software

hi all, several buddies and myself have been jamming some originals last few months and want to make a cd. none of us have any recording experience and want to do the project ourselves. we have space availaible but have 0 yes zero experience with recording equipment. i have been bouncing round the internet looking for info and see things such as cakewalk but still the process is a mystery to me. i dont know if we can do this on a budget but we have bout 1000 bucks. is there software or software/hardware at this price range that we can with a little work get a nice cd out of that will have 2 guitars drums and a bass...i know this question is very open ended but truely i dont even know where to begin... thanks in advance.

This is a pretty good place for some recording advice.

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depending on where you live, you might be able to hire a small recording studio for that kind of money and get really much more impressive results than you would by fumbling with new gear ... be SURE that you are very tight with the material before you go into the studio (so as not to waste time = money) ... talk to the guy in advance and listen to his results to see if you like the production quality ... talk to clients to see if they had a good experience ... shop around a few if you can before deciding

good luck
t4d

Your timing is good- There is a lot of potential out there in the $1000 area that rivals the best we had in analog studios 20 years ago-

This group is considered the defecto standard, but would not suggest that you start posts here until you’ve picked up basics- If you just read and chase down related threads here you can find just about everything you need-

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The first thing you need to consider is the recording environment- If you are planning to record gigs and jams, there are many portable systems out there- They offer less room to grow, but can be completely workable as a learning tool- Look at Roland and Yamaha and note that you almost definitely want to record to a non-linear media (i.e. disk) instead of tape for editing purposes-

However, the most flexible and one of the most cost effect routes these days is the good old home PC- This is the way to go if you have a reasonably stable recording environment and a relatively fast computer and decent size hard drive- You burn 5mb per stereo track per min, so you really do need a lot of drive, but good news it is available and inexpensive-

IF you go this route, cubase and cakewalk make great user friendly apps that give you just about as much as you want- The industry standard is pro-tools on the mac by the way, but I don’t recommend that you go that route if you are on a budget- In reality Mac vs pc is pretty moot these days-

Next would be the input output environment and although 8 or 12 I/O is minimal for a wide range of recording opportunities (micing a drum kit can take 8 mics, you will find a lot of 4,6 and 8 input devices in the less than $500 range- inputs are far more important than outputs these days-

There are lots of ways to get around needing a lot of inputs if you go this route- You can lay down a click track (just the tempo of the song) in something like cubase and then record a ‘scratch’ rhythm instrument- Then you can play these both back and add in a vocal, you can keep adding this manor until you get a full mix, but keep in mind, the number of inputs really only limits the number of tracks that you can record live at one time.

We used to need lots of outputs to send signals to external gear (reverb, compressors, etc) but today you can do all of this on the computer with plug ins, and there are lots of good ones out there and some of the best are actually freeware (search for voxengo and VST to get an idea)

This is what I was getting at before, you can replace a lot of real gear with virtual computer gear and this is where the most savings come in-

At the same level, you have to consider the recording environment- You will have a lot of problems recording masterable material in anything but a well designed environment due to weird things like standing waves- I wouldn’t worry about this up front as you will be in learning mode anyway- But where you really have to think this over is in the monitoring stage-
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You will want to look at a pair of ‘near field’ monitors that are designed to produce low level outputs aimed a short distance from your ears- You might be temped to try to monitor through a home stereo system (I've even heard of folks trying to monitor thought guitar amps! But trust me- You will never be able to mix anything in such an environment-

If you get the computer for free, self powered near field monitors may be your #1 expense, or very close to the cost of a bundle for software and an input output device.

Last but not least, you can get a mic for 50 bucks, but don’t waste money on this item- You could start with a simple dynamic like a sure SM58 or a SM57 and you will find that you can use them for 100 things everywhere (good for amp micing)-

On the other hand, don’t put off at least 1 large diaphragm condenser mic for very long- these babies have come way, way down in price and it’s night and day for vocals, room micing, etc- There what you are looking for is a good capsule (like the famous AKG 414) in an inexpensive shell (Like a C3000)- One good SM58 and one AKG3000 would handle all of your overdubbing needs.

On the other hand, back to question #1, if you are trying to record live you need more inputs, more preamps, more mics, etc. So if you have the flexibility, I would suggest building tracks to build a few songs, and once you start to get the basics down, consider recording more at the same time-

Obviously there is much much more that we could dig into, but hope this is enough to get you interested in lurking on a group like pro audio-

Good luck and be sure to post what you are working on!

thanks all looking at options now