Help needed for total novice.

> > > Help needed for total novice.

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Member Since: Feb 06, 2007

Hope I'm in the right place, just found this forum.
I feel really stupid, would some kind and patient soul please help me out?
I took the plunge and bought a TASCAM DP01FX-CD and some TASCAM VL-X5 powered speakers after saving up for months. I've always wanted to record my vocal and make some CD's.
My friends have recorded some backing tracks for me and they are on CD and some on minidisc.
I want to record live vocals over their music and then later when I get the hang of it, also record live sax and percussion as well.

I set everything up today and the portastudio has a demo track pre recorded onto it and I couldn't get it to play through the speakers, only through the headphone socket. DOH! The power light was on the speakers and I turned the volume knob on the back up a bit - no sound. I plugged them [headphone type jacks] into the 'stereo mix R & L' sockets at the back of the desk which seemed the logical place. Nowhere in the manual does it show which sockets are for the speakers - effects unit, digital recorder, midi tone generator(??), drum machine etc but no mention of speakers.. The sockets which say 'line output' are the tiny jack sockets and are not the same size as the cables which came with the powered speakers. I must have done something wrong, but I don't know what.

Can anyone tell me where I've gone wrong, please?

I do have other stupid questions, but I thought I'd test the water first with this stupid one.

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Czar of Turd Polish
Member
Since: Jun 20, 2006

Feb 06, 2007 02:54 pm

Not stupid at all. Welcome aboard..

I'll take a stab, from what I could find it looks like that model uses RCA for it's line out. I am assuming your powered speakers are probably 1/4" inputs.

You will probably just need to buy the connector, a stereo pair RCA to 1/4" is all you should need.

The user guide calls it the "monitoring system" but does say this is the spot for your speakers.

Info was on page 15.
www.tascam.com/Products/D...fx_manual_e.pdf

Hope that helps.

Member
Since: Feb 06, 2007

Feb 06, 2007 03:16 pm

Thankyou for the welcome and the offer of help. I'm most grateful.
I did think that perhaps 'monitoring system' referred to powered speakers, but because the holes in the desk are so small, I thought I must be wrong.
The shop I bought the desk, speakers and cables from have delivered cables which only have the larger jacks [at each end] so, as they are the only cables they've sent me I assumed they were for speaker to desk connection?
Which annoys me because I specifically asked for them to include all the cables I needed with my order.
But thanks for the suggestion. There's a shop in my town which sells connectors and stuff, so I shall pop in there and buy a couple as soon as I can.
And I'll save my other stupid questions for when I've managed to get some sound out of the speakers!!

Thanks again for the help.
Bye for now.



Member
Since: Feb 06, 2007

Feb 22, 2007 04:15 pm

Hi, I'm back again.
Turns out the portastudio was faulty and it's been returned to the shop and my money refunded. I could only hear anything through the headphone socket no matter what.
And I don't think it was the right thing for me, anyway.

I have some backing tracks on CD and minidisc.
I just want to record my vocal over the backing tracks and make some CD's of that.
I will want to record live instruments in the future, but at the moment I want to record my voice over the tracks I have bought.
The desk I have returned would not accept the CD's I have unless they were converted to WAV file and it just wouldn't record from the minidiscs even though I plugged an external disc player into the desk.
I don't know what a WAV file is let alone how to convert them.

Bearing in mind what I want to do, can anybody talk me through what kit I would need to buy, so I can budget for it.

I already own a decent Beyer microphone, so it's advice on what I need to record live vocals over existing CD and minidisc backing tracks.

Is there a way to just copy the track onto a hard drive, plug in a mic, sing into it, mix and then write a CD with the finished product?
My computer is over 5 years old and has very little RAM, and I'm told this is a problem.


So should a new laptop with lots of RAM do everything I need? And what model is best?
Any one help this novice, please?

Its a jungle out there.

Czar of Turd Polish
Member
Since: Jun 20, 2006

Feb 23, 2007 01:39 pm

For what you are aiming to do you shouldn't need a super computer. You basically want to take pre-recorded songs and just sing over them. So 2-4 tracks tops probably, with a few effects maybe. I remember doing stuff like that on my P3 450Mhz.

On the mini-disc, I think you have to "capture" the sound as you would data from a video recorder. For instance, you would run the line out from your MD to your reocrding interface, hit record, then hit play on the mini-disc. I do not believe there is a way to just drag and drop the data.

