Re: [LAU] hardware: recording voice and acc. guitar

On 26/05/08 14:57:51, schoappied wrote: There are two factors in chosing a mic. The first one is the quality. My advice would be to stay away from the very cheap end of the market. The difference between the tat made to go with karaoke machines and a professional product (like the Sure SM58 already mentioned) is big. From there on the law of diminishing returns applys - for example using prices from one UK supplier you could get good recordings with the SM58 at £68.99 ($131) or splash out £1679.00 for a Neumann U87Ai ($3912). You should probably be able to hear the difference but I'd bet it will be less noticable than the difference between the SM58 and the cheap tat. The second one is colouration. Some mics have pretty flat frequency responses and others don't. Among the better ones that don't this will be deliberate and suits the microphone to a particular source. The SM58 is an example of one where the frequency response is deliberately not flat and is generally reckoned to be good for vocals. The colouration issue is such that those in pro studios keep a selection of mics for recording singers and try them out to see which one best compliments the singers voice. This is one reason someone over the internet could never tell you best mic for recording your voice. The other thing worth thinking about is what the connection requirements are for the mic. The output level of mics is too low to go into the line in on a sound card and the mic in on a consumer-grade (e.g. onboard) soundcard is designed for a kind of electret microphone not often used in recording. A dynamic mic like the SM57 will normally have a balanced output but can be used on an unbalanced input with the necessary lead. A condenser mic will usually require phantom power so you would need a mic pre-amp or mixer with this facility. You may be able to get a sound card with built-in mic preamps suitable for professional mics, i.e. not the funny interface on a normal sound card for the usual electret on a stalk. If not you will need something to do that job. You can buy mic pre-amps separately or you can use the mic pre-amps built into a mixer. Otherwise, as long as you have as many inputs on you sound card as instruments you want to record in any one go you don't need one. You may find a mixer convenient because of builtin features like EQ and effects but bear in mind if you apply these to the signal before you record you can not change your mind later. Mixing, EQ and effects can all be done is software too so you can capture clean tracks and then work out what EQ and effects you want when you go to mix it. Some EQ will probably be useful though you may be lucky and find that everything sounds nice without it. If you are close micing then you will probably want some reverb too. How much of what though is a matter of taste. The sound cards designed for recording are generally better than the ones integrated onto the motherboard. Even knowing which chip your integrated sound card uses doesn't mean someone can tell how good it is because much depends on the quality of the analogue electronics surrounding the chip and how much noise is picked up from things in the PC. You would definitely want a new one if you want more inputs. Otherwise I'd start by chosing a decent mic and get the other things to be able to connect it. If you chose the sound card with integrated mic pre-amp obviously you'd need to buy this straight away, otherwise you could see what results you get with the new mic and mic-pre/mixer and see if you want to upgrade. HTH, Steve.