Recording Equipment/software

[Chris_redfield]

Hey guys I need some advice with some sound recording equipment for my new PC build.

I'm looking to ideally spend around £250. But ideally it would be nice for that to be lower. The OS is not set in stone for this build as well at the moment so if there is some killer app that will only work in a certain environment then that shouldn't be an issue.

I know absolutely nothing about this and need some help pointing out equipment that I'd need in order to record my guitar. It would be nice if someone could also give me some pointers on some software as well, and get some effects that I could use to play around with the sound.

I would like to also connect up a mic.

Cheers for the help in advance.

[Chris_redfield]

Having a scout around the internet the Line 6 KB37 looks like it will do the job. Has anyone here used one of these.

I have a line 6 spider amp at the moment, and just for practicing on its actually quite good and the built in effects are pretty decent.

EDIT: Actually, I don't really need the midi keyboard so if I went with this one http://line6.com/podstudioux2/ I could save myself £100 and put that towards some monitor speakers. Are there any decent monitor speakers for around £100-£150 ? Or should I not bother and just use the PC audio because the cheaper monitors wouldn't offer much better sound?

[Coldon]

I'd recommed something like an ESI maya44 card or similar, or perhaps an m-audio fasttrack. Even soundcards like the asus xonars, creative x-fi and auzentechs fortes/prelude have ASIO drivers and so would work perfectly but unfortunately none of those cards come with 1/4" jack inputs. I would definately recommend that you get a proper audio interface card like the ESI maya / m-audio deltas etc. What you need is a card with the correct inputs and an ASIO driver.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FastTrackPro.html
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta44.html
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010LT.html
http://www.esi-audio.com/products/maya44e/
http://www.esi-audio.com/products/julia/
http://www.esi-audio.com/products/duafire/


also for recording guitar my advise is to invest in a mini mixing deak like a 2 or 4 channel mixer then plug your guitar into the mixer and then into your pc, then just record the clean guitar signal. this allows you to later play around with the guitar tone without having to rerecord anything by simply, taking a line out from the card/interface to your amp's input and then recording the output through a mic (called re-amping)... Or u can use a digital amp simulator like guitar rig or amplitube directly from your DAW (cubase/reaper/etc), they can accurate simulate most high end amp models like the mesa triple rec, randall warheads, peavey 5150, etc...

I would not advise using an amp's line out to record, the quality is often atrocious.

As for software, my band recorded our album using reaper, which is ridiculously cheap, simple to use and pretty much has all the features that DAWs like cubase or protools offer. And best of all its only 4mb and you can try it for 30days for free. www.reaper.fm

[Jamesrt2004]

Having a scout around the internet the Line 6 KB37 looks like it will do the job. Has anyone here used one of these.

I have a line 6 spider amp at the moment, and just for practicing on its actually quite good and the built in effects are pretty decent.

EDIT: Actually, I don't really need the midi keyboard so if I went with this one http://line6.com/podstudioux2/ I could save myself £100 and put that towards some monitor speakers. Are there any decent monitor speakers for around £100-£150 ? Or should I not bother and just use the PC audio because the cheaper monitors wouldn't offer much better sound?

some £100 bookshelfs are fine... go look over a avforums or something.

I reccomend though and many many people will the m audio bx5a for £150...

yeah that line6 ux2 is real nice! get a good mic, a nice cheap one which has damn good quality for the price is the Audix I5 ... then save up till you can get a Rode-NT1A


Make sure to pick up at least one microphone stand, as well as a pop filter

then have GOOD cables for mic/guitars then your pretty much set to go... I use cubase 5 which seems good... I would use protools but learning curve is a lot bigger.. and seems to not be as good (atleast for me)


oh and as mentioned above make sure you go clean straight into the UX2! dont do anything with your amp programs like cubase have some great effects....


the actual hard bit is mixing and mastering the tracks

[Coldon]

you dont need a pop filter for a guitar, and if you get a mic stand try and get an instrument one, using a vocal stand for an amp is a PITA... afaik the shure sm57 is a great instrument mic and are pretty cheap, esp secondhand.

the problem with bookshelf speakers is that they are often unpowered and you'll need a receiver in addition to the speaker, if you want so good monitors that wont break the bank look at the behringer truth series.

