General Music Chat

Drums,


Was it the computer that couldn't keep up? DAW programs provide far more inputs than some computers can handle at once. The sound engine of a recording program can also make a difference. I have solid state drives for my Win 7 machines and standard SATA's for the file storage. I don't see any reason that your board would be a problem with most recording software.

I bought a Xenyx 1212FXUSB and returned it the next day! The preamps were crap! Noisy, and with the gain cranked all the way I could barely get any volume from my Shure mics. Picked up a Mackie ProFX12USB for $20 more and its preamps are great, same FX choices and more connection choices. YMMV

You must have bought a bad unit. Mine (Both of them) aren't any noisier than my Mackie board. And my board cost far more than the one you have, evidently.

Sure mikes and condenser mikes both work great with my board. I hate USB stuff. I can run the input gain full throttle and hardly hear any noise on the Mackie or the Behringers. USB is just another interface to slow stuff down and slow latency when recording multiple tracks. I'll take direct into a good sound card any day over USB. USB ports sometimes add clicks and pops to a DAW while recording more than several tracks at once unless you have a monster of a computer. USB is ok for track at a time but I don't trust USB 2.0. Maybe USB 3.0 will do the trick. When using i7 machines with Win7 I would think USB would fare pretty well. Fire wire is another interface that is pretty good, but direct into a sound card is still the most direct route for your recording. All in all the shortest route to the Hard drive is the best route for audio files.

It isn't the recording software that presents the problem. It's the relationship of the Earthworks mic to typical preamps.

It isn't the recording software that presents the problem. It's the relationship of the Earthworks mic to typical preamps.

I understand that. I bought a boutique Mike Preamp for $$$ a while back. To look at the specs you would think you were looking at a true state of the art preamp. (Only one mike input at that) It didn't work on any mike that I have other than one pencil cond mike. What a waste of money that was.

Maybe that is the simple issue. Earthworks are pencil mics.

They ARE impeccable mics. I've not heard the whole drum set sound so real. And this is just two overheads, DIY Jecklin disk, and two Sennheiser mics on the kicks.

But, yes, I do believe the Audient only has two or four inputs.

Slacker - you need to qualify when you say 'good soundcards'. If you mean a PCI card made for audio work, yes. The soundcards that come in today's computers have about $0.79 worth of components and do a terrible job of A-to-D conversion. Note that most new computers don't even have a free PCI slot for one of those cards.

Saying that "USB adds clicks and pops" when recording multiple tracks at one time may have been true with USB 1.0, but not 2.0. Yes, you need a decent computer - as much RAM and speed as you can get will help, but you don't need a supercomputer by any means.
Don't take my word for it - head on over to homerecording.com and ask the guys who have been doing this for years.
There are some fantastic audio interfaces out there using USB 2.0 with as many as 40 channels at one time. If these didn't work, then they wouldn't be around for long - Tascam, Presonus, Focusrite, Motu, etc.

Slacker - you need to qualify when you say 'good soundcards'. If you mean a PCI card made for audio work, yes. The soundcards that come in today's computers have about $0.79 worth of components and do a terrible job of A-to-D conversion. Note that most new computers don't even have a free PCI slot for one of those cards.

Saying that "USB adds clicks and pops" when recording multiple tracks at one time may have been true with USB 1.0, but not 2.0. Yes, you need a decent computer - as much RAM and speed as you can get will help, but you don't need a supercomputer by any means.
Don't take my word for it - head on over to homerecording.com and ask the guys who have been doing this for years.
There are some fantastic audio interfaces out there using USB 2.0 with as many as 40 channels at one time. If these didn't work, then they wouldn't be around for long - Tascam, Presonus, Focusrite, Motu, etc.

I don't need to go there. I see a lot of gear being used in the studios around here. Some have been in recording since the gramophone days. I took it for granted that anyone reading this would understand that a "good Sound Card" would be a 24/192 card of studio quality that can be had for a reasonable amount.. depending on what your needs are. For my needs I use a couple of Juli sound cards that I bought several years ago. I also have a couple of 24/96 cards that I use in my secondary DAW's.

