Recording at Home

GerryRyan

Ok, I have decided to invest in some sort of recording gear, but havn't a clue where to start. Any suggestions?

Price range is around 150 - 250
The only one I have found in the price range is http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?a_prod_no=D4&category_id=3

Does anyone have something like this, or know if it's worth buying?

sei046

i would place on the recording forum bud

Beecher

What do you plan recording? Do you have a laptop/Pc or mac you can use?

GerryRyan

Mostly acoustic stuff, I have head full of songs at the minute.
I'm sick and tired of recording onto normal tape and have enough to get decent bit of gear.

I have a bit of software along these lines on pc but a digital recorder would be better (looping, playing back, effects etc)

I'm also very interested in this too.
can somebody reccomend a whole budget set-up?
(mics too)

nickcave

a digital recorder would be better (looping, playing back, effects etc)

Looping and playing back are very possible with software too. What software do you have? I recommend Adobe Audition or Cool Edit Pro (same thing) for some no-frills recording. As for effects, I wouldn't trust software effects in the same way I wouldn't trust a digital recorder jammed full of them. What effects are you talking about though? Reverb can be particularly bad through software.

You have a few options really. If its acoustic you're gonna need mics, because pickups just can't emulate acoustic instruments. Condenser mics are what you want. They'll do on vocals too, speaking from experience. Just set up the mic a few feet away from you, and you can take guitar and vocals all in one go. Even pro's do this. You'll also need a preamp with phantom power (voltage for the condenser mic). By the way, the preamp is more important than the mic, believe me. You can find this out the hard way if you want by buying a crap preamp. A good preamp makes a crap mic sound ok, but a bad preamp ruins the whole setup.

I could ramble all day about what you could do, so I'll just recommend a set-up. Now I'm suggesting you use the soundcard on your PC/Mac to channel the sound, so if you feel your soundcard it particularly crap, as they tend to be on laptops, you'll need a USB interface, but I won't talk about that now.

http://www.musik-produktiv.de/shop2/shop04.asp/artnr/5303084/sid/!06082002/quelle/listen

I've heard great things about this, although I haven't used it myself. It's got two channels so it'll handle two mics for stereo recording. You could take advantage of that with two small-diaphragm pencil condensers, like these:

http://www.thomann.de/the_tbone_sc100ii_stereoset_prodinfo.html?iwid=6

I have these, and I'm pretty happy with them, given the price. Otherwise, you could get a single large-diaphragm condenser:

http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_studio_projects_b1_prodinfo.html

I advise you shop around and read some reviews, because it's all a matter of taste and style really.

http://www.musik-produktiv.de/shop2/shop04.asp?sid=!06082002&artnr=100022200&quelle=deals

That might be ok as a starting point. Seems good for the price.

Cheers.