You will need a multitrack audio card. There are several ways to do thisdepending on the quality you want, the money you want to spend, the interface type, and how many tracks you need to record simultaneously. Answer as many of these questions that you can and we'll point you in the right direction. Also, tell us as much about your computer as possible.

P.S - MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is just a way for computers, keyboards, samplers, and things to communicate. It isn't audio. Think of it as sheet music for electronic devices.

alright, i have a brand new dell laptop, 512 ram, 1.7 mhz, 40 gb HD, i guess, most imporant its warranted... very protective, only load things i absolutely need, will have plenty of space...

when i consider how much to spend, i know that it is ongoing. i'd love to find soft ware that i could learn on, cheap. 3-400 cheap, and the audio card is like 3-400, right? what's the cheapest i can realistically do 6-eight tracks, this way?

then there are these self contained things, and then there are these rack mounted things, that i guess do the same thing as the card, but must do something else, too...

i and my drummer should record. i want our first effort to be good enough to go far. if there's a way, we will produce an album quality demo the first time we "release" anything.

obviously, i don't know anything about the industry, either.

i'm not about to pay anyone else to be incharge of how good is good enough, so i must learn to record. the music scene here in tallahassee makes me so paranoid...

if i said i had a bad-ass computer, and about a grand, and i want to make a record, starting with live, full band takes, minor editing and dubbing, preserving "live performance" sound - like people will say "that's EXACTLY what they sound like live" ...don't worry about peripherals, i got mics for now, etc...

which way should i go? can you help me find used stuff? i'd rather play with antiquated stuff untill i learn enough to say, come on this website, and at least understand what you all are saying...

thank you All.

richay from amochupo.

You need to decide how many tracks you want to record. If you only have $400 to spend, you'll probably be looking at something on eBAY. I use a MOTU 24i which can record 24 tracks at 24 bits 48KHz (or 44.1 KHz). I suspect your computer would do fine recording 24 tracks - might need a bigger disk if you want to record a full concert or something like that. I once recorded 16 tracks with a PIII 750 with nooo problem.

There are other options for recording fewer tracks - a Delta 10/10, for example - or a MOTU 1224 or ... ??

I do mostly concert recording - by the time I record a 16 track concert, make backup copies of all the original WAV files, bounce a few groups of tracks down, mixdown, master - one project can take up 40GB. I have 400GB on 4 disks in my DAW - about 250 that I work with and 150 for backing up the other drives.

external drives would be money well spent of course...

how much is one of these pIII750 deals... used maybe... i will look up these suggested pieces on the trading thread on this site, and come back with more Q's thank you again!!

amochupo wrote: external drives would be money well spent of course...

Not my money. Why an external drive? For the same money an internal disk will provide more space. I'd rather spend money on bigger internal drives so I can leave them in the box.

[edit] This post was a real mess. :-? I have no idea where my brain was when I wrote this originally. Sorry![/edit]

amochupo wrote: external drives would be money well spent of course...

how much is one of these pIII750 deals...

He was referring to his computer (Pentium III - 750 MHz).

But as far as an audio interface, the MOTU gear is decent. You can get a used MOTU 2408 for less than $150. The 2408 has 8 analog inputs, 10 analog outputs. Which is great if you prefer to mix on an analog mixer. Keep in mind you'll need some kind of preamp to get your mics up to an acceptable level. Do you own any sort of mixing console? If not, an 8-channel mic pre will do the job. There are a few decent pres out there that will fit your budget. Check this out though.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3777270355&rd=1

That's a great mixer for the price. A friend of mine owned one of these and it sounded quite good. If you picked up that and a 2408 you'd have a pretty kickass recording setup. AND you'd be sticking to your budget. :wink: You can find some terrific deals on ebay. I've bought most of my stuff on there. Definitely worth checking into.

Also, if you can afford to, I'd suggest you pick up a DVD burner. Multitrack sessions can be quite large and DVD-Rs are an inexpensive way to back up your files. Those are also getting cheaper by the minute.

Hope this helps.

Oops. I just noticed you have a laptop. The motu gear uses a pci slot. You may be able to use a standard IEEE 1394 (Firewire) interface but you'd have to check with motu to make sure.