I was wondering about setting up a very wee home recording set up using my PC to make MP3 files. I’ve read about it in a magazine “Digital Music” but I really don’t have the cash to go too fancy.
What I’d like to know is if anyone can provide some advice on what sort of Analogue/Digital converter I’d need that would work with my dinosaur Gateway 400c which has USB 1, 400mhz processor, 4.4G ram. My current sound card (integrated Sound Blaster) doesn’t seem to have the right connections to hook up a desk. I’d need one that provides phantom power if possible because my condensor mic is phantom powered. At this stage I can only afford bottom-end stuff.
BTW - if you’re wondering if my PC has enough oompf for high-end applications, I currently run things such as Adobe Photoshop 7, Macromedia Studio (Flash 4, Dreamweaver), Corel Draw 11 etc which all claim to require much bigger caches, ram etc…just means that you have to sit and watch as the changes to your photos or whatever click through slowly rather than happening straight away.
Hi Joseph, multiple tracks would be nice and eventually that is my aim, but my main priority at the moment is simply to be able to record myself on pipes, but to be able to produce better sound quality than what is achievable with my current set up of $5 PC mic and integrated sound that came with my PC.
I’m thinking along the lines of upgrading my sound card to one which will accept a small 4 or 5 channel mixing desk.
Download the ‘Audacity’ software that requires a microphone for your computer (Gateway may have supplied you with one). It is a very basic and simple program to use. Once you have recorded something, go under file, click on export as wav, and send it to your music folder.
Then, from the same site, download ‘waveNETmp3’. This will convert your file to mp3 form. You can do so by clicking on the button to the right of the subject bar (wav source)…which has three dots in it. This is the browse feature and will allow you to access your music file. Click on the file you want, then click the convert icon on the upper right corner of the waveNet window. That is all.
I’ve been using Goldwave which is also a freebie and have used it to record the tunes you can hear on CLips and Snips, but the sound quality is not that crash hot and doesn’t provide a very sympathetic example of my chanter’s tone. Plus, since I can’t afford the $$ to do any studio recording I thought I’d like to put some more professional sounding MP3s on my website - hence the desire eventually to be able to multi-track. Not that I’m expecting to get CD-quality recordings from a low-budget home studio setup.
The Audacity program allows you to boost the bass of your recording giving the drones their due. It also features a delay which (if used tastefully) can add a little more ‘body’ to the overall recording. Give it a try…what could it harm. As basic as this program is, I am happy with the sound.
Yep. Beerwah is about an hour’s drive north in what’s called the Glasshouse region. The Glasshouse mountains, of which Mt Beerwah is one, are a series of ancient volcano peaks rising not that high by many standards out of flat farming country. They were seen by Captain Cook as he sailed up the east coast and reflectd the sun in a way that they reminded him of the glasshouses back home in England. So he called them the Glasshouse mountains. Anyway, Beerwah, Beerburum, Tibrogagan (sp?), and other peaks are names derived from local aboriginal names.
Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter, has his zoo at Beerwah. Crikey!!
It is my goal to move to Australia with ‘she who must be obeyed’ in a few years (once the dog has moved on to that backyard in the sky), and I am thinking about settling in either Brisbane or Beerwah.
Being a veterinary technician, I have given some thought about trying to get work at Irwin’s place…pipe dream, but, nothing ventured nothing gained, eh?
That’d be grand. If you can’t get a job with Mr Irwin, you could take up pineapple farming which is the main occupation around that area. But with urban expansion going on at the rate it is here in Brisbane, it won’t be long before Beerwah is another suburb. No, a slight exageration but I rekin you couldn’t pick a better place to live. That’s why Brisbane recieves 1000 new inhabitants per week from the southern cities like Sydney and Melbourne. Town planner certainly have their work cut out for them at the moment as a result.
If you do make it over here it will be a great addition to our very small piping community.
Yes, being within an accessable distance of other pipers is certainly a deciding factor in where I wish to put down roots. Who knows, we might run into each other one of these years.
Keep me informed of your movements. Well…the wine’s working its magic and bed is calling so I guess I’ll call it a night now. Good chatting to you. See you again,
Good choice for Audacity! I use it both on Windows and my Linux machine. But why an extra MP3 converter? Just download Lame, locate the dll in the Audacity preferences and la violà! But in the end I would recommend to use the (included) OGG encoding. Better quality with slightly less file size … and a open-source encoding too!
Tickety boo, Thies
For some reason or another I couldn’t get the lame program to work on my system. It was a zipped file, and the program I downloaded (winzip) to unzip the file didn’t work. Rather than figure it all out (being a lazy bum and all, in addition to being a PC moron), I ditched the (lame) Lame, downloaded the mp3 converter, and haven’t had a lick of trouble since.
I will give exporting in OGG a shot… anything to reduce storage space. Thanks Thies.
Hardware configuration has many possibilities, of course. I suggest you consider their Delta 1010LT, which includes two phantom power XLR connectors. It is inexpensive, and probably has all the connections you would ever want, even for your dream studio. If you don’t want to spring for an all-in-one solution, you can start with their Audio Buddy as your mic pre-amp (2 XLRs), and then get their Delta 44 or Delta 66 A/D I/O for bringing digital sound into/out of your PC.
You don’t have to, but if at all possible, I suggest getting a GB of RAM in your PC minimum for best quality recording and reasonable system response times for recording.
(I am in no way connected with M-Audio, but am very appreciative of the quality of their products.)
Thies, true, but anything from Adobe is ridiculously over-priced. When I bought it from the original maker, it was only $120. I would like to be able to say that you get what you pay for, but there is certainly a lot of free software available today that wasn’t around when I started my home studio many years ago.
Thanks. 
