Recording Interface

Discussion in 'Guitar Gear Talk Forum' started by guitarplayer729, Mar 26, 2012.

  1. guitarplayer729

    guitarplayer729 New Member

    hey guys
    was recording something using the same old netbook mic
    but this time the sound quality was sh*t
    was frustrated completely

    now have decided to get a recording interface
    i dont know how do they work
    or do they depend on the sound card of the pc
    kindly explain about them and recommend some good interfaces and where to get them from
     
  2. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    Here is what recording interface does.

    Think of recording interface as an external USB Sound card.

    Guitar --> Recording interface --> PC (Recording software such as Audacity, Ableton Live, Cubase, Adobe) --> Output in WAV,MP3 etc
    OR
    MIC --> recording interface --> PC same as above
    OR
    Multi inputs are available too

    Recording interfaces may have more than 1 channel. Channel is nothing but the Input. More the channels more the cost.

    The recording interface that i have has two channels so that means i can plug in 2 instruments at a time and record. I use it for Mic and guitar.

    There are many recording interfaces available. Choose on the basis of :-
    -Good quality Preamps (these are within the interface which convert the weak guitar signal into good levels maintaining low noise levels)
    -No of channels that u want
    -Direct monitoring option(Listen to what u play).
     
  3. rickkkyrich

    rickkkyrich Guest

    They don't depend on the pc soundcard .. Interfaces are external sound cards...
    Options:
    M Audio fast track
    Focusrite makes some.. donno the exact model..
    Line 6 UX1/UX2
     
  4. guitarplayer729

    guitarplayer729 New Member

    if we record using a software on our pc
    then how can it record using a usb interface
    are those softwares compatible with it???


    also
    what is a MIDI interface?
     
  5. shubhamAT

    shubhamAT New Member

    When we record on a computer this is how the sound/signal travels from your guitar to computer: Guitar(pickup+preamp)==>Cable1==>Effects/Amp/DI/OtherGadgets==>Cable2==>Computer Input Port==>Sound Card==>Device Driver==>Recording Software

    Now when you are recording using the laptop mic, there is no cable 2 and the microphone is internally hooked to the computer's input port. The signal sent by the mic is received by the sound card which is further processed by the device driver. Your recording software uses the device driver to read the data(digitized signal) and thus you are able to process and save your work.

    Lets look at specific cases to see how this chain gets affected when you use different devices:

    1. With an external mic: Here mic connects to the computer input port using cable 2
    2. With an external USB mic: Mic is connected to an embedded chip (which acts as a separate sound card) which sends data packets over usb cable (cable2). This is picked up by the USB device driver. The USB device driver at one end reads the packets from mic and at the other end makes these available to the Recording software. In the recording software you will have to explicitly select the external usb device/driver to read the input.
    3. With USB capable device such as Zoom G series: Same as 2. Your device also has a inbuilt sound card and you need to install the right driver so that your recoding software picks the correct input source.

    Tech Trivia: In laptops many of the built-in sound cards and web cams (which also have a mic) internally use the USB bus (cable) hence you are still using the USB interface even if you are not aware of it.
     
  6. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    Yes u need to configure the software to detect the external sound card. During the configuration u will get options as to which sound card u want to use. The external or the inbuilt.

    Audio/Recording Interface:-
    Consider an audio interface as a middle layer between your computer and your equipment. You connect/plug your equipment into an audio interface and the interface transfers the sound to your computer. Also you can hook your speaker monitors into the interface so you can hear sound from your equipment and the computer

    Midi Interface:-
    A MIDI interface is nothing but a device that connects MIDI devices to a computer and lets the computer record from them. You can even play back from them.

    MIDI interfaces DO NOT pass sound or audio data through them, they pass MIDI data. Through MIDI you can connect keyboards, effect processors etc and control all of them from computer.

    I guess Sonnus creates some Midi interfaces. I had seen one on bajaao.com.
     
  7. alpha1

    alpha1 I BLUES!

    The cheapest option would be to get a good microphone that has wide frequency range.
    Connect it to the microphone port of your SAME OLD NETBOOK.
    (the inbuilt mic of your netbook will have telephone like frequency response - and thus the crappy recording that you were getting)

    If you wish to spend more on soundcards and DAWs too then other posts on this thread will help you.
     
  8. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    Check out Shure PG57 XLR. It has wide frequency response as compared to Sennheiser and other brands in the same price range. Its around 2.7K.

    Check out my recording Wave of Transience. I had used a computer Mic. And the recording was really good. It captured the drums too properly. That was through 200/- iBall computer mic.

    But problem with these computer mics is that u need to have an isolated room for recording. Else it just captures sound from all the direction whereas the Shure and other brand mics are unidirectional in nature ofcourse with much better quality of recording.

    But if u r planning to buy an Audio interface u wudnt need to buy a mic. Since guitar can directly be recorded. But again the patches available in the softwares are not upto the mark. The so called distortion tone in few of my originals suck badly for this reason.

    So mic comes for a rescue when u need to record from ur amplifier directly.
     
  9. guitarplayer729

    guitarplayer729 New Member

    what do u mean by patches in the softwares??
     
  10. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    By Patches i meant plugins which let u manipulate the sound(adding distortion, delay, reverb etc etc). Consider it like a pedal or a processor where in u turn ON and OFF some effect. Similarly in the software u get variety of tones..and trust me there is lots. Delay, reverb are fantastic except a good distortion tone which i havent been able to find untill now. @Rickkkyrich has recorded one of the originals using a distorton patch...Thats a great sound that he has. I have to talk to him as well about that tone....

    So the clean signal that u send is coloured using the plugins or the effects within the software itself.
     
  11. guitarplayer729

    guitarplayer729 New Member

    well what if we dont want to use the patch???
     
  12. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    Yes possible...It will be just clean then..No effects..As though u r playing thru a keyboard amp..
     
  13. guitarplayer729

    guitarplayer729 New Member

    i meant using own our gear(pedal, processor)
    not the software patch
    would it sound good(it ought to)
     
  14. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

  15. guitarplayer729

    guitarplayer729 New Member

    how do u mix the whole jam track, video and the played music together
     
  16. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

  17. guitarplayer729

    guitarplayer729 New Member

    what about the video
     

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