Need new recording setup

Beavis · #1 05-13-2002, 02:07 PM

Ok i have moaned about this before and i have finnaly decided to sell everything except two guitars and my amp.

About 6 months ago i purchased a korg 1212 soundcard and a korg 168rc mixing desk. Now i was happy because i was going to have a nice digital home recording setup, well i installed everything and went out and brought cubase vst to record with. Now when i brought cubase the recomendations on the box were above my old computer so i up graded. I went out and brought an AMD Athlon 1.4Ghz, via chipset(bad choice), lots of ram the lot i brought myself a nice fast computer (the one i am typing on at this very moment) and thought good i can now do some recording. Well here i am about 6 months later and haven't recorded one single note of music, not because i haven't had time but because i am always spending my time trying to get my computer to work with my soundcard.

OK OK i know via chipsets arnt the best to use with sound recording but what could i do i had allready brought the computer.

Now i spent

Soundcard and mixer £500
Computer £600
Cubase VST £300
Leads, mics and stuff £100

ok so i have spent a bit and all this stuff doesn't work. Now i have had enough and want to start again i don't want to try and fix it because i have run through everything, syncronisation, altering windows, i have been on many forums and message boards, i phoned korg and thay told me it wont work and said tough s*** and i have never got it to work right.

Ok now i have got so depressed about not recording and wasting time that i have decided to sell lots and lots of stuff and start again but this time with some advice.

Ok i want a new recording system, and i still like the idea of a DAW

How much do i need to spend for 8 tracks in/out?
What soundcard options have i got?
Mac or PC, how much for a good mac, any advatages of one to the other?

i am confused i don't want to waste any more money and start recording.

Cheers for any feed back

Beavis

I might just go out and buy a Tascam 424 :P at leat it would work

ryan · #2 05-13-2002, 11:20 PM

Did you get an Abit motherboard?

If so, make sure your soundcard is not in PCI slot 5.

Stick it in PCI 1 or 2 and your problems will disappear...

I wasn't too keen on either the VIA chipset or the AMD Athlon stuff til I looked at the prices for a P4 upgrade.

I got a 1.4GHz Athlon, the Abit board with IDE RAID and a VIA chipset.

Works fine, as long as you avoid the PCI slot which shares resources with everything else.

If you don't have the Abit board, check your manual to be sure your soundcard is not in a shared slot. (And I don't mean shared ISA/PCI, I mean shared internal resources like IRQ and DMA...)

Another tip -- disable or remove any "Soundblaster" hardware that might be in the machine. You can likely enable it later, but until you get your recording devices working, keep the hardware in the machine to a bare minimum.

Finally, if none of that fixes the problem -- what OS are you using? Win9x is horribly unstable for audio recording. If your card has Win2000 drivers, that would be your best bet.

Also -- make a profile on the machine that is SOLELY FOR AUDIO. Don't load any extra crap like IMer or MSN messenger or Kazaa, Morpheus, whatever...

Just have the base OS install and your audio apps.

The whole thing will run a million times faster and smoother.

If you really wanna start over, find the message I posted last night about SEK'D and Samplitude.

Very cost effective, and extremely satisfactory in both operation and final results.

ryan

jrodger9 · #3 05-22-2002, 10:15 PM

I couldn't help but put in my two cents worth here because I am so happy with my setup.

I'll provide a description of my setup and then a sample of something I've recorded with it so you can see the quality that's possible with this setup.

I mainly use Charvel or Ibanez guitars with EMG pickups into a Line6 Flextone II HD head that runs direct out into a Mackie 16 channel mixer.
Out of the mixer into a M-Audio Delta 66 break-out box; which then runs into the sound card that came with it.

You can get by with the Delta 66 or Delta 44 (which are almost identical except for an extra digital input that isn't used anyways).
I say you can get by with either of these with the idea in mind that you will be using the mixer to control volumes and gains, etc.

