Aw bugger, we really need a beginner's guide, hang on, lemme google something up...Ah, here we go.

http://www.acousticfingerstyle.com/ComputerRecording1.htm

Try this out for size and see if you're basic questions are answered, then come back and ask for gear suggestions, but then you'll know what you need. Good luck,

Nathan

What you need is called an "interface".

If you're using mics (this speaks for itself), you need an interface with mic preamps in it, one preamp per mic.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.recordin…"]Soundcard Wizard[/]="http://www.recordin…"]Soundcard Wizard[/]
This maybe isn't the most comprehensive list but it has enough on it to get by.

Thanks folks, I appreciate your replies and information. Here is what I have found thus far:

http://www.studica.com/products/product_detail.cfm?productid=12657

I would like to have 8 XLR connections for mics and also be able to plug in two or three guitars. Can I assume that the 8 mic/line inputs on this unit have preamps? I also take it I would have to use some of those 8 to plug in the instruments. I would rather have 8 mic inputs free in ADDITION to instrument inputs but considering I'm on a budget and this interface is only $250 I guess I can't complain. I'm open to your ideas!

Edit to add, here's another I found, what of it?

http://www.musicgoround.com/gear/inventorydetails.asp?id=644318

Just in case it makes any difference, all I want is to get signal from mics and instruments into my computer. I don't need any EQs or level adjustment, I can do all that in software. Just as long as I can get the original sound cleanly in where I can work on it. I guess I need preamps as well but that to my knowledge is all.

The top one from Studica (the Alesis MultiMix) is
A) Not sold anymore.
B) Does have preamps, but
C) Will do the same as the MG16 you mentioned to begin with, but via a USB cable. The USB captures from the Stereo Mix.

The Firepod is a good choice. Yes, that's preamps.
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.presonus…"]FP10[/]="http://www.presonus…"]FP10[/] This is the new version of the Firepod you're looking at. Dunno how much has changed.
You can daisychain these, and add another later on (for 16 inputs up to maybe 32) if you need them, but it needs Firewire.

The board you're looking at will only let you pull in the stereo mix, i.e. the master mix from the board into your computer, not each channel individually, so your mixing will have to be live, because afterwards you'll only have left and right to play with, not "Guitar" "Kick" "Snare" "Vocals" etc. Just so you know...

Nathan

Thanks again ... so is there no sub-$1000 way to get mics recorded simultaneously to individual channels on my computer? If it makes any difference, I'm comfortable and experienced in modifying electronics and computers, so if I had more information on the inner workings of audio equipment maybe I could create my own interface.

There is: the FP10/Firepod/Firesomething you were looking at which has 8 preamps (which are attached to the combined XLR/line inputs for guitars) would get you 8 separate channels.

So each mic connected to the FP10 will be recorded by a multitrack recording program into an individual channel, all through a single Firewire connection?

basilbowman wrote: The board you're looking at will only let you pull in the stereo mix, i.e. the master mix from the board into your computer, not each channel individually, so your mixing will have to be live, because afterwards you'll only have left and right to play with, not "Guitar" "Kick" "Snare" "Vocals" etc. Just so you know...

Nathan

Not true. Busing will allow at least 4 seperate channels. If your comfortable with making your own patch cords you can use any one of the 8 i/o points on the back to route sound for a total of 12 channels out.

Around here the presonus firepod gets good press which would eliminate the need for an external board.

"So each mic connected to the FP10 will be recorded by a multitrack recording program into an individual channel, all through a single Firewire connection?"

Yes.

Thanks for the answer Codemonkey ... I'm getting somewhere!

Space wrote: Busing will allow at least 4 seperate channels. If your comfortable with making your own patch cords you can use any one of the 8 i/o points on the back to route sound for a total of 12 channels out.

I'm very interested in this. But for each I/O channel on the back that I use as an output, don't I sacrifice an input?

I'd work with Codemonkey, you don't need another obstacle in your signal chain at this point.

Space, I just got my head round mixer grouping, to hell with busing. Anything I can't get hands on with is still 50% over my head so don't take anything I say for gold (if you haven't worked that out already lol).

Stick with the FP10 or something with sufficient pres and in your price range, Presonus seems to be all over the place with their naming over the years.

Space wrote: I'd work with Codemonkey, you don't need another obstacle in your signal chain at this point.

Heh, I don't mind obstacles at all ... as long as I can get my damn mics recording to individual channels! :lol:

Codemonkey wrote: Space, I just got my head round mixer grouping, to hell with busing. Anything I can't get hands on with is still 50% over my head so don't take anything I say for gold (if you haven't worked that out already lol).

