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recording equipment


westhemann

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Oh, good stuff! :D Heh, my fastest box is 900 Mhz B).

Did you get the v-amp 2 or the v-amp pro?

Edit: Did you get that Delta 44 sound card from Dell? I'm curious if they'd (Dell) have warrenty issues for it.

got the v amp 2...i wanted it in part to keep in my truck for a portable amp,with headphones

i got the soundcard from musicians friend i will be installing it myself

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got the v amp 2...i wanted it in part to keep in my truck for a portable amp,with headphones

i got the soundcard from musicians friend i will be installing it myself

Heh, you could probably hook it up to your truck stereo if there's a line-in :D Chevy Metal, dude!!! :DB)

Ah, ok. Would you be voiding Dell's warrenty if you did that?

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Wes,

Depending on what software you go with, I'm sure a number of people can help you out in your beginning endeavours. I, for one, enjoy tinkering with recording software, etc., almost as much as I like guitars. (Well, OK, only 50% as much, but considering how much I love guitar, that's not bad) Let me know if I can do anything to help you out.

If you want to expand your arsenal of free VST, the forum to visit is KVR, where you'll be able to get advice and access their enormous database of plugins. Be warned, though, once you get into it, you MAY end up downloading every available plugin 'just because you can'. It's like getting access to hundreds of stomp-boxes all at once. :D . Anyhow, I've been a victim of that, and although everyone has their own tastes, I can certainly direct you to my favourites for the recording guitarist.

Hope your endeavour is successful!

Greg.

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I'm still using my $40 Altec Lansing PC speakers and my $50 Sony headphones (prices in $CDN). Sure wish I could upgrade, though. :D Especially to proper nearfield monitors, since I hate working with headphones most of the time.

B)

Nyjbkim: no probs about the link. Since I can't stop myself from giving advice, I'll point you to the sets of freebies every computer-based recording artist who can't afford expensive plugins needs, IMO of course.

1. Kjaerhus Classic Series - a set of Bread and Butter VST with usable presets. Love'em. I use the Chorus and the EQ mainly, but all of the plugins are great.

2. Digital Fishphones - no longer being developed, but they are still a vital part of the free plugin community, since the algorhythms are so spectacular. The most heavily used one is the Blockfish (compressor) because it's remarkably transparent. The download links are in small letters on the left side of the webpage. Thought I'd point them out because sometimes people don't see them hiding there.

3. Simulanalog Guitar Suite - the way the page is programmed, I couldn't link directly to the download page, but if you peck around you should find the download link fairly quickly-- or get to it from KVR. Simulations of:

- Boss DS-1 (Distortion stompbox)

- Boss SD-1 (Super Overdrive stompbox)

- Tube Screamer (Overdrive stompbox)

- Oberheim PS-1 (Phaser stompbox)

- Univox Univibe (Modulations stompbox)

- Fender Twin 1969 (Guitar amplifier)

- Marshall JCM900 Dual Reverb (Guitar amplifier)

'nuff said.

4. SIR - convolution impulse-modeled reverb. For free. It's ridiculous. If you don't know what an impulse modeled reverb is, that's OK, all you need to know is that they're sold commercially for $500US or more, and that they duplicate the sound of real spaces (one guy modeled the back of his junky van! Another did a cathedral) or other reverb machines (Lexicon or Eventide, anyone?). If you get into convolution reverbs, you can't miss out on Noisevault, either, to download all the impulses you can shake a stick at. I know, it's only a reverb you're thinking... but trust me, it's sick that you can get this much power for free.

Also worth mentioning are:

Green Machine, who offer a selection of free and shareware stuff. Their shareware Green Machine II is the best amp modeler that you will find for that price. The only thing better, IMO, are Amp Farm (getting old), and Amplitube (kicks all competitors, but costs several hundred dollars). Wes, your sound card can handle the 'sample rate limit' of the Little Green Amp II, but those with older SoundBlaster cards (anything Audigy and lower, and even with Audigy 2 you need either a newer one that came with new drivers, or a download of updated drivers) won't get any satisfaction since they only record at 48kHz.

CamelPhat Free - very simple controls... dodgy-looking user interface (IMO), but lauded as one of the most effective ways to add some distortion and punch to any signal. Some people swear by this and its bigger (commercially available) brother.

Hope those links were of help to some of you.

