this time? I've always been searching for 'audio interface' on Ebay; do these mixers differ at all from audio interfaces? They allow multitrack digital recording to PC and are compatible with popular recording software. Am I missing something?

Edited December 1, 2005 by Guest

[bradm]

Be careful: it may have a certain number of inputs, but mix them all down to two-track stereo; if you hook four mics up to the MM8, you'll probably only end up with two tracks on the PC. To do actual multi-track recording on the PC requires more professional hardware, I think.

Aloha,

Brad

[TheGoodRev]

Ahhhh....therein lies the difference. Thanks dude.

[bradm]

I've never actually figured out what hardware is used for live many-inputs-to-a-PC (as Tungsten Gruvsten did on nero's live "SoOn" album, for instance). If I were more into doing live "matrix" recordings, I'd love to be able to do this, to keep the audience mic tracks separate from the SBD source (or stage mics) until after the show, when an appropriate mix can be found. Either that or one of those four-track Edirol hard drive recorders...drool...(how do you spell that thing Homer Simpson does when someone mentions sausage...)

Aloha,

Brad

[Tungsten Gruvsten]

All of SoOn was done with 2 Presonus Digimax 8 channel mic pre's/digital convertors. This was 16 tracks of mic pre's(with limiters!) that sounded great and had the added bonuses of being 1 rack space high each(super portable!) and having an optical output...so I dumped 8 channels out of each straight into a RME Digiface, which is sorta a soundcard...more interface I guess but similar.

As for software I have a soft spot for Sony Vegas as it's so damn easy to use. Vegas, Protools, Nuendo, Sonar, CoolEdit, they're all the same really with some small differences, mostly user preference unless you are interfacing with big studios...even then half of Nashville has gone the Nuendo route...

Hey BradM; Check out the Edirol R4 -4 track recorder that has a 40GB hard drive, 4 XLR inputs(with mic pre's) and is rugged to boot! USB plug lets you plug it into your computer where it shows up as another drive, drag your recorded files and mix 'em up while at home!

The Mbox route is pretty slick, but check out M-audio's more recent offerings - they are really kicking out some budget gear that sounds pretty good!

Also check out the new mackie Onyx series mixers- good and cheap considering what it can do, but all the bells and whistles will get you into 4 digit land. The 1620 and 1640 are a mixer that'll letcha plug in to your computer via firewire and retain the multiple tracks...I think you can play back out into it as well.

Shameless plug: I've got a couple vocal mics i'm still trying to part with if anyone is interested - Audix OM5 and a Rode S1....

[bradm]

Yeah, the R4 is the one I meant; I saw it a while ago, and just about shorted out my keyboard from all the drool that escaped from my mouth.

aberg83 and I came close once, at Mavericks for GTB. He had his mics out in the audience, and I had my mics (three of them: a pair of Oktava MC-012s pointing left and right, running into the mic ins on my Behringer UB1002, and a Cascade M-20 dead centre, running into a Behringer MIC100 pre-amp, then into a line-in on the UB1002) on stage. We were both using Creative Nomad JB3s, and has the right Firewire cable, so after each set, I just transferred my stereo source to his unit, so he ended up with two sources for each set. He then mixed them together (about 50/50, I think) in Audition. The results can be heard here.

Aloha,

Brad