Recording Guitar

[MojoMike]

Hey everybody. Here is a question i'll throw out since I have yet to get a direct answer from sales guys. I am still using the dinosaur 4 track to throw down ideas quickly. I recently bought Sony Acid, and have built some cool loops that I want to add my guitar to. I bought a little M-Audio box for 99.00 that was connected via USB. I thought, simple, affordable just what I need. WRONG! When I played, the latency was sooooo bad, it sounded like I had a 5 second delay. I tried to set the buffer and tweak eveything the book said, but it sucked. PLUS..trying to get it to work with ACID was a pain. I sent the thing back. It is killing me not being able to plug in a play & record on my pc. I don't want to backtrack and use the 4 track tape. Did I get the wrong software>? Was the M-Box that bad>? I have seen this Black Box I think by the same company for about 200.00. It has a Roger Linn drum machine of sorts as well. Should I stay away from M-Audio all together?? Any ideas ?? BTW, my pc is a year old with 80GB and plenty of Ram. What can i get to hook up, plug in, play & record? Should I keep the Sony Acid? I know I have asked a zillion questions, but I am on my last nerve! Any help would be greatly appraciated eternally!! Thanks bros!

[rgr]

Acid is more of a sequencer, not the best for recording, but rocks for putting together drum tracks. I just recommended Mackie Tracktion in another thread, great software for $150 or you can download a demo from www.mackie.com. N-tracks is also pretty good, $70 or so to register it from www.fasoft.com.

[fono22]

Hey man... there is also a driver called ASIO4ALL .... I think you can download it from download.com. This driver helped me a lot when I started plugging into my computer. I was achieving around 4ms of latency.

Also, I wouldn't go blaming the sound card straight away although it can make a difference. Try plugging your guitar straight into your original crappy sound card (You might need a little 6.5 to 3.5 mm adaptor so the lead can plug into the mic hole). This will be no good for recording, but you will be able to test different software (for example bought software versus free downloadable software) in order to find which program gives you the least latency.

I found there was a huge difference between "Guitar rig 2.0" and the free "guitar power". Althought guitar rig had loads more effects and it cost a billion dollars, the guitar power program gave me next to no latency (please not that was before I had the ASIO4all driver loaded into my computer)

I'm sorry if this is really confusing but I thought I'd try help out!

Lance

p.s Don't forget you can get demo versions of sotware straight from the internet.... make sure you try them in demo form before buying the whole package. As a rule, if your computer doesn't handle the demo version, installing the complete version may make problems worse. Good luck man and let us know how you get on!

[kennydoe]

Also, USB is slow...FireWire is better.

~K

[MojoMike]

THANKS!!!! I downloaded the Mackie Tracktion demo. I thought the ease of use was very cool. I was also able to import some drum loops and samples I made in ACID simply by drag & drop. This was one item I wanted to accomplish. So that in itself was a major plus. I am going to look at a few more things before I decide for sure. Also, going to decide on the best route to plug up the guitar to the pc. Thanks a lot for all your help. I have got more "good" help here by posting, than I ever have in a store. Hopefully, I will be able to post some of my tunes on here and let you hear a work in progress - All done with the help of you guys.

[anecdota]

I don't have much for recording, but I have Sony Acid...and although i've found that it was not the best thing to buy for my recording needs...I've had no problems w/ latency.

I go straight from my guitar into a v-amp pro into the mic input. Might be the USB...I've never experienced using mine.

[JESTER700]

Hey Mojo,
How recent is "recent"? Because Sony is bringing out Acid Pro 6 in early April, and it will be awesome for recording & mixing, according to the feature set. Basically they updated ACID, and THEN added all the audio stuff from VEGAS - their audio/video multitracker. Apparently, VEGAS has become more for video (still does everything it used to, but they stopped adding NEW audio features - no rewire, for example).

Maybe you qualify for a discounted upgrade?

[MojoMike]

Hi Jester...
Recently as in about 5 months at a pc super store. That is great news about Acid Pro 6. I will investigate about the 'discounted upgrade"..good idea! Thanks for the info!!