If you don't have a mixer to control the gain or volume you might want to step up to the OmniStudio, which gives you these controls.
I like using the mixer because I have a couple drum machines and a bass, mics and a guitar all to record and don't want to keep unplugging a bunch of stuff all the time. This allows for consistent levels and settings.

I use two sets of powered monitors;
One set is used for listening to the playback coming out of the computer and the other set is used for monitoring the audio going into the PC at the time of recording.

Now this setup will get your audio into the PC.
What you need to decide at this point is what software to use to capture it.
I have used just about every digital audio recording package available on the market and have time and time again gone back to Cool Edit Pro 1.2a.
It is by far LIGHTYEARS ahead of the others in terms of ease-of-use and practicality. I'm sure some will disagree with me, but like all things; this is an opinion. I can walk into my studio and be recording a track in less than 15 seconds and that sort of speed and ease is a critical part of the creative process that lets me get right to playing and no time messing around with settings. I have used some of the top of the line self contained DAWs and they have great quality, but like I said; I don't want to spend time playing with settings; I want to play and get it recorded.
I'm not an engineer; I'm a guitar player.

The machine that I use to record with is a SCSI based system with 512 MB ram and a PIII 733 processor.
I used to have a system to record with that was 256MB ram, PII 400 and IDE drives, although this works well too; you do notice a difference in speed (especially when recording multiple tracks at once) with a slower machine.

Here are a couple tracks that I've recorded with the above setup.
The first two are originals that I've recorded, the second two are cover tunes.

The New Beginning - Jim Rodgers
http://jimosity.tzo.com:2002/downloa..._Beginning.mp3

Desert Sands
http://jimosity.tzo.com:2002/downloa...sert_Sands.mp3

Tender Surrender - Steve Vai
http://jimosity.tzo.com/Jim_Rodgers_..._Surrender.mp3

Always With Me, Always With You
http://jimosity.tzo.com/Jim_Rodgers_-_AlwaysWithMe.mp3

Let me know if you have any questions about anything.

Jim Rodgers
jim.rodgers@zf.com

ryan · #4 05-22-2002, 11:18 PM

Jim,

Thanks for posting. I always like hearing what other people are doing.

That said, I like the originals better than the covers...

However, and it could just be me, I really don't like the direct guitars.

They don't sound like they have any life to them.

Are you using the AIR setting on the Flextone? It sounds like you have it bypassed, but I can't be sure.

If not, then you are using the SLO-100 setting (witht he presence cranked...) and I never liked how buzzy it was...

I'm currently in the process of replacing all the guitar tracks I recorded with my Pod because they just don't have the depth and clarity of my 5150 head.

Have you heard Bob Oakman's demo? He used the Line 6 Amp Farm and his (super-direct) guitars have way more life to them -- they really breathe like a real tube amp.

Just my 2 cents...

ryan

jrodger9 · #5 05-22-2002, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan

That said, I like the originals better than the covers...

Thanks! That means a lot to me.
Those are pretty old tracks but I'm still proud of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan

However, and it could just be me, I really don't like the direct guitars.

They don't sound like they have any life to them.

I am going to agree with you on this one; but in the recordings defense; the "lifeless" tone is attributed to the EMGs in the guitars more than it is to recording direct. I have some other recordings that I've done with my ESP Skulls N' Snakes with a Screamin' Demon and the tone is excellent.
The EMGs are what give my recordings a less "breathy" tone.
I have always been inclined to use a little more treble that others, I guess it's just my ears that cause me to do this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan

Are you using the AIR setting on the Flextone? It sounds like you have it bypassed, but I can't be sure.

If not, then you are using the SLO-100 setting (witht he presence cranked...) and I never liked how buzzy it was...

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about here in terms of it's relationship to my Flextone II HD head, the tone on the recordings were using the "Rectifier" setting.

ryan · #6 05-23-2002, 08:33 AM

There's a way you can set the Flextone stuff (including the Pod) to give you a straight direct guitar signal -- this is for if you are using it to feed a separate power amp.