I've heard lots of good things about the new cubase but its expensive compared to reaper and really doesnt offer anything more for just recording guitars.

[Chris_redfield]

Is the Line 6 UX2 a decent place to start then? As it seems to be fairly simple in terms of setting it up with just the USB 2.0 connection. And to be honest I'd like something that is fairly easy to set up. I haven't been playing half as much as I used to when I was in school and university, just because when I get in from work its 9.00pm and I just want to eat, and then sleep.

I wasn't going to use the line out from the amp, I have been gifted a mic (its a shure, I can't remember which model it is, but I'll get it out later.) and I was going to use that, as I have an OK cabinet with a Zvex Nano that sounds great with my telecaster, and I'd like that to be recorded with no modification. But my strat and my manson I like to mess about with effects, so that would be going straight into the PC.

Thank you very much for the headsup with reaper, what I'll do is try giving it a spin in the 30 day trial once I'm sorted out and if I like it I'll go for it. Is reaper actually compatible with the Line 6 UX2?

The Behringer TRUTH B2030P monitor speakers, are they any good, they are only £100 for the pair.

[Tim1]

I dont know much about recording, im mostly into mixing and editing, but i have a pair of yamaha HS-80m monitors and they give the flattest sound out in its price range. its about 300-350 per speaker though.
Then again this changes from person to person and their perception of hearing flat. I would go to you local pro audio store or something and ask if u can hear the monitors.

[Coldon]

the behringer truth monitors are absolutely excellent for their price range. The line 6 tone port is compatible with any DAW software, since every audio interface will have a ASIO driver interface.

[Chris_redfield]

OK cool cheers guys all your help, I'll get the line 6 UX2 then and the Behringer TRUTH B2030P monitor speakers then. I'll order those when I get my next pay cheque as that should just cover them both.

Hopefully the line 6 software will be good enough for the moment. If its not I'll check out the reaper.

[MattiasNYC]

Hey Chris, what are you going to do with the recorded guitar?

If you want to add effects etc you might want to look into some different Digital Audio Workstations (software). Some contain a lot of really good effects, and have a proven track record as far as features and functionality goes. Most of the time they have their own branded interfaces to go with them as well, and should fit your budget. Of course, Line6 may be better suited considering you want to do recording of your Tele.

I second the Shure SM57. For recording electric guitar it's virtually impossible to beat even at full retail price.

On second thought: If you'll be micing your Tele do you really need the line6?

As for the Behringers I'm not 100% sold. Also definitely not sold on the statement that the Yamaha HS series are the flattest out there for the price. They were made, as far as I know, to be the "new powered" NS-10's. The NS-10's were essentially just a speaker that sat in the middle of good and garbage, and was a speaker that most engineers knew and still know. But they were anything but flat. The thinking sort of was that if you could make something sound good on those then whatever you mixed would sound good on most stuff... or at least be heard properly. Yamaha have another line called the "MSP" series. In my opinion they sound much better. From what I've heard better than the Behringers as well.

The thing about speakers though is that if you're recording in a noisy environment, listening to it in an untreated room on relatively crappy pro-sumer speakers, you won't really be able to tell what kind of quality you're recording, since you won't actually be able to discern it in the room. If this is just for fun, or if you want to upgrade later then it's probably fine. But if you want to be more serious about it I'd recommend great quality headphones. Might be overkill though....

[SolidGoldstein]

Chris,
There are many good programs. It just depends what your work flow is like and what you are trying to accomplish. For instance, Reason, Ableton Live, Fruity Loops is good for electronic music. Reaper is really great for the price, but it's very powerful and you NEED to know what you are doing with a DAW to set it up. Some sound cards come with Pro Tools LE, but LE is crap. I've tried Cubase SX(3?) and Some others, but Reaper blows the doors off of them.

