computer recording

[quadlaser]

i have no idea what my problem is, i sound good coming out of the amp. but whether i use i microphone, webcam, mixing unit, whatever- it sucks the life out of my sound.

maybe my sound card sucks? or am i missing something?

any help would be appreciated

[GNR'R]

i have no idea what my problem is, i sound good coming out of the amp. but whether i use i microphone, webcam, mixing unit, whatever- it sucks the life out of my sound.

maybe my sound card sucks? or am i missing something?

any help would be appreciated

Same here.

It's most probably either the sound card, or the microphone quality.

[santana]

What you'll need is a good audio interface and a quality mic. Most stock sound cards suck. Look around the internet for reviews, then you can see what is available in your price range. The Presonus Firebox is a good interface, and I've heard good things' about Mackie's Onyx interface.

[quadlaser]

ok will do, thanks

[browser]

there are around 100000 posts on this, use the SEARCH function please.

[The Third Man]

EDIT: Not important. Bad day

Edited March 31, 2007 by The Third Man

[AxlisOld]

And this forum is sooo packed full. No one else seemed to notice and he got the information he wanted. Nitpick much?

[browser]

get an maudio card or an mbox. whatever sound program you choose will be good..... Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase, Sonar, Digital Performer, etc etc

they are all good DAWs... then you need an interface, or a soundcard. maudio has good ones. they have the best converters compared to price.

check into EMU cards, they are supposed to have good converters aswell. other than that Pro Tools will only work on Digidesign or M-Audio approved gear. If you want killer converters and preamps. Go Apogee Mini-Me. GREAT converters, it'll get you in the ballpark of what most pro studios have.

ass for miking, just get an SM57.

Even an Maudio Solo or Maudio 410 with an SM7 will give you GREAT sound compared to the shitty built in stuff.

If you want to use your built in shit, then don't bother to post for more questions.

[santana]

Also, don't forget to set the recording quality to a decent bit rate. A lower conversion rate will result in lower quality files.

Edited April 2, 2007 by santana

[browser]

and don't forget to bounce it to MP3 :xmasssanta:

[angry anderson]

I design mixing boards and guitar amps for Mackie and EAW for a living. Like someone said before, the mackie onyx 800R is a great interface, there isn't a mic pre that will touch it anywhere in its price range, but you need something on your computer that has ADAT ins.

The other small mackie onyx boards are great, but the firewire interface for them isn't quite up to the same caliber. You'd be better off to go out the main outs into a little M-audio interface, or similar. Regardless, make sure you get something with good mic pres....bad mic pres will kill any chance of getting a decent sound.

As far as sample rate goes, keep in mind that there's a lot more to it than just "faster is better", and for almost all cheap/medium priced interfaces, you'll get better audio quality at 48K than at 96K. It's true.

For microphones, 80% of rock guitars are tracked using an SM57, and a Sennheiser 421 together. Put the SM57 about 3-4" away from the edge of the speaker voice coil, about 15 degrees off axis (the voice coil is the small round "lobe" in the middle of the speaker). Move it around while listening through headphones to find the "sweet" spot.

Now hook the 421 up on a separate channel, and flip the phase. What you want to do here is find the ideal location for the 421 relative to where you mounted the SM57. Mix the SM57 signal and the flipped 421 signal together and listen to it though a pair of headphones. Now with the guitar playing, move it the 421 around until you find the spot where it cancels the 57 signal as much of possible. Once you find that spot, mount the 421 there and un-flip the phase. Voila, the spot of maximum cancellation has now become the spot of maximum addition (and balls) for the two mics together.

[browser]

I design mixing boards and guitar amps for Mackie and EAW for a living. Like someone said before, the mackie onyx 800R is a great interface, there isn't a mic pre that will touch it anywhere in its price range, but you need something on your computer that has ADAT ins.

The other small mackie onyx boards are great, but the firewire interface for them isn't quite up to the same caliber. You'd be better off to go out the main outs into a little M-audio interface, or similar. Regardless, make sure you get something with good mic pres....bad mic pres will kill any chance of getting a decent sound.

As far as sample rate goes, keep in mind that there's a lot more to it than just "faster is better", and for almost all cheap/medium priced interfaces, you'll get better audio quality at 48K than at 96K. It's true.

For microphones, 80% of rock guitars are tracked using an SM57, and a Sennheiser 421 together. Put the SM57 about 3-4" away from the edge of the speaker voice coil, about 15 degrees off axis (the voice coil is the small round "lobe" in the middle of the speaker). Move it around while listening through headphones to find the "sweet" spot.

Now hook the 421 up on a separate channel, and flip the phase. What you want to do here is find the ideal location for the 421 relative to where you mounted the SM57. Mix the SM57 signal and the flipped 421 signal together and listen to it though a pair of headphones. Now with the guitar playing, move it the 421 around until you find the spot where it cancels the 57 signal as much of possible. Once you find that spot, mount the 421 there and un-flip the phase. Voila, the spot of maximum cancellation has now become the spot of maximum addition (and balls) for the two mics together.

I don't care if you design boards for a living, I've never been fan of mackie stuff. But your suggestion is way out of topic dude!!!

the Mackie Pre is what, 1000 bucks, the sennheiser is another 400 bucks, if you're gonna use anything for ADAT it has to be the M-Audio Lightpipe thingy that takes what, 32 channel? ooops.... you're lookn at 2000 dollars!!!!!! and what on GODS earth does he need 8 fucking channels for??????

for that price I'd get an Apogee Ensemble. it has better converters than all above, and it sure as fuck has WAY better pres than the mackie!!

Second of all, the guy is recording his guitar at HOME!!! he's not doing fucking overdubs!!!!

An SM57 and a cheap M-Audio card will do. any cheap card will do. aslong as it's in the "project studio" range. or around 150-350 bucks.