Stick with the FP10 or something with sufficient pres and in your price range, Presonus seems to be all over the place with their naming over the years.

So you can support that an external mixer will only add to the confusion.

TIGR wrote: [quote=Space]I'd work with Codemonkey, you don't need another obstacle in your signal chain at this point.

Heh, I don't mind obstacles at all ... as long as I can get my damn mics recording to individual channels! :lol:

I very much appreciate all your help and I'm asking you all to not give up on me yet! :)

Big thing about another obstacle is that when you actually go to record, it's
A) More knobs to worry about setting
B) More noise and hiss if you don't do it right
C) More stuff on your table
D) Less stuff left in your wallet, too, by having more gear.

The cheapest and easiest way is for definite, the Firepod/FP10, whatever it's called.

That is where I was going all along :)

Thanks guys, I'll seriously consider the Firepod.

I am prepared and even looking forward to taking the time to set everything right, as I'll have to do extensive "tuning" for my own ear anyway. Space is no issue whatsoever, so budget is the only limitation (though I recognize it is a significant limitation) here. I have time to learn, to tune, and space for anything. I'm not just looking for cheapest and easiest. :) Definitely not easiest, and I don't want to go so cheap that the quality of my recordings suffers.

What about the MultiMix 16Firewire (just want to consider any possible options)? Will that provide me with only a stereo out as well, like the 16USB?

I just purchased a FireStudio, so i've been reading up on all kinds of Presonus threads and such to make sure if I want to go with them. in the end I decided it would be the best route to go, BUT read up on it.

Make sure your IEEE1394 card is NOT a combo card and made with a texas instraments chipset. Presonus reconmends using SIIG cards.
Also, I hear XP Service Pack2 can cause some issues, as well as Vista.

It is strongly suggested to dedicate a PC Just for your recording.

I've heard of people using something called "Mad XP". Its s striped down version of XP. Im planning on using OSX 10.5.1 on my Hackintosh. You might want to check out this page if your interested in that.

http://www.osx86project.org

Thanks Sethiroth, good info there. I actually do have a Hackintosh setup but my main computer is running XP SP2. I guess I'll just test and tweak until I find what works best. Also glad you mentioned the Firewire card. I believe mine is a SIIG but now I know to check.

Presonus's forums are a great place to get lots of info on their gear.

http://www.presonus.com

people have been very helpful over there with info.

I have an older XP SP1 enterprise edtion that im going to put on a partition that I am going to play with as far as windows apps go for recording. But I think im going to stick with Logic and stay Mac.

A separate drive is always better. Placing another partition on the drive doesn't really help much because the information is still transferred through the same ide cable.

But a separate drive on it's own individual cable will keep the information transfer between the two drives separate from one another.

Lucky for me I own a small computer company. :) I'll be using a RAID 0 array for all my audio work, including temporary files, and have a few hundred gigabytes to dedicate to that. Configured properly, I have found that it is not necessary to use a dedicated computer for many things that people say require a dedicated system. I've been doing gaming, graphic and web design, audio and video capture and editing, and software testing all on the same computer that also stores my extensive audio and video archives, and to which my surveillance system is also connected, for years.

Some days, I love technology. :)

Sethiroth wrote:
I have an older XP SP1 enterprise edtion that im going to put on a partition ...

I hear ya. I was sorta talkin' to the other person :)(:

My goal is to get Linux running (easy enough, minus Radeon 2600's having crap drivers) and use Ardour (bit harder, considering that "i386 architecture is not supported by Ardour 2" and to install it, I had to install Ubuntu Studio on top of Ubuntu 7.10 ... I tried dyneBolic but my mouse is nothing short of a joke.
I've tried virtual machines too, I say NEVER try and use a VM for audio recording, maybe mixes but NOTHING else, it's so slow and a nightmare with Linux anything as a guest OS.
And obviously I can't run it natively because of severe problems with drivers.

Besides that, great, keeping everything on one big partition is the way to go.
(For a year or more anyway)

Can't agree with ya boss.

Think of it like your blank recording tape.

It is one of the easiest things that even a yahoo >can< do is to add a hard drive.

Or that yahoo knows a teenager that can do it. It can be done at no real expense or downtime.

Oh, I wasn't referring to any one particular person when I said yahoo.

??? I can add a hard drive no problem. It's driveRs I have problems with, for graphics cards and sound cards and mice.

And keeping everything on one partition, I meant Windows, the program files and everything that isn't media needing to be streamed into an editor.
Everything I have is on one drive, then my media files are on another drive along with a few games because they wouldn't fit on my first drive.

I wanted to use a Raid0, but I wasnt sure how it would work with a 10.5.1 hack os. So I got a MB that I knew was compatible.

