Right, my band are going some properish recording, still going to be home recorded, but, reckon we could do this pretty well.

Its all going to be recorded through a behringer mixer onto my PC via a soundblaster soundcard. I was going to use cubase, but got some wierd crackling on it when playing back, sounded almost like it had been recorded on an old vinyl! So, im going to use a program called NTrack, which is ace, but, anyways. We are going to record all tracks seperatly.

Drums first, this will be easy, our drummer has a fairly good Roland electric drum kit.

Bass, At this stage, without access to any decent mics, im going DI using my tech 21 BDDI

Guitar and vocals . . . this is where it gets annoying, we have some mics, they are behringer XM1800S, nothing special really, we'd rather use something a tad better, so we are going to try and find a nice soul somewhere to lend us an SM58 for the guitar and vocals (remove the ball and an SM58 is essentially an 57). But, what id really like to know is, what is the importance of mic preamps, the behringer mixer i have uses a thing called invisible mic preamp, but, i was wondering if anyone else can give some info on whats good, or is there any way to have a make-shift mic preamp? Or are mic preamps not hugely important?

cheers for any help in this not very bass related question!

Mic preamps are hugely important, but your mixers preamps should get you started for now.

If I was shopping for a low cost, outboard mic pre, I'd get a M-audio DMP-3.
Its a 2 channel unit that sounds surprisingly good for the money.
http://www.mojopie.com/dmp3.html

Check out this sight for more home recording info.
http://homerecording.com/bbs/

And:
http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html

http://members.aol.com/mihartkopf/frameset.htm

http://marsh.prosoundweb.com/

http://www.bluebearsound.com/articles.htm

Good quality mic pre amps are very important. In the low end its mostly a matter of avoiding mics that will completely butcher your sounds. I have not used your particular console, but most beringer stuff I have used has sounded pretty bad. Low end mackie stuff is actually not that bad. I could throw out some suggestion but if you are stuggling to borrow an SM58, most steps above the mackie would be out of your range.

In general the signal path is important. Mic>pre>converter, even cables. They all make a difference.

I have some experience recording just as you're describing it and have used the Behringer mixers into a Sound Blaster as well. I assume by the way you're describing it that you only have two inputs (left and right) into your computer via the Sound Blaster so you're going to submix the drums and record them first, and then overdub the bass, each guitar part and finally vocals onto their own tracks, is that correct? If so, then the following applies:

1) You'll need decent isolation type headphones to listen to the cue while overdubbing tracks.

2) Behringer mixer preamps are perfectly adequate for what you're doing even though they're toward the low end of the audiophile preamp scale. Better preamps are always preferable and they range in price from $100 (American money) for a stereo pair to many thousands of dollars, and with mic pres you get what you pay for.

3) The weak link is the sound card. Computer sound cards have notoriously cheap A/D converters and it will be helpful for you to find out its specs to take advantage of it and to know its limitations. Provided the sound card and the computer hardware and software are up to the task, record the tracks at 24bit 48khz instead of the CD standard 16bit 44.1khz. You'll get noticeably better results by recording, processing, mixing and mastering at the higher quality even though you'll convert back down to CD quality to burn CDs. I would recommend that you consider buying a stereo input, computer recording interface which combines microphone preamps at least as good or better than the Behringer and instrument inputs with a digital audio converter that will be lots better than the one with your sound card. They come with USB or Firewire interface or even installed in a PCI slot and range from $120 to $250 and up. I use the E-Mu 1820 because it takes 8 simultaneous channels of ADAT, but if you're interested in this approach check out M-Audio, Edirol, Lexicon, Line 6, Presonus and others. Going this route will make your recording a lot simpler and smoother and will definitely improve the quality of results by bypassing the sound card.

4) The crackles you describe on your recording with Cubase sound like a result of too low a latency setting in your options and the computer can't keep up with the audio. I've heard it before and it sounds like pops on vinyl records. If you up the latency setting in Cubase it should take care of the problem, though you'll need to ensure that it doesn't happen in NTrack as well.

5) DI-ing the bass is preferable, in my opinion, especially if you don't have a dedicated low frequency mic.

6) The SM-58 will give you fantastic results with guitar cabinets.

7) For vocals, the SM-58 is a good dynamic mic, but because everyone's voice is so different, and records differently, you just have to try it and see if you like the results of that mic with that particular singer. If you can borrow or buy a condenser mic for vocals (there's quite a selection between $70 and $130) it will result in a sound that is usually prefered for recorded voice due to a condenser's quicker response and wider frequency range, though condenser mics require phantom power.

8) EQ and compression of the individual tracks are going to be crucial factors in the quality of final sound and there's no substitute for lots of experience at it. You're going to be doing this "in the box" (via your computer software, presumably NTrack or Cubase) so you have the luxury of trying many different settings for EQ and compression before mixing down to two tracks. I'd recommend you make numerous versions using different settings and burn them onto a CD and then play them on different home stereos, car stereos, headphones, boom boxes etc... to see what sounds the best.



I hope some of this is helpful to you. Good luck and have a lot of fun with your recording.

