Ok, so I'm learning the very hard way that recording commercials for radio and recording music is two totally different animals. I'm a production director at a radio staton and have been for 3 years. I'm also a musician, and recently decided to set up a home recording studio. Unfortunatley I'm completley clueless. Noob... yes. I've already purchased a computer ramped it up with a gig of ram, installed auditon on to it, purchased a 12 track Behringer xenyx mixer with effects, and an AKG Perception Mic. Outside of all that I am completley clueless. Standby for questions
Mainly- What are the essentials needed for recording outside of a board, instruments, mic's and something to record with?
1. What the hell is latency?
2. Musical Instrument Digital Interface... Help?
3. Processors, Equalizers, Compressors what is necessary for pro sound? What ones?
4. Do I Mic My guitar Amp, or run the emulated line out into the mixer then back to the guitar cabinet.
5. What elements of the music go where... Example Panning of Drums, Bass Guitar Vocals, and Lead instruments?
6. For my vocals, I hate having to switch back and forth between my sound card, and external usb drive to prevent whatever is playing on the computer from being fed back into the board, and into the computer again when I'm recording vocals and need the music in my headphones... do they make a unit that will stop this? or how do I by-pass it?
I know they are all very loaded questions, and probably tough to answer all. any help you guys can provide would be great! Thanx
-Johnny
Comments
Making Sense These things all make sense which is good, About t
Making Sense
These things all make sense which is good, About two weeks ago I would have been totally lost. That is sad to me because I've been working around similar equiptment for years now. As for the Programs I'm using, I have Adobe Audition Set up as my recording interface, mainly because I know it like the back of my hand, just a little fuzzy on the musical aspects of the program, but if I was able to learn the other aspects fairly quickly then this should be no problem. My Board is actually a 16 input Behringer Xenyx. The Board has a primary USB In and out Device, However it does have XLR In's and Outs.
My Biggest Problem Comes in when, I have my audio source fed into my board, then into the computer.
In Return I have the Computer running into the board, which loops back out and goes to the computer again.
After I've recorded something in the Multi-Track Veiw like guitar riff or drum beat, and want to add vocals to it, In order to hear the music while i'm recording the vocals I have to play them in the track above where I am recording.
The Problem Begins when: As the Music Is playing in the First Track, it's being looped back into the board so It can be heard in the head phones, but that means my board is again sending that back into the computer.
Which Gives me already mixed vocals and music. I need to Normalize, and Dynamic Process my vocals, but I can't edit the vocals because as the vocals were being laid down the computer also recorded the music i was playing back to record the vocals in the same track. We'll Just call it a pre-mature mixdown.
What I have tried doing, is hooking headphones up to the onboard soundcard... whatever came with this dell, Set the Input Device on Adobe Audition as the USB Interface that is coming from the Board, and the playback device as the default soundcard.
That makes for a-lot of switching back and forth, not to mention difficult to control the headphone's volume.
In Radio on these boards we have what is called Audition and Program. Program Sends you're feed to the transmitter and audition sends you're audio feed to the computer, at the switch of a button. You also have a source selector in which you can choose which feed you want to listen to.
I was wondering if there is a similar device, that is compatible with my mixer, to where i can listen to the audio in cue in my headphones, without re-recording whats already in the computer.
I hope I haven't confused you too much. I know it's long winded, but like I said my green horns are showing.
I greatly Appriciate the reply
-Johnny
Would I just use my Auxilary sends to route things to the card?
Would I just use my Auxilary sends to route things to the card? That makes good sense. That would elimate the pre-mature mixdown problem. That way I could monitor everything Live, but record seperatley... Wow.. Thanx.
-J
P.S. What about the Delta M-Audio Series of audio cards, are those reliable and as versitle as the E-mu series? It's getting better reviews on musicians friend, but I want to ask the pro's first.
Not your aux sends. you would have new aux sends its a PCI card
Not your aux sends. you would have new aux sends its a PCI card / Breakout Box combo - you would have 18 inputs, 20 outputs, asio monitoring (no latency audio recording) and the same converters protools has, if you buy the 1820M, or really good Burr converters (Texas Instruments, top of the line for TI, "pro-sumer") for the 1820 (no "M"). This would literally take the place of any soundcard you have. You can record 8 audio tracks simultaneously. The card does not stack though; you cant get two for 16 tracks. No I dont work for Emu :evil: I really like mine, and I only spent $274, in a package deal. Check Ebay...otherwise they sell i think for $400. It's a good card.
Here's a site to help you get started, not recomending
Here's a site to help you get started,
not recomending the gear persay, just the ideas on how to use it,,
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
G'luck
SI
FlintFyre wrote: Mainly- What are the essentials needed for re
Those are the essentials. You need a microphone, an interface to get the signal to the computer, computer software to handle the recording/mixing duties and speakers to listen to it all. On top of that, things you might/will want are things like compressors, preamps, effects, eqs, etc.
The effects of latency can be described as the time difference from when you play the sound to when you actually hear it.
When recording with computers, you send the signal to the computer, it gets processed by your recording program and any sort of plug-ins you may be using and then sends the resulting sound back out to your mixer/speakers. If you have a lot of stuff going on within the recording program, the computer needs time to process it all. If you have a low latency setting, your audio playback may become unstable with noice like pops or clicks or outright pauses. In cases like that you may have to increase your latency time (giving the computer and interface more time to process the audio) so that the audio playback remains stable. That in turn can introduce time lag when recording making it difficult to do. Different devices have different drivers which are optimized for audio and can help reduce latency.
That affectionately known as MIDI. Are you familiar with a player piano? If so, think of MIDI as the computer equivalent of the paper roll that the player piano uses. MIDI is mostly used by keyboardists but it can be used for much more than recording notes.
Since you are starting out, your audio software should have adequate implementations of these devices. They are all used in pro sound.
You can do both. If you like the sound that comes out of your cabinet, then you should mic it and record that. But you could also run a direct line into your audio program and record both at the same time. Then you could run the direct signal through any one of the many amp simulators on the market.
There are not hard and fast rules here...but generally the kick, snare and vocals and bass would be in the center. The rest of the drum kit is usually panned from the drummers perspective (i do the opposite). Guitars can be spread out, in the middle or where ever you want them and the same goes for leads. Again..no rules here. Do what sounds good to you.
I'm not sure what you are switching between the sound card and USB drive. I am also not familiar with that mixing board or audio software. Without that I can't tell you exactly what you need to do. If the mixer has different in's and out's and allows you to switch what you monitor, you should be able to hook everything up in a way where you won't have the feedback problem.