Home recording onto PC

just for rough recordings to get things moving i wanted to start being able to record vocals and guitar at home, I'm currently using audacity, but the functionality / sound quality are both pants, was wondering if anyone used it and knew how i could get the best out of it, or if they can recommend / bung me a hookey copy of something better?

I am so clueless on tech stuff so you may have to bear with me!

I've never used audicity.

Whats your set up?

ermmm

I'd have to wait til i get home to tell you that, like i said.... hopeless with tech

That might help. I can't help with the audicity thing I'm afraid!

thats cool, was hoping someone would be able to mention an alternative, when my g/f ( who is a primary school teacher) said they use audacity to record the kids reading their poetry, i knew it just wasn't gonna cut the mustard!

Ok, first things first.

You need to find out what your soundcard is, an onboard (built in to the motherboard) soundcard won't butter any parsnips in this instance.

You can either buy a multiple imput device, of which there are many, or a pretty good ordinary soundcard if you don't mind doing it the slow way one track at a time.

Find out what you have already, and whether you are bothered about multiple inputs, and I will give you an idea of which way to go.

So far as sequencers go, well thats a personal preference thing and depends on how much functionality you want (and how much you are prepared to spend) some soundcards come with half decent packaged software included, otherwise it can get expensive.

Unless you know how to use the pm feature on this website.

well its gonna be via my laptop, so i'm guessing my parsnips are well and truly unbuttered? but can I attach an external?
and pm's.... thats how i get the chicks! hahahaha, I'll drop you a message once i get home and check things out, prob tomorrow morning if thats cool?

External soundcards/ input devices are available, firewire or USB2.
For instance This.



And yupski, the morning is fine.

Ok, further to the pm thingy, you have a realtek onboard soundcard, these are not very useful at all....in fact they are useless.

What you need is an input device, similar to the one posted above, which is firewire, or THIS which is USB2 and well worth looking at.

Latency is the main issue with recording, it is the delay that you get when trying to add a second (or more) track to your first. these devices lower the latency to a managable (practically not noticable) level using asio2 drivers, which means you can use effects when recording. If you don't require effects when recording, then these devices allow zero latency recording by direct monitoring of the signal being played back and your new track (best way to record). It is possible that your realtek allows direct monitoring, but I have never found one that does.

First step is to aquire one of these interfaces, they are a whole lot cheaper than buying a mac and allow you to record more than one track at the same time, two in these instances, but the more you spend the more tracks become available to you.

Any more questions just ask

thats awesome thanks dave, guess i better start hitting up ebay or start saving! its only for vocals and guitar at the mo, so 2 tracks would be awesome, cheers for your help fella