Greg

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I have a pair of Event PS-8's and they do a great job of not coloring the sound any. The reason you want good powered or non powered monitors is because you'll get real close to flat response from them. Other speakers tend to accentuate the bass end alot or can have a really alot of high ends with no bass. The problem with this is when you mixdown, and your using cheap speakers you might end up with way too much bass in your mix, simply because you couldn't hear the bass in the mix so you tend to turn it up more. Thus when you listen to it on you computer, the mix really sounds smoking hot, but then you wonder why it sounds muddy on other peoples stereo system. When you mix down with a flat response monitoring system, you can really hear how the mix actually sounds in the first place and you can make a mix that sounds great on any system you play it on. So I wouldn't skimp on monitors, unless you can get a friend who has some good ones help you mix it down when your all finished recording.

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what shure mic did you end up getting? i can be of help on this subject, sorry i didnt chime in until now. im a recording engineer at school :D

personally i think a sm57 sucks on anything but loud vocals and electric guitar amp. if your recording acoustic get a good condensor or a pencil mic setup.

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I've always heard " you can't go wrong with a Shure SM-57 for guitar" . So that's why I have one (with access to a SM-58 when I want to use that too {for my crappy vocals}). But I often record my guitar amp at pretty low volume. Have wondered if a condensor mic can work with a low volume guitar amp, coz I heard they can't take a real loud noise going into them.

The "secret weapon" condensor mics seem to cost around $9-10,000

I've got AKG 141 headphones, which do the job, but somehow the design hurts part of my ear.

Haven't even computer recorded yet, so I'm a little jealous of Wes now. But, I've heard him say he's got a real picky ear, so he might be just the right guy to get into this stuff and maybe go pro with it.

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true. they are very good for guitars! problems with them on things like sound fx or very quiet things is that they are dynamic mics, and are less suceptable (sp?) to frequencies than a highly sensitive condensor. so they are hard (for the most part) to peak out, so great to mic a cab a few inches away, but sucks when your trying to record something quiet and you get the material a few db higher than the noise. not really much you can work with there.

sm58=amazing mic for the money!!!!

headphones are nice cause you can listen to stuff and not bother people around you or in your house. but once you hear a nice set of studio monitors in a quiet room youll be like B)

really cant compare the two.

10k is an expensive mic :D most i know of that are popular in studios are neuman u87's and they are like 4k. maybe one of those renown vintage one off things. but thsoe are for microphilliacs. hehehe.

t

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2 Shure SM 57s angled 90 degrees. One pointed at the neck and one at the bridge when recording my acoustic sound great but you have to play with the distance to get the right amount of volume to noise level but I'm no proffessional B)

Recording electric, I love the PODxt into M-Audio Quattro into Cakewalk Guitar Tracks pro. I find it's simple, cheap and good enough for what I record. Again, I'm no pro :D

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For those on a budget, you could do worse than the "Pro Gear" series from Shure. Strange how it's called "Pro Gear" but it's their budget line....

Anyhow, the PG57 and PG58 are only missing a wee bit of the responsiveness of their big brothers, so if you're mostly just doing it for your own pleasure and mucking about, they'll sort you out fairly well.

Greg

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I'm too late!

PCs just plain suck for digital audio compared to a Mac, mainly because you're stuck with Windows OS (and run the risk of wearing out the reset button). Mac OS X (I have 10.3) is hands-down the most stable OS on any computer ever. I believe that new Macs now ship with GarageBand (or you can get it for ~$50, even cheaper on edu discount), which is dead simple to use with a USB or Firewire digital audio interface. GarageBand was a direct result of Apple's purchase of Emagic last year.

If you're ever wanting to record multiple tracks simultaneously (i.e. in a live situation), on Macs the Firewire path is direct to the CPU. On PCs the Firewire path shares the same databus as all the USB stuff, resulting in a throughput bottleneck that Macs just don't have.

Finally...Emagic's Logic 6 Pro is now available through the Apple Store web site. It sells for $999 but the edu discount brings it down to $299 :D

For which you get:

A**-kicking audio & MIDI recording (unlimited # of tracks)

24 bit/96k capability

a bunch of really good effects (EQs, compressors, delays, sub-bass, you name it)

a bunch of really good software synths (they used to come $eparately)

mastering and burn-to-CD or MP3 capability

more features than the mere mortal can comprehend in a lifetime

For mastering I don't even use regular monitors. I take my Mac (mine's a laptop), route the output of my audio interface right into my car stereo, and just master in my car. If it then sounds good on the home stereo too (which is does ~80% of the time, the low end is the trickiest), you're done. Burn it!

More expensive, but well worth it.

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If you're ever wanting to record multiple tracks simultaneously (i.e. in a live situation), on Macs the Firewire path is direct to the CPU. On PCs the Firewire path shares the same databus as all the USB stuff, resulting in a throughput bottleneck that Macs just don't have.

But I think Wes' M-audio card is neither firewire nor USB. It's PCI if I'm not mistaken.

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