The direct out jacks should have a switch for the AIR setting -- it's basically the microphone and cabinet emulation. If it's turned off, your direct signal will be really buzzy because it expects to be further modified by an actual speaker somewhere down the chain.

ryan

jrodger9 · #7 05-23-2002, 08:42 AM

Ahh; I know what you're talking about now; I've seen that on the Pod preamps I think.

This is NOT an option on the Flextone II HD (head).
It just has a direct output on the head, but I also use a Laney 4x12 cabinet with it as well.

My head doesn't have a speaker cabinet emulation.

ripl3y · #8 05-23-2002, 09:13 AM

Beavis,
Just a thought, make sure you have the "Plug & Play OS" setting in the BIOS set to "NO".
This will prevent your OS trying to assign the irq's for the hardware and should prevent any irq conflicts if that is one of your probs.

Steve

Beavis · #9 05-23-2002, 03:08 PM

cheers for the replies guys, i think i will have another fiddle before i sell it all.

Beavis

I will keep you updated

ryan · #10 05-23-2002, 11:41 PM

Jim,

Check this out, from the Line 6 Flextone II manual...

Studio Mode &#8211; Slide the Live/Studio Switch to the Studio position, and the XLR
Outputs will be +4 line level outputs with A.I.R. speaker-mic-room simulation,
ready to plug right into your recorder to lay down your guitar parts. No hasseling
with microphones (or neighbors annoyed by the ruckus) required! The speakers are
disabled in this mode.

____

That is the mode you should be recording with...

ryan

ripl3y · #11 05-24-2002, 01:34 PM

If you could be more specific with what problems you are having I might be able to help.

I to have an Athlon/Via setup, although only with a Crappy SB soundcard.

If it's a Via chipset then most probably it's got on-board audio.
Have you turned this off?
Depending on which board you have you may be able to do this via the bios, if not then it'll be jumpers.

What OS are you running?

Mail me if you want and I'll see what I can dig up.

Steve

P.S. A friend of a friend works for Korg UK so maybe he may have some extra info and I do live in Milton Keynes (KORG's UK base)

P.P.S Can you get the card installed? Is it only a prob when you try to use Cubase with it?
If so then read this (he talks about his 1212 and Cubase woes further down the page) http://www.beatmode.com/product-info/cubasevst5.html

jeffrey · #12 05-24-2002, 02:21 PM

I'm not a big fan of Abit mobo's or AMD processors.

Intel P4's are not that expensive anymore. I don't know why everyone makes a fuss about it. I get 2ghz P4's for about $300US.

I personally think it's worth it.

I run a P4 2ghz, 1gb ram, Asus mobo, Motu 828 w/ a Maxtor firewire card (in my laptop too), scsi160 HD's and CuBase VST 5.0 and am happy as a clam.

Beavis · #13 05-25-2002, 08:23 AM

Ok well we will hvae another go, Hope you can help.

My setup

Abit KTA7 motherboard with via chipset
1.4 Gb athlon
Korg 1212 soundcard
60Gb Harddisk
Matrox Milenium G450 graphics card
1Gb of RAM

Ok well i run Cubase vst 5 as my recording program.

I keep getting pops and crackles, so i fiddle with the syncing, changing from internal to ADAT to word clock.

The best i can get is no pops and click but cubase and other program change the sample rate from 44k to 48k also i always get an error from the card saying "eccesive PCI activity" and then the card freezes for a couple of seconds

Hope you can help

Cheers

Beavis

jeffrey · #14 05-25-2002, 01:51 PM

Go to your audio properties > general (in CuBase) and lower the "Samples Per Buffer" setting until the cracking goes away.

The default setting is very high for non-SCSI hard drives (it's 512 I think).

Get it down to 96 or so and it should be smooth.