Need help starting out.
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Posted on Apr 30, 2006 04:14 pm
FatFish
Member Since: Apr 30, 2006
Hello,
I'm new to recording and have a few questions that i could not find through the forum search.
I would like to start recording some of my guitar tracks. I dont want a pro studio, just decent enough for home use and creating some song ideas with drum tracks and such.
The best option for me will probably be an external device, the Firebox caught my eye: Cheap, enough mic ins, midi support and decent recording software.
I'm pretty sure this will be the one I buy, but I'm not sure about the mic.
Alot praise the SM57, but I was also looking at the Sennheiser E906, any opinions about this one?(found none through search).
I will be working in my bedroom and it is a crappy room :p so I figure the best way to mic is as close to the source as possible so that the room wont have much effect on the sound. Is this correct?
I also found no info on draping the mic infront of the cab instead of using a stand, is this a good method or is a stand better?(the E906 seems to be made for this method)
I really cant afford a pair of decent monitors(and have no room) so decent (mixing)headphones are a better option, any ideas? budget: 100-150 euro
I also have problems with latency when i record something now, making it impossible to layer rhythm tracks, what is the best way to minimise this?
Quiet allot of questions and it would really help me if someone could help me out.
Thanks for your time and reading this!
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Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Apr 30, 2006 05:23 pm Hey FatFish, welcome to HRC first off.
The Firebox from Presonus is getting pretty good reviews, and they seem to have their driver situation under control now. You will definately want to make sure your firewire set up is compatable with the unit though as we have seen several posts regarding it not working on certain systems with certain chips on the firewire set up.
AS for the mic, indeed the E906 is more dedicated to the guitar miccing, although I have heard of it being used eslewhere with good success. That particular mic will work OK being hung in front of the speaker, but to be very honest you will get the best sound if you can put it on a stand. This will allow you to move it around to find the sweet spot fro getting the sound you want. It will also eliminate any noise that will be inherent with it resting on the speaker cabinet.
As for headphones, you will want to find the flatest response headphones you can get. You can should be able to get into a pair of AKG K240 Moniter or AKG K240 Studio for that range. They are a very comfortable headphone to use for extened periods of time and have a pretty flat frequancy range which well help for mixing. They will also work well for tracking, They bleed a tiny bit, but that wont matter much miccing a guitar cabinet.
As for the latency issue, the Firebox will not give you the kind of latency your getting with the stock card now. But that said, you will want a pretty decent computer with preferably 1 gig of ram to help the system work to its best.
Hope this helps ya a bit. Good luck.
Noize
May 01, 2006 09:09 am Thanks for you reply.
My computer should be fast enough and i have 1 gig of ram clocked at decent speeds so that is covered.
I use an asus p4p800S-E Deluxe motherboard on my pc.
It features an Intel 848P Chipset.
Any problems with this chipset?
And the next question might be stupid but anyway :p
When im recording through my headphones(+ backing track), which output do i use?
The one on my firepod or the one on my pc?
I guess the one on the firepod is just my mic sound so if i play along a track i guess it wil be my pc output, but wont that also causse axtra latency?
And thanks for your time.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
May 01, 2006 10:36 pm No, you will moniter through the Firepod. It is meant for that, recording and playback at the same time.
Dont use the stock PC sound card at all for recording once the Firepod is installed. You can leave it running for system and game sound if you like, but dont have its drivers live in your recording application.
May 02, 2006 10:21 am Ok, thanks for your help.
