Guitar, Effects and Recording

[Earthworm Jim]

Hi All

I havent found a thread yet about any of this, so I thought I'd start one all about music, instruments and recording (both recording equipment and "how to advice"). I thought there must be quite a few of you who are into things like this and this might quite a good place to share the knowledge and the passion. Also a good place to discuss what instruments we all use and so on and so on, so if there are any of you music technology enthusiats out there, lets the passion as well as the knowledge.

[Toasty]

I use cubase on the PC, which neatly came with my Zoom guitar effect pedal and USB connection Great for the guitar but I need a better solution for vocals. So if anyone uses a similar set up, advice appreciated for vocals.

[Earthworm Jim]

I know my brother in law and my sister use garage band on there mac and for there volcals they use an Apogee Duet as a pre amp for there mic, quiality is insane on that thing!

http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/74551

Take a look at it there, you can plug your mic in and record your guitar on it there too and it boosts the quiality so much more than just going line in with a guitar?

[Supernaught]

Theres also a thread here: Music Creation / Home Recording on PC/MAC about home PC recording. Would be good to get a few more posts on the subject.

[James_Cole]

Interesting thread as I've just started experimenting with this sort of thing....

I've got a POD X3 USB'd up to my laptop that could potentially record bass/guitar/vocals but clearly not all three at once.

Just begun using a program called Audacity to record and edit and after a POD firmware update it records via the usb fine. It seems fairly userful but I'm still learning it. Its free which is the best part: (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)

The POD has built in MIC Preamps which can be tweaked so I'm hoping my cheap microphone won't sound too bad.

early days yet...

[Supernaught]

Im using a POD X3 too. When youre recording with a mic, Id recommend NOT using one of the vocal presets, start from scratch and build your own one.

I have a Shure SM58 which is a great mic, and pretty much all the presets sound like pants with it. Theyre ok as demo "look at me, Im in a cavern/sound like a megaphone" but theyre not very usuable for lead vocals.

Theyre not bad for recording acoustic guitar mind you. The Nashville one is really good for slide bluesy guitar.

[DC5000]

I'm using Cubase on the PC for recording, I've been using my podxt for recording guitar and bass for a while via usb but there is an issue with pops and crackles when the pod is connected to usb.

Recently I upgraded to an m-audio Delta 1010lt soundcard which lets me record the left and right outputs from the pod which eliminates the crackle problem and also lets me do vocals as the m-audio card has 2 mic preamps with xlr sockets so the vocal quality with a shure sm58 is bang on.

I've considered Protools m-powered but currently dont have the time or the cash to move to this.....maybe in the future.