recording guitars

[tomahawk]

I know a little about guitars, and I know a little about computers . The problem is I know absolutly nothing about how to combine the two. I have a pentium2 400 mhz with 192 mb ram and I have Cakewalk home studio 9 installed on it. What I would like to do is to record 4 or 5 tracks at the same time on it. I know I need a different sound card than the yamaha ds-xg that I have but I wanted to know if what I want to do is even possible with this setup. and if it is what sound card do you recommend that will let me record more than one track at a time. I also have an Electro-voice Bk 1632 stereo mixer I would like to put in the loop if it is possible. any help will be greatly appreciated as I have no clue to what I'm doing :lick: :classic:

[Jim Wintringham]

I'm also a guitar player, computer hobbiest. I think you are ok with your soundcard, especially starting out..... you may want to upgrade later, but you will have a better idea of what you want if you use what you have for now. I believe your software is the control of how many tracks you can record.
To connect... plug your guitar into the mixer..... and the mixer out into the 'line in' of the computer. Be careful to turn the volume way down on the mixer to start with ( to protect the soundcard from overload).... then adjust it up to a good level. Make sure you have turned on the 'line in' in the windows soundcard controls. If you do it correctly....you should hear the guitar thru the computer speaker. If your soundcard has good sounding instrument samples.... you can mix in midi tracks to fill out the music.
I use my Yamaha DG Stomp box as a mixer interface. it has a digital sound output that I can plug into my Soundblaster live digital input. That gives me a 'hum free' recording. But the line in will do ok too. If you ever get a stomp box.... consider one with a digital output for your computer (and a computer soundcard with digital in connections)

[tomahawk]

I tryed somthing like that . when I plug my" line out "from the mixer into the" mic in" on the soundcard i can record but it sounds awful. but when I hook it up to the "line in" on the soundcard it sounds good coming out of the computer speakers but I cant get it to record anything ?

[Jim Wintringham]

You may need to 'select' the 'line in' as your recording source. This is done in the windows controlers. Make sure you are looking at the 'record' slider display when selecting the line in as your recording source. The record controls are found in the play control/ options/ properties.... where you can also add the line in to the record display (in the bottom box) ...if you are not presently seeing it. With soundblaster live, I also have a 'record what you hear' slider, that records whatever is being heard on the computer speaker. Some soundcards have a 'boost' on the mic input that you can turn off in this pannel display, if you are feeding the input with a powered source (like your mixer). If it has one.... you could also try using the headphone monitor as the source rather than the line out on your mixer.... to get a lower output when playing into to computer mic input.

[axwack]

I am grappling with the same problem...so I would need a mixer? Can I use a pre-am and mix on the computer?

[smileywiley]

My recommendation is to call Sweetwater. Just tell them what you want to do, and they'll tell you what you need. They have the best support of any company I've talked to (and heck, I haven't even bought anything yet! LOL....it's coming though....just waitin for the money to come a rollin' in).

Nick

[sammtri]

I would say that do as Jim Wintringham told you and could get some kind of recording first, try to follow every step, if you could so later you could apply to use with other stuffs.

With mixer or preamp, the way out of the sound from the mixer are going to soundcard input. So what ever happens before that is the same that you do everything with the mixer before trying to record them.

make sure you using a head phone or ear phone if you have to use with a microphone.

good luck.
sam