I have heard those $150 M-Audio AV40 powered speakers and they are the best little multi-purpose speakers I have ever heard. You can't get much lower priced than that, and they are easy to connect to common equipment.

There are a variety of mics under $200 worth buying. Just a couple off the top of my head for electric guitar, which is the least demanding $$$ wise, are Shure SM57, Sennheiser e609, CAD M179 (best multi-purpose for the $$$), and Audix i5 (more of a live mic but less harsh than a SM57). And don't buy cheap cables. You might be able to find a deal on some Mogami/Neutrik assemblies on eBay.

As you might have noticed, you are not going to get any kind of half-decent setup for $300. My sound card alone was $300 and I am not even serious about recording at my place. I just mainly use it for listening and then I have the ability to record some ideas without breaking out a bunch of cables, boxes and crap! :P

[Chris_redfield]

Basically I'm just trying to have a bit of fun with my guitar. I didn't buy the gear last weekend. I got a Download festival ticket instead when I saw the line up.

The Line 6 I would be using as the interface between the computer and the mic (plug the mic into the line 6 and have that carry the signal to the computer that way.)

As far as I was aware the Line 6 would also power the monitors as well so would I need a decent audio card if the line 6 was going to be doing the work. Or am I missing something? Would I still require a good sound card? The motherboard has an optical output and I was just going to connect that up to an external amp in the future rather than get a sound card.

I will crack out the mic that I was given in a moment and I will tell you what model, all I can really remember is its a shure and its a few years old.

With regards to the speakers, I could easily be convinced on spending more money on those if they were also going to be great for plugging a standard hi-fi into to listen to music/game/watch films.

My main reasons for not wanting to spend more than £250 is that I want to make sure that I will continue to use the set up and that its not just something that I use for about a month thinking its awesome and then never use again (like my pair of stanton's lol.) Plus it only takes me about a week to save that amount.

Cheers for the advice guys.

[ReverendMaynard]

Audacity + Line6 GX + Pod Farm with some extra's works like a charm. I also us a Line 6 JM4 Looper which is pretty sick and converts the recordings into WAV format for easy cd burnage. No need to blow a wad for guitar fun.

[Coldon]

audacity is a terrible program, its probably one of the worst if not THE worst recording apps out there. all DAW's record in wav format anyways so why do you need an additional convertor.

@chris redfield: AFAIK the behringer speakers are powered so they don't need anything to drive them. but yeh you'd probably use the output on the line 6 interface for them.

[MattiasNYC]

Basically I'm just trying to have a bit of fun with my guitar. I didn't buy the gear last weekend. I got a Download festival ticket instead when I saw the line up.

The Line 6 I would be using as the interface between the computer and the mic (plug the mic into the line 6 and have that carry the signal to the computer that way.)

Well, if you just want to have fun then you don't have to worry too much I suppose. If you're not using the Amp effects of the Line 6 then I guess that's something you'll be "paying for" but not using. But that may be ok. Or it may be that you end up using them at a later stage.

As far as I was aware the Line 6 would also power the monitors as well so would I need a decent audio card if the line 6 was going to be doing the work. Or am I missing something? Would I still require a good sound card? The motherboard has an optical output and I was just going to connect that up to an external amp in the future rather than get a sound card.

I don't think you'll need a card. As far as I understood it the Line 6 is the audio "card", except in a breakout fashion, if you know what I mean. The analog audio goes into it, gets converted to digital, and then sent to the computer via USB or Firewire or whatever it is that the Line 6 uses.

As for speakers, as someone pointed out, the Behringers are active so they're powered. If you meant getting the audio into the speakers from the computer, I'm guessing the Line 6 would do that for you. So no need for a sound card for getting audio out of your computer either. (Ignoring any other uses you might have that would need the sound out of course).

[QUOTE=Chris_redfield;4247038]With regards to the speakers, I could easily be convinced on spending more money on those if they were also going to be great for plugging a standard hi-fi into to listen to music/game/watch films.

Actually, my point was that it might not be worth spending too much more on speakers if all you do is having fun. The speakers will probably be fine for listening to music, games and films.

Cheers for the advice guys.

No problem.