Prince CZAR-ming
Member
Since: Apr 08, 2004

Feb 23, 2007 02:33 pm

I had 8 or 10 tracks playing on my P3 450, so you may get away with using the one you have. I was tracking in 2000 with a Cytrix 333, and getting 5 or so tracks.

Let us know what you're working with, and you might be able to use it.

[quote]I do have other stupid questions, but I thought I'd test the water first with this stupid one.
[/quote] Don't be too hard on yourself, we all start somewhere.

Seems like you can do this with a PC. I'd suggest getting a audio interface (sound card) that will give you line inputs, plus preamps (xlr inputs) with 48v phantom power.

Getting an external one will let you use it on a laptop in the future, if you purchase one.

You probably won't have firewire on your PC, so USB would probably be a decent route for now. If you're going to be ramping up to more complex setups in the future, you may want to take that into consideration.

Getting the files from the CD will take some sort of conversion, as mentioned. The file on the CD is in CDA format, which will need to be pulled from the CD and stored in a format you can use. WAV format is very similar to CDA, as it's raw data, not compressed. There are several ripping programs on the 'net, of which windows media player rips, I believe. I've used CDex in the past, with good results.

Once they're on your HD in WAV format, you can open them with a multitracker program (i'm trying reaper for now). Then you can record a new track, while playing back your backing track. If set up correctly, you'll have both tracks in your software.

hth

Czar of Turd Polish
Member
Since: Jun 20, 2006

Feb 23, 2007 09:21 pm

CD are indeed easy to rip. But what about the mini-disc, anyone have experience with that?

Member
Since: Feb 06, 2007

Feb 24, 2007 11:26 am

Thanks for helping. :)

My only computer is a laptop. It's a few years old now, its called hp pavilion n5511L. It has a CD tray for playing, but it won't write a CD. I have got a CD writer to plug into it however so I can write them in future.

The laptop only has 256 RAM in it but I think I can increase it to 512 if necessary.
But the backingtracks are on CD and MD, so when I have recorded my vocal over them and burned onto a CD, I can then erase it - so do I really need a lot of RAM? I don't store much on my computer, no photos etc.

It would be good news if I can use the laptop I have with just a few additions because money is tight, but I don't know where to begin.
So, talk me through a soundcard - it plugs into the laptop and enables me to plug in a microphone and sing into it?

I know how to copy a CD into the media player libray, and there is also a NERO on the laptop which will rip & burn [I just learned these terms!]
but I don't know how to get tracks from minidisc onto media player/Nero.
Any advice you can give is really welcome.
Thanks again for helping thus far.
Chita.



Prince CZAR-ming
Member
Since: Apr 08, 2004

Feb 24, 2007 12:40 pm

The laptop may be usable, but 256 is very low. But I can see the problem of putting money into an older laptop, as opposed to just buying something newer.

Soundcards built into the laptop won't be very good quality (bad preamp, high latency) so you wouldn't want to use that. So external device would be the way to go. You can still use the device on a newer PC, so you won't be stuck using it on only this laptop.

Your laptop may not have a firewire input, though you could get a pcmcia card to add firewire functionality. Your laptop probably has USB though, so that would be a good option.

You would want a 2 channel device, so you can input L & R from your MD. Line6 has their UX2 which has 2 xlr inputs, and 2 line level inputs. This device has been getting great press, on here, and across the net. That may be a very good option for you, as you can use it with whatever you get in the future.

To get tracks from the MD, you probably have to transfer them manually, which means getting an adaptor that has 1/8" stereo jack on one end (plugs into MD output, or headphone jack), and 2 1/4" mono jacks on the other end (to plug into the interface). They're made, and you probably can get one from Radio Shack. Otherwise, they're sold from places like parts express.

You would press 'record' in your recording software, and press 'play' on the MD player.

newer MD devices have capability to move recorded files over to computer, but yours may not.

I would think that upping your ram to 512, and getting the UX2 is your cleanest option. If it works, then great, you're only out 2-300$. If it doesn't, then you only out the $ for the memory, as you can use the UX2 in the future. Sell the laptop on ebay, and you got your memory cost back =).

Course, you'd have to put out $$$ for a new laptop =).

Like I said, give reaper a try, it's pretty small, quick, and easy to use. www.cockos.com/reaper. See how it runs on your laptop, it might do pretty well.

Member
Since: Feb 06, 2007

Feb 26, 2007 04:13 am

WOW! I never knew all this stuff existed.
Thanks for all the replies.
I shall check it all out - thanks everyone.

I may be back with more stupid questions, however.

> > > Help needed for total novice.

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