Im going to be using a 7,200 RPM S-ATA HDD. I wasn't thinking that a partition would effect the uploading of the audio interface with that fast of a hard drive.

I want to keep this computer as bare bones as I can, because im not sure of the compatiblity of Leopard with mulit-HDD's and such.

The FP10 (Firepod as I know it) is a good product. It's easy to use, and comes with Cubase LE, I believe, so you wouldn't have to buy software on top of this (I'm assuming you don't already have some kind of software program). Right now, considering you don't want to spend much, and want 8 discrete channels, this would be the way to go. If you could find one used, it'd be even better.

Actually I have Cubase and Audition. Is the FP10 the only Firepod that lets you record to discrete channels? I can find previous versions of the Firepod for a lot less.

Am I wrong to be adamant about this multitrack recording capability? You folks know better than I do. I'll be recording acoustic and electric guitars/bass, vocals, piano, very possibly some strings (i.e. cello, violin) and percussion. I will already have two additional channels since I have two Blue Snowball condensors. They would make for fine drum overheads/room mics I think.

I'm open to your suggestions ... also I would really like to hear more about the idea mentioned a while back about using patch cables on that Alesis MultiMix 16USB. And still wondering if the Multimix 16Firewire mixes to stereo like the USB versino or if it offers individual channel recording (ok what is the correct terminology here?).

Thanks very much all!

Thought I would forward replies I got from some questions I sent to Alesis:

"Thank you for your interest in Alesis.

Our USB1.1 mixers only record all channels down to a single stereo track (left and right channel). These are most likely the mixers that you were told about.

Our Firewire and USB2.0 mixers are capable of multi-track recording. Therefore, any of our Firewire or USB2.0 mixers will work perfectly for what you are trying to do."

And after I sent some more questions, another reply:

"Thank you for your enquiry.

Me: What is the difference between the 16Firewire and the 16USB 2.0 mixers? I believe Firewire is faster but imagine USB 2.0 is probably adequate for 16 channels, so what is the practical difference, if any?

Alesis: There is only one difference between these two mixers. The difference being that the USB2.0 mixer is capable of transferring audio at a higher sample rate than the Firewire mixer.

The Firewire mixers highest transfer rate is 48KHZ. The USB2.0 mixers highest transfer is 96KHZ.

Me: In the specs on your site for the 16Firewire, next to phantom power it says 4@48v. Does this mean that only 4 of the XLR mic inputs provide phantom power? Same question for the 16USB 2.0.

Alesis: This is incorrect. Both the Firewire and USB2.0 mixers have phantom power on all 8 XRL mic inputs (8@48V)."

Space wrote: [quote=basilbowman]The board you're looking at will only let you pull in the stereo mix, i.e. the master mix from the board into your computer, not each channel individually, so your mixing will have to be live, because afterwards you'll only have left and right to play with, not "Guitar" "Kick" "Snare" "Vocals" etc. Just so you know...

Nathan

Not true. Busing will allow at least 4 seperate channels. If your comfortable with making your own patch cords you can use any one of the 8 i/o points on the back to route sound for a total of 12 channels out.

Around here the presonus firepod gets good press which would eliminate the need for an external board.

If there is any confusion, which I often bring to the table, my reference was to your first post on this topic, the Yamaha MG16 mixer.

Just in case....

Space, I would love to use the MG16 if I can, since I still can get it much more inexpensively than even the Alesis mixers, which are in turn significantly less than the Firepod. Did you see my question replying to your post about patch cords? I'd be comfortable messing with that but was wondering how it works and whether or not I could have 8 inputs and 8 serparate outputs simultaneously.

http://www.m-audio.com has the 1010 and the 1010lt soundcard with multiple[8] ins and outs.

Thanks Space! Anybody have opinions on the M-Audio 1010 vs Alesis MultiMix interfaces?

I'm hankering after a 1010LT, since I'm on a budget and want something other than onboard, with multiple lines (and any quality of pres are a plus).
I do live sound though, so I'm not after a control surface. I don't want/need 2 mixers on the table as there's never enough space for one and a laptop lol.

The Firepod can be upgraded to the FP10 via the presonus website. (firmware upgrade)

Another option is the motu 8-pre. I was considering the presonus firestudio but went with the motu because I read alot about compatibility issues with the new macbook pro, and that's what I have. But I really wanted the firestudio, but was a little freaked by what I read. I think they are both really good, I've done some research on them. I paid 720,000 won here in Korea, that's probably about 720 dollars US give or take. Not sure where they are made so don't know if I pay more or less here. Anyway, the firestudio, if I would have waited and risked the compatibility issue, would have cost me 970,000 won.