Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of Tim O’Brien

July 29th, 2008 – Shav737 writes: “Hey. Love the site. I’ve been playing guitar for as long as I can remember but I’m brand new to recording. A friend hooked me up with Cubase SX and told me to play around with that for a while. I rapidly found out that I have no idea what I’m doing, and my computer mic isn’t cutting it. I’ve looked into MIDI interfaces for guitar and mic but don’t even know enough to ask the right questions.
1. I plan to dive into this more in the future, what kind of hardware would be a good investment that will last me beyond a beginner’s phase?
2. What else should a beginner know?
Keep up the good work!”

Hey Shav737, I would say that if you’re tired of using your computer mic, the first thing you will need to do is get something that will allow you to input a better microphone into your computer: an audio interface. You could bypass having an interface completely by having a USB microphone, but they do not provide the best sound quality for music. Most professional microphones use either 1/4 inch connectors (they look like the big headphone cables), or XLR connectors. These cables will not fit into your typical computer sound card (unless you have a very high end one), so any interface (my fancy word for professional sound cards) you look at will need to have these connectors. How many inputs you need depends on how many things you need to record simultaneously, but I would suggest two is a good start (this allows for recording two microphones for stereo).

Almost all interfaces available will work on both Mac and PC platforms so there is no need to worry about compatibility. If you’re looking for a good brand, I would suggest M-Audio. I have a Firewire 410 and all my non-studio recordings have been made with it, including film music I’ve recorded. If you’re running a PC, you likely don’t have Firewire ports, so you’d be looking at a USB interface like this one. The interface you get will be the thing that allows you to plug your microphones and guitars into your computer so this is a good place to spend a little more money if you want to make sure it lasts you a while.

You ask about which equipment is best to spend money on to last beyond the beginner’s stage. Check out my post on gear for more information, but the short of it is: crap in, crap out. By this I mean that you should buy the best quality microphone and cabling you can afford. The interface is also important but you will inevitably upgrade it as you get better; microphones stay with you. All the phasers and EQs in the world won’t make a crappy vocal recording sound any better, so try to get the best sound into your computer that you can; it will save you a lot of time (which ultimately saves you money).

What kind of guitar are you recording? Acoustic guitars sound best when miked. Electric guitars can be plugged directly into your interface if you have a Cubase amp modeller plug-in. However, the best electric guitar recordings are done by miking the amplifier itself. Oh, one other thing I’d like to mention: if you’re looking to record vocals and guitars, you don’t want to be looking at MIDI interfaces. Check out my post on MIDI for an in depth explanation, but the long and short of it is that recording vocals and guitars is audio and not MIDI, so a MIDI interface won’t help you. Some audio interfaces, however, have MIDI support should you want to get a keyboard later on down the road.

I hope I answered everything. If not, hit up the comments and I’d be happy to answer any other questions you might have. Let us know how your recording is going, and good luck!