I still prefer going direct into a sound card as opposed to fire wire or USB.

Even if you can get it done through a USB port, direct to sound card is still better in my book. Perhaps with USB 3.0 (All of my new DAWs have USB 3.0) I would try a USB 3.0 device. Does anyone make a 3.0 USB setup? Not that it actually matters for the type of recording that I do.

I also have an 8 input 24/96 card (8 chan at once) I don't even use that much. When all is said and done, you are still looking at what the CD format is in the end. 16 bit. So even though you are recording at 24 bits you still have to dither down to 16 bits in the end.

I have heard recordings that sounded rather good using old 16 bit Sound Blaster cards. As long as it isn't incorporated into the Motherboard where the sound card picks up adjacent trace noise you can actually do stuff good enough for demos or to sell. But why when a good 24/192 card can be had for around $150?

Remember where this thread gravitated? It went to the "I don't have much money to spend on recording gear" Well, that certainly lets out Tascam, MOTU, and the others, right? So when you get into recording site discussions that use those rigs you have lost track of who we are trying to help get started in recording.

I know a guy that records on a Sound Blaster 16 PCI card. His recordings sound really good too. He had to pay $5 for it used at a local computer shop. He uses the old Guitar Tracks Pro 2.0, and has run as many as 8 tracks on a DAW that is powered by a Pentium 3 450. However you can record a whole track by the time the waveform is drawn. He has since "moved up" to a Pentium 4 3.o. He still uses that sound card. It all boils down to how demanding are you. You can make a CD that is perfectly acceptable for as little as a couple of hundred bucks of add on gear... or you can spend thousands to do that.

The point being that to get started you do not have to make any major investments to see if you like it or not. You can still make great demos and CD's that are of good enough quality to be sold at gigs for very little money. I think everyone should keep the price down when first trying to record digital. Then if stuff is really working out... have at it.

As far as recording forums go, their opinions are as diverse as ours.

Here is a link for a trial version of GP 4. Sonar X+1 or X+2 can also be downloaded for a trial. (For those wanting to try out a digital recording on their computers. I am sure that a good many other s can also be found. But I do like this about cakewalk, It is FULLY functional in the trial versions. I do believe they limit the mix to one minute as far as saving your project. Since the trial versions are fully operational, all you have to do is pay and get your key to unlock it. Nothing more to download or purchase. And you can use it on multiple machines without having to re register it. (They say that two machines are OK but more than that they ask you to contact them for permission. Got that from Stewart, my sales rep at Sweet Water

The ones that I am recommending have virtual guitar amps, mastering tools, and digital mixers in the programs. You do not have to purchase anything else to try your hand at recording in your own studio.

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/Ca ... ent-406281

You can even make decent demos with motherboard sound cards - it's all in the software now with things like "Strip Silence", which basically wipes any data that doesnt peak high enough to be considered a Transient.
You can "Normalize" audio, pitch correct, stretch, etc, etc, etc...

ASIO makes it possible with lowly sound cards, though you might have to adjust some stuff and fiddle a little to fight latency.


That mellow instrumental little piece on my player was done on a 10 year old Mac Powerbook, an old version of garage band, and a Tascam CD-GT1 Guitar trainer... One of those little stereo cables ... Stereo Out jack from the Tascam (My "Preamp") into the Stereo In jack on the laptop.
Canned drums of course.

You can even make decent demos with motherboard sound cards - it's all in the software now with things like "Strip Silence", which basically wipes any data that doesnt peak high enough to be considered a Transient.
You can "Normalize" audio, pitch correct, stretch, etc, etc, etc...

ASIO makes it possible with lowly sound cards, though you might have to adjust some stuff and fiddle a little to fight latency.


That mellow instrumental little piece on my player was done on a 10 year old Mac Powerbook, an old version of garage band, and a Tascam CD-GT1 Guitar trainer... One of those little stereo cables ... Stereo Out jack from the Tascam (My "Preamp") into the Stereo In jack on the laptop.
Canned drums of course.

ASIO 4 All is a free program that gives some real pep to old Sound Blaster 16's. A lot of DAW programs support ASIO. I have used it for a long time with all my cards. However my Juli cards came with killer drivers. But ASIO 4 All is still on every DAW.

I wished I could hear the song. Ever since Adobe was upgraded I can't listen to anything but Soundclick songs in mono.

There's plenty of options for those on an extreme budget. The fact is, though, if you want to record with a microphone or plug your guitar direct in, you need some kind of preamp. An audio interface is the best solution, and you can get one for less than $150 (M Audio FastTrack Pro, Focusrite Sapphire Scarlett) if you only want to record up to 2 separate tracks at one time.
I see people adapting their XLR mic or guitar 1/4" to 1/8" plug to go into the built-in soundcard in the computer - and then asking why the sound quality is so bad and noisy.
Yeah, if you know what you are doing, you can make decent quality music with older cheaper gear - but you HAVE to know what you are doing, a beginner is going to end up with noisy mixes or with latency so bad they can't record decently.

Mike,

I agree. Basically almost all DAW programs are equal in recording and playing back digitized sound. Granted some conversions may be slightly better, due to sound card drivers and processing but in Pro DAW programs the end result is pretty much equal. Also some cards allow higher bit rate conversions and better drivers for the sound engine. So why the difference in DAW programs? Basically it is the number of included features and the graphic views of the recording program, and the ease of use. Some have all manner of great toys included to manipulate the digitized tracks and others skimp. Other than that it is said that the difference of the digitized track is pretty much the same in all DAW programs. After all, there is only one way to digitize an analog signal and that is through a A to D converter. Most programs give dithering options when converting, they offer bit rate choices, and they use different file system formats. Most of the formats in pro programs are interchangeable in order for the guy using Cube base or Nuendo or Sonar etc to share with other DAW programs.

Ok That is all that I understand at this time about DAW recording and playback programs... and that may not be totally accurate.

Yeah, it's all about the quality of the A-to-D conversion.

Behringer sells a little inline converter (UCA222 or something like that) for around $29 which actually does a better job than what the OEM soundcard in a computer will do, but its a far cry from current audio interfaces.

Amateurs wanting to get sound into their computers (because they downloaded Audacity for free) go to some place like Guitar Center, where the 'expert' sells them a $99 condensor mic, but doesn't tell them they need phantom power - and an interface. TRUE! The guy I gave a second audition to last week, had picked up an AKG Perception 120, got it home and couldn't figure out why he got no sound out of it - into his guitar amp (with an XLR-1/4" adapter) or his computer, going to a 1/8" plug. He went back to GC and the guy sold him a Presonus Audiobox. He hooked it up but still couldn't get it to work - asked me to bring a mic cable as he thought his was bad. I showed him the button that turned on the phantom power!

You convinced me that Audacity is a pretty good little program for the money. If I run into anyone who doesn't want to spend the extra $40 I would recommend it. But to tell the truth the virtual amp that can sound like everything from a Fender Tweed to a Marshall stack (Miked or direct) is well worth the extra $40. And the sound FX are also killer.

I like GT's opening screen better than having to load each track as you do in Audacity. And they did spend a good deal of time making the graphics look really good. 32 tracks are ready to go as soon as the program opens.

Both DAW programs are not cluttered and they are rather intuitive. Bottom line is that I wouldn't diss Audacity. Download CWGT P 4 and try it to see what you think. Audacity has quite a bit in common with the Cakewalk program. But after all, they did say it was based on Cakewalks Sonar.

I didn't spend the time to try out panning or any of the FX yet. I didn't uninstall it so I can mess around with it later. Actually I haven't found the pan control yet. I'll look for the "tools" when I try it again.

I tested the noise floor on some sound cards running the same DAW. I used a high end DAW for the test to make sure I was evaluating the sound card as opposed to the DAW. The Creative labs card (The El-cheapo PCI card). I took all the readings from the mixing board db meter in the program.


The Juli clocked in at 90DB down. But that was about $150
The 24/96 card was 70 db down. $99 Pretty quiet.
Sound Blaster 16 PCI was 65db down It was a $5 computer shop pull !!
The mother board card (Realtec) was only 35 DB down. One noisy junk.

I was surprised that the Sound blaster card was so quiet. I listened to a track recorded on it and it sounded just fine. BUT I was not using the Sound Blasters Wdm drivers as the program chose its own drivers. It may have been using ASIO 4 All. That is one of the best free downloads ever.

You convinced me that Audacity is a pretty good little program for the money. If I run into anyone who doesn't want to spend the extra $40 I would recommend it. But to tell the truth the virtual amp that can sound like everything from a Fender Tweed to a Marshall stack (Miked or direct) is well worth the extra $40. And the sound FX are also killer.

I like GT's opening screen better than having to load each track as you do in Audacity. And they did spend a good deal of time making the graphics look really good. 32 tracks are ready to go as soon as the program opens.

Both DAW programs are not cluttered and they are rather intuitive. Bottom line is that I wouldn't diss Audacity. Download CWGT P 4 and try it to see what you think. Audacity has quite a bit in common with the Cakewalk program. But after all, they did say it was based on Cakewalks Sonar.

I didn't spend the time to try out panning or any of the FX yet. I didn't uninstall it so I can mess around with it later. Actually I haven't found the pan control yet. I'll look for the "tools" when I try it again.

I tested the noise floor on some sound cards running the same DAW. I used a high end DAW for the test to make sure I was evaluating the sound card as opposed to the DAW. The Creative labs card (The El-cheapo PCI card). I took all the readings from the mixing board db meter in the program.


The Juli clocked in at 90DB down. But that was about $150
The 24/96 card was 70 db down. $99 Pretty quiet.
Sound Blaster 16 PCI was 65db down It was a $5 computer shop pull !!
The mother board card (Realtec) was only 35 DB down. One noisy junk.

I was surprised that the Sound blaster card was so quiet. I listened to a track recorded on it and it sounded just fine. BUT I was not using the Sound Blasters Wdm drivers as the program chose its own drivers. It may have been using ASIO 4 All. That is one of the best free downloads ever.

I couldn't get Audacity to import any of my previous file formats. Neither my CWB or my Bun files from Cakewalk GP or Sonar could be imported by Audacity. It didn't recognize the file format. Maybe I needed to convert them for Audacity, but why bother if that is the case?

GTP had trouble with one or two because the FX processors used on some tracks weren't installed on this computer. Evidently I need to do a bit of tweaking to get them into this program. However, it did play all the tracks... only some of them didn't show the wave form.

I tested my cheap $5 Soundblaster PCI card (Computer shop pull) with Guitar Tracks Pro 4. When it did the sound card test it displayed the following results shown below.

11025 Hz @ 16 OK
22050 Hz @ 16 OK
41000 Hz @ 16 OK
48000 Hz @ 16 OK *This is the highest that most drivers will allow on the SB 16 PCi card
82000 Hz @ 16 OK
96000 Hz @ 16 OK The quality of the track sounded Soooooo GOOD !!!
17200 Hz @ 16 OK
19200 Hz @ 16 OK At his point I just stared at the chart in disbelief.



I was waiting for it to stop at 16 / 48000 as it did with Sonar, but it just kept right on chugging all the way to 16 / 19200. I appears that the new sound card drivers of today can make an antique Sound card of 20 years ago operate with the big cards in the 16 bit mode.


The highest rate that this DAW could support was 96000 Hz at 16 bit. I imagine that was because the DAW that I test loaded GTP on was only a 3 Ghz Pentium 4 with 500 megs of ram. Far less usable ram while the program and the OS are loaded. So my track was recorded and played back at that sample rate.

I can't wait to try 16 / 19200 on a faster DAW to see what that sounds like. An inexpensive program and an El cheapo sound card doing this good of a job. Go figure.

By the way, these Cakewalk drivers are 32bit MME drivers and not ASIO or WDM drivers.