To be honest the behringer mic pre amps are pretty nice. but if you wanna buy a seperate mic pre amp lexicon makes some nice ones

3) The weak link is the sound card. Computer sound cards have notoriously cheap A/D converters and it will be helpful for you to find out its specs to take advantage of it and to know its limitations. Provided the sound card and the computer hardware and software are up to the task, record the tracks at 24bit 48khz instead of the CD standard 16bit 44.1khz. You'll get noticeably better results by recording, processing, mixing and mastering at the higher quality even though you'll convert back down to CD quality to burn CDs. I would recommend that you consider buying a stereo input, computer recording interface which combines microphone preamps at least as good or better than the Behringer and instrument inputs with a digital audio converter that will be lots better than the one with your sound card. They come with USB or Firewire interface or even installed in a PCI slot and range from $120 to $250 and up. I use the E-Mu 1820 because it takes 8 simultaneous channels of ADAT, but if you're interested in this approach check out M-Audio, Edirol, Lexicon, Line 6, Presonus and others. Going this route will make your recording a lot simpler and smoother and will definitely improve the quality of results by bypassing the sound card.

Bingo on the weak link..

I recorded some home stuff with nearly the exact same kind of equipment including a SoundBlaster sound card. The card was just not cut out for recording like that. Its has a serious latency problem making it very difficult to do overdubs and keep them in time. I did not know what it was at first but I was having trouble with timing on really simple parts. Then when it came time to do the vocals i discovered the problem. It was like there was a delay in the chain somewhere.

I switched over to a simple M-Audo Delta 44 card with the breakout box and took the soundblaster out of my system... no more latency. There was also a "gating" type effect present when I was using the Soundblaster and mixing from my external recorder into the computer. That also was cured by replacing the SB with the Delta 44.

I have some experience recording just as you're describing it and have used the Behringer mixers into a Sound Blaster as well. I assume by the way you're describing it that you only have two inputs (left and right) into your computer via the Sound Blaster so you're going to submix the drums and record them first, and then overdub the bass, each guitar part and finally vocals onto their own tracks, is that correct? If so, then the following applies:

1) You'll need decent isolation type headphones to listen to the cue while overdubbing tracks.

2) Behringer mixer preamps are perfectly adequate for what you're doing even though they're toward the low end of the audiophile preamp scale. Better preamps are always preferable and they range in price from $100 (American money) for a stereo pair to many thousands of dollars, and with mic pres you get what you pay for.

3) The weak link is the sound card. Computer sound cards have notoriously cheap A/D converters and it will be helpful for you to find out its specs to take advantage of it and to know its limitations. Provided the sound card and the computer hardware and software are up to the task, record the tracks at 24bit 48khz instead of the CD standard 16bit 44.1khz. You'll get noticeably better results by recording, processing, mixing and mastering at the higher quality even though you'll convert back down to CD quality to burn CDs. I would recommend that you consider buying a stereo input, computer recording interface which combines microphone preamps at least as good or better than the Behringer and instrument inputs with a digital audio converter that will be lots better than the one with your sound card. They come with USB or Firewire interface or even installed in a PCI slot and range from $120 to $250 and up. I use the E-Mu 1820 because it takes 8 simultaneous channels of ADAT, but if you're interested in this approach check out M-Audio, Edirol, Lexicon, Line 6, Presonus and others. Going this route will make your recording a lot simpler and smoother and will definitely improve the quality of results by bypassing the sound card.

4) The crackles you describe on your recording with Cubase sound like a result of too low a latency setting in your options and the computer can't keep up with the audio. I've heard it before and it sounds like pops on vinyl records. If you up the latency setting in Cubase it should take care of the problem, though you'll need to ensure that it doesn't happen in NTrack as well.

5) DI-ing the bass is preferable, in my opinion, especially if you don't have a dedicated low frequency mic.

6) The SM-58 will give you fantastic results with guitar cabinets.

7) For vocals, the SM-58 is a good dynamic mic, but because everyone's voice is so different, and records differently, you just have to try it and see if you like the results of that mic with that particular singer. If you can borrow or buy a condenser mic for vocals (there's quite a selection between $70 and $130) it will result in a sound that is usually prefered for recorded voice due to a condenser's quicker response and wider frequency range, though condenser mics require phantom power.

8) EQ and compression of the individual tracks are going to be crucial factors in the quality of final sound and there's no substitute for lots of experience at it. You're going to be doing this "in the box" (via your computer software, presumably NTrack or Cubase) so you have the luxury of trying many different settings for EQ and compression before mixing down to two tracks. I'd recommend you make numerous versions using different settings and burn them onto a CD and then play them on different home stereos, car stereos, headphones, boom boxes etc... to see what sounds the best.



I hope some of this is helpful to you. Good luck and have a lot of fun with your recording.


Wow, cheers for all the info, the crackling and popping only happened in cubase, not in Ntrack. My PC is pretty good, P4 3.2Ghz prescott core, 1.5 Gb DDR400 RAM, i cant remember what soundcard i have, i was thinking about one of the new X-Fi sound cards, but, ill see how i get on. Ill definatly have a look at latency settings.

I have a good pair of issolation headphones here, so, thats all gonna be good hopefully.

Thanks for the ton of info! Im gonna try recording at 24 bit, see how it goes, all i need to do is aquire some good mics :D

Thanks again, to eveyone here!

.....
4) The crackles you describe on your recording with Cubase sound like a result of too low a latency setting in your options and the computer can't keep up with the audio. I've heard it before and it sounds like pops on vinyl records. If you up the latency setting in Cubase it should take care of the problem, though you'll need to ensure that it doesn't happen in NTrack as well.
I get this type of crackling every time I try to be a little to aggressive and set latency too low.