Originally posted by darvlay
A yamaha guitar with an awesome sound? I'll have to take your word for that...
What should I be looking for in a sound card?
You can get a decent 4 channel I/O from M Audio, the firewire 410. I had a PC based recording system based on the RME Hammerfall Digiface 8 in, 8 out I/O which is a great I/O and has Midi jacks onboard also. The 410 does not have Midi, I think, wait, I will check it again. I take it back, it does have MIDI in and out. The RME has only 1/4" jack inputs so you need a mixer, which I have, a nice Mackie, 8X4X2. I wish it had direct outs (that way you can send 8 inputs directly into an 8 in and out I/O like the RME, which is an outstanding I/O. The Firewire 410, however has one trick up its sleeve that the RME does not: 2 independent XLR/1/4" input jacks going to two mike preamps, very good ones I might add. So before I had used the RME with a desktop Dell, with Sonar ( I now have Sonar 8, the latest version, been buying into Cakewalk Sonar for 20 years) I still plan to use the RME/Dell setup but I ported the whole thing to a laptop with excellent results using the firewire 410. All you need for that setup is a couple of mikes, stands, mike cables, the 410, laptop and something like Sonar. Cubase and Pro Tools LE are direct competitors, I still like Sonar best, its an individual thing. I like the way Pro Tools LE has punch in and punch out right on the recording screen right up front so if you make a mistake, you can back up and set up a start record time and finish record time and then just play it over and the recording only records during the time you specify so you can fix a track with a goof of only a few seconds on an otherwise spotless track. I mentioned the use of mikes, but you don't have to have an amp to record an electric guitar, just the 410 with a cable from the guitar to the 410, it will amplify that as well, so no problem with noise. I now have the 410/laptop all in one big briefcase. It has a DVD burner so you can use something like CD Maker or some such burning software that lets you pack a full CD worth of cuts, say 20 or 23 separate cuts, it automatically adds a couple three seconds of silence between tracks and records the whole thing in one session so you have an instant demo CD. You can also go direct to MP3 for launching to My Space or some such. Sonar also handles video so you could make a video with a camcorder and do nice tricks with the soundtrack so you can upload a real video to You Tube or whatever.
Sonar costs about 600 ish bucks for Sonar 8 Producer edition, top of the line, which is what I have, but they have much cheaper ones that don't handle video, just google in Cakewalk and it will take you to their site.
The whole thing ported to a laptop is so small, it's unreal! For acoustic, couple of mikes, stands, cables, 410, laptop, Sonar and something like Sound forge and a few extra software sets, It all fits in a big briefcase, cept for the mikes and stands. Well the mikes fit in the briefcase too! So it does not even have to be a desktop, but you get faster HD's and such. The laptop has only 5400 RPM HD's but the Desktops START at 7200 RPM, which means more tracks simultaneously, but just as a single musician doing your own thing, you won't have much problem with the slower laptop drives. Just be sure you have two drives, one for the software and another, like a USB2 port drive for the actual recording tracks, that keeps the single HD from banging itself to death! My wife is nagging me to install the Hi Def box, I just got her a 37" LCD set for the bedroom for mothers day (surprised the snot out of her!) so I will cut it off here. So just get the 410, it does amp for audio or guitar!
27 May '09 20:22
Drum Machines/Analog Synths/Recording Software
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