Home recording

[Spazz]

Well we have figured out that the digital recording is really good for vocals but not for instruments... at least not with this soundcard lol. My next approach is going to be using the PV14 and plugging into a good tape deck instead of the computer for the instruments and then playing it back into the computer through cakewalk via RCA cord. Would this get us a better sound?

[Smithcok]

Currently, are you using a mic preamp (plugging the mic into that and then running the o/p)? Or just running a mic straight into your soundcard?

The tape deck may in fact degrade the sound quality a little more (especially since you will still be importing the track into your computer using your soundcard as the A/D converter.

Can you tell me a few more specifics about your current setup?

[Spazz]

We use the Peavey PV14 soundboard with 0.0007% THD preamps to record all of our material. The last setup consisted of the board and direct line into the recording software for all instrumental tracks and vocal track with playback.

I have noticed that tapes are not that good for vocals - however, they sound better for instruments. The board to computer set up was perfect for vocals however limited clean headroom for all the instruments which had to be trimed in cakewalk. My question... would utilizing the "board to tape" for instruments and using a converter to cd ... the vocals going "board to computer" be best?

[Spazz]

Recording instruments on tape and then converting them to digital adds warmth and best quality song in my opinion. Vocals were just fine going digital directly. I guess sometimes you really have to experiment to get the best sound:cool: