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Alright you musicians...

J

Jason Beam

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1,364
Location
Sacramento, CA
So ... there was this funny little thing that happened to me last Saturday. Somehow I ended up north of Reno and learned real fast I dunno how to count. But I'm being told by the host of that little shindig that I am required to come up again sometime and we'll work on that counting business...

In order to prepare myself, I think it'd be good if I could record some tracks, because I figure nothing teaches you chord changes better than changing chords, right? :p

Here's my question for those of you that do this ... how do you record on your computers?

I have a nice mixing board that I can mic into my laptop and record everything as if it were a monitor. Now, with what software does one do this? Oh, on Windows, by the way! I've tried a little bit with the built in sound recorder - which has improved greatly since the 3.11 and '95 days, but still sorely lacks. Someone once mentioned Audacity to me ... but i dunno what's good, what to look for, etc. I'm sure I'll probably want to mix tracks, play along with myself, do some basic editing, etc. And share with folks (some day, when I'm not shy) from time to time.

Brent, what do you use? Would it matter if I used something different? Should we use the same stuff?

Oh - did I mention that I'm uber cheap? Like ... cheap cheap. I'm cheap about being cheap kinda cheap. :D

Thanks in advance :)
 
I've been down a few different roads in my limited time playing wannabe, started with audacity which worked fine and being free helped me get over
any short-comings. Then I moved on to more semi-professional {to me anyways lol} & spent mucho more than my limited skills required. Have to admit
though I thoroughly enjoyed every bell & whistle it entailed. Now due to financial 'short-comings' ;) I'm down to playing direct into the pc and using Adobe
Audition as my DAW{digital audio workstation} suites me fine for what I want/need to slap out a recording or doing some editing, which btw seems to far
out-weigh the 'live' stuff :eek:. Just my 2 cents worth, sorry no refunds. :D

I do have a program called band in a box and would luv to do some on-line jamming with anyone interested. The program allows one to lay-out chord progressions,
complete with intros/outro's verses choruses etc. Can use midi &/or what they call real tracks as accompaniments as in drums, sax, slide, bass etc etc sounds good
enough to fool those with the same ear for music as me :doh:. Can export the track{s} as wav files or mp3 to send back & forth allowing one or the whole gang of us to
collaborate a tune or two. One would import the track{s} into Audacity or whatever DAW one uses and add their own contribution{s}, as an added incentive, I could
promise not to add any vocal track :rofl:...anyways just throwing the offer out there...que sera sera

FWIW, I dabble in Bass & rhythm guitar, & I can play lead...lead the fans right out of the venue that is! :wave:

here's a few photo's of past 'ahem, studio's} and a clip of my jammin with a band in a box backing track I created...

video >>> http://imageshack.us/clip/my-videos/17/21157092.mp4/

spare room 2.JPG garage.JPG spare room.jpg

can you tell I likes me muzik :D
 
I use Cakewalk, It's probably not that cheap.

But it really doesn't matter, because all we would be trading back and forth would be audio tracks.

Audacity works, and it's CHEAP!

I'll throw together a basic 12 bar blues song and work with them in audacity to put together a multi track project and send to you. It shouldn't be that hard.

You should then be able to use your interface to record into a track.

I might have to wait till the weekend to do it, but It would be a great first test!

BTW, PM me your address so I can send your Sunglasses to you. You might need them on the drive back over the hill!

But seriously, we can work up several songs like this, then have you come back over and work on some live'ish versions.

I can't tell you how much I would like that!
 
Ken, I've heard your stuff. You are definitely part of the on-line FWW Band. :thumb:

We'll work some stuff up.
 
Sweet - thanks for the guidance, Ken! I love the idea of an online colab ... seems we got LOTS of guitar players :p

Brent - i'll spare ya the postage and pick 'em up next time I'm up that way (or next time you get near here, maybe?) -- unless your storage fees get too high, then i'll have ya mail 'em :p

I just downloaded audacity and will give it a go ... i need to get my gear set back up - after ripping apart my office for the window guys to install, i haven't put anything back in place ... time to change that!
 
Currently I have the Tascam US-200 for my DAW. I use Reaper for my recording software ($60 personal license, free as nagware on the splash screen only), which supports multiple tracks and VST plugins. I currently only have some Wave's GTR Guitar software, but looking at getting the garage band software.

The Tascam has little noise and delay, you do have to use headphones or monitor speakers. I use Behringer monitor speakers similar to these

The Reaper software to me was much easier to use than audacity and is more refined IMHO, but I do use audacity from time to time for some of it's features, mostly removing vocals from music for my wife to sing to.

BTW...The licensing is a pain on the GTR software, as it registers to a MAC address of one of your NIC interface. It did this to a virtualbox interface last time I used it and was a pain to get running again when I upgraded virtualbox and it updated the mac addresses on its interfaces. I like the software otherwise, has some great effects and amps.

Disclaimer, I'm learning to play again (from time to time), but using it for the same purpose of giving myself something to play to.
 
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I recently started playing with Reaper too, and so far I'm impressed. I'm still using it in the nagware mode, but if I actually get serious about recording things with it I'll pony up the $60 and get the real license. I'm also using an M-Audio USB interface for plugging the guitar into my PC. (Or plugging the POD into the laptop, actually.)

And Jason, while I'm here, I just wanna say that the guitar you built was awesome. :thumb: Great sound and a great feel. :clap: Have you posted pics of it here? Got any construction shots?
 
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