And for the same amount of money that you are suggesting, why not go for the Apogee Mini-Me? It has WAY better converters than the Mackie, helluva lot better preamps and it even comes with an EQ and Compressor. Though the EQ and Compressor is a bit limited. it's 1000 bucks and you'll get a far better result for less money. Also for a newbie miking up his guitar cab at home, the stereo recording can be a hassle. you know this! so why do you even advise him to do double mike his cabinet? he is most likely in an enviroment where he won't have the luxury of doing A-Bing since his cab is screaming in his bedroom.

GET REAL DUDE!!! Though this is a personal taste, the Sennheiser 421 SUCKS for guitars, and I don't know what idiot told u this, but it's NOT often used in studios double miked with the 57!

Edited April 3, 2007 by browser

[angry anderson]

I design mixing boards and guitar amps for Mackie and EAW for a living. Like someone said before, the mackie onyx 800R is a great interface, there isn't a mic pre that will touch it anywhere in its price range, but you need something on your computer that has ADAT ins.

The other small mackie onyx boards are great, but the firewire interface for them isn't quite up to the same caliber. You'd be better off to go out the main outs into a little M-audio interface, or similar. Regardless, make sure you get something with good mic pres....bad mic pres will kill any chance of getting a decent sound.

As far as sample rate goes, keep in mind that there's a lot more to it than just "faster is better", and for almost all cheap/medium priced interfaces, you'll get better audio quality at 48K than at 96K. It's true.

For microphones, 80% of rock guitars are tracked using an SM57, and a Sennheiser 421 together. Put the SM57 about 3-4" away from the edge of the speaker voice coil, about 15 degrees off axis (the voice coil is the small round "lobe" in the middle of the speaker). Move it around while listening through headphones to find the "sweet" spot.

Now hook the 421 up on a separate channel, and flip the phase. What you want to do here is find the ideal location for the 421 relative to where you mounted the SM57. Mix the SM57 signal and the flipped 421 signal together and listen to it though a pair of headphones. Now with the guitar playing, move it the 421 around until you find the spot where it cancels the 57 signal as much of possible. Once you find that spot, mount the 421 there and un-flip the phase. Voila, the spot of maximum cancellation has now become the spot of maximum addition (and balls) for the two mics together.

I don't care if you design boards for a living, I've never been fan of mackie stuff. But your suggestion is way out of topic dude!!!

the Mackie Pre is what, 1000 bucks, the sennheiser is another 400 bucks, if you're gonna use anything for ADAT it has to be the M-Audio Lightpipe thingy that takes what, 32 channel? ooops.... you're lookn at 2000 dollars!!!!!! and what on GODS earth does he need 8 fucking channels for??????

for that price I'd get an Apogee Ensemble. it has better converters than all above, and it sure as fuck has WAY better pres than the mackie!!

Second of all, the guy is recording his guitar at HOME!!! he's not doing fucking overdubs!!!!

An SM57 and a cheap M-Audio card will do. any cheap card will do. aslong as it's in the "project studio" range. or around 150-350 bucks.

And for the same amount of money that you are suggesting, why not go for the Apogee Mini-Me? It has WAY better converters than the Mackie, helluva lot better preamps and it even comes with an EQ and Compressor. Though the EQ and Compressor is a bit limited. it's 1000 bucks and you'll get a far better result for less money. Also for a newbie miking up his guitar cab at home, the stereo recording can be a hassle. you know this! so why do you even advise him to do double mike his cabinet? he is most likely in an enviroment where he won't have the luxury of doing A-Bing since his cab is screaming in his bedroom.

GET REAL DUDE!!! Though this is a personal taste, the Sennheiser 421 SUCKS for guitars, and I don't know what idiot told u this, but it's NOT often used in studios double miked with the 57!

whoa, take a xanax there, sunshine.

I don't care what you think you know. You don't. I work with world class pro audio professionals every day. Have you ever heard of EAW?

He was asking about a way to get a better guitar sound on his computer. He never said a word about it being a home recording or not. He could be recording in his rehearsal space. He could be trying to do it in a small project studio. Even if you are in the same room as the cabinet, you can record 10 seconds, have a listen, move the mic, record 10 seconds.....it's not hard.

I was only mentioning mackie stuff because someone above mentioned mackie pres, and I though I might put in my two cents about a couple different mackie pieces of gear, since I know a bit about them. Where I live, you can rent an 800R for 30 bux a week, and a 421 for around 10 a week. You can buy a cheap ass interface for a couple hundred bux and be limited by that, or you can rent some decent gear when you need to do some recording, and actually get some good sounds.

Aslo, did you miss the part where I said he'd be better off going with an m-audio interface than the mackie firewire?

The "idiot" who told me about the 421/sm57 double mic was the owner of greenhouse studios in vancouver BC, who know a fuck of a lot more about it than you. I've also tried it myself. It works.

FYI, the apogee mini-me converters/pres ain't even close to the 800R. With the mini-me you pay mostly for the apogee brand name. That's a fact. Go ahead, argue with me....

thd+n: 800R 0.0007% Mini-me 0.002%

dynamic range 800R 113dB Mini-me 105dB

EIN 800R -129dBu Mini-me -124dBu

gain range 800R 60dB Mini-me 53dB

Looking at the performance specs for the mini-me, my guess is that they use an AK4528 ADC/DAC for the converters, which again aint even close to to the 800R. The fact that you think that a 2 channel mini-me for $1000 bux is a better deal than an 8 channel 800R proves you don't know shit.

While were talking about converters, new PC motherboards with the intel HD audio format will typically give you better than 95dB dynamic range. HE might be better off to just invest in a new PC, as he'd probably be happy plugging directly into that for home project stuff.

Edited April 5, 2007 by angry anderson