Tapper Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 I'm a complete newb when it comes to hardware like sound cards and amps. I don't know much about it, but I'd really like to learn. I want to record some acoustic and electric guitar music, but my current setup sucks. Here is a quick recording I done to give you an idea of what I'm working with. RecordTest.wav Aside from my questionable guitar playing skills and the fact that the guitar is a little out of tune, it sounds like crap because I lack decent recording equipment. I'm gonna start saving up for some new sound equipment soon and I need some help because I don't know what to buy. Heres my current setup: Esteban acoustic electric guitar. Yeah I know its a poor man's guitar, but I'm a poor man. Esteban amplifier. I can live with the guitar, but this amp sounds like crap. The only output is a headphone jack, which I'm hooking into my sound card's line in jack to do the recording. Instead of hooking the guitar directly into the amp, I'm hooking a Nady Starpower SP-1 mic into it. I'm not sure if this is a good mic or not because I borrowed it from my dad. It doesn't sound quiet right when I hook the mic directly into my computer, which is why I'm putting it through the amp first. My sound card is an Aureal Audio card. I'm not exactly sure what model, but its obviously a pretty cheap card. Its gonna need to be replaced soon anyway because the line out jack is screwed up and for some reason only outputs sound to the right speaker. I'm recording it all with Guitar FX Box Pro, which is a digital guitar recording program. Any suggestions for new hardware, or links where I can read more about live guitar recording? Keep in mind that I don't have a lot of money to spend. I just want a decent sound for as little money as possible. What about those Line-6 Pod preamp thingies? Should I look into those? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kriko Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Nice guitar playing. Terrible recording quality. First you need to pick up good soundcard with low noise that can record in higher resolution. The EMU 0404 is a very good start here. Also, if your'e using a dynamic microphone you will need a preamplifier before it enters the soundcard. Behringer makes nice little mixers for this purpose. Nady Starpower SP-1 doesn't look to excluisive. I can really recommend Shure SM-57. Check out this thread: http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=83334 /Kriko Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klm09 Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Any suggestions for new hardware, or links where I can read more about live guitar recording? Keep in mind that I don't have a lot of money to spend. I just want a decent sound for as little money as possible. What about those Line-6 Pod preamp thingies? Should I look into those? I don't have much experience with recording acoustic guitar, but I own a PodXT. For electric guitar, I can definately recommend that; for acoustic, it works, but is overkill, really, and not specifically designed for that. You can plug it in via USB, negating the necessity to upgrade your soundcard for better recording quality. You obviously don't need to mic anything up, so that's another link in the audio chain that's not compromising your quality. You don't need an amp or a room to record it in, so background noise and acoustics are not an issue. The tones you can get out of it are, simply put, world class, if you have the right patches. You can download thousands off the net for free, or alternately tweak your own, which is simplicity itself (if you have any experience with guitar amps and effects) with the Line6 editing software. Of course, you can edit with the knobs and buttons on the unit itself, which is well designed and intuitive as well, but editing on the computer, you can see basically all parameters at once. I could go on and on (I love it to bits ), but you can check details over at www.line6.com and listen to some samples. Mind you, some of those samples are kind of under-representative of the power of the unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tapper Posted June 19, 2006 Author Share Posted June 19, 2006 Thanks for the suggestions guys. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I'm considering buying a Pod XT. I've heard a lot of good things about it and I'm sure it would work perfectly for recording electric guitar, but at the moment I'm more interested in recording acoustic. Would I be able to record acoustic with decent quality using a pod? What would be the best way to go about it? Can I get good sound by hooking a mic into the pod and recording like that? Also, I'm gonna have a better look at that EMU 0404. I might just go ahead and buy one of those and experiment with it before I spring for a pod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salluz Posted June 19, 2006 Share Posted June 19, 2006 Nice guitar playing. Terrible recording quality. First you need to pick up good soundcard with low noise that can record in higher resolution. The EMU 0404 is a very good start here. Also, if your'e using a dynamic microphone you will need a preamplifier before it enters the soundcard. Behringer makes nice little mixers for this purpose. Nady Starpower SP-1 doesn't look to excluisive. I can really recommend Shure SM-57. Check out this thread: http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=83334 /Kriko U R STEEEELING MY REKUMINDASHAHNZ! Yes, listen to Kriko. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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