Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jhaelin]

hey i was wondering if anyone can educate me on this, as it's new to me.

i have a mac with a nice program for mixing and recording but never thought to use it till now.

if anyone can share info or source of info for getting euipment and accessories to connect my guitar to my lap top, i'd really appreciate it!

i assume it would be via usb connection but if there are other ways (firewire) etc. please share details and advice.

thanks.

[lion]

Is your guitar an acoustic or an electric? Are you looking for a nice acoustic sound or a crunchy electric sound?

edit: more questions: What's your budget? Is your "nice program" Garage Band? (Which I've heard isn't that bad.) Do you want to record vocals too? Do you also want to use hard or soft synths?

[Trevor]

Humongous question. People spend all their lives recording music, so you can imagine it is not an easy question to answer here.

First you need a sound card. Probably USB. I recommend you find exactly what you want and then go to:

www.gmarket.co.kr

To educate yourself, I recommend you register at this fantastic forum for recordists:

www.kvraudio.com

Very talented and knowledgeable people hang out there and they will patintly answer all your questions. There's also a great newbie FAQ.

Good luck. Don't spend a lot until you know what you need.

[smwood]

If you want to D.I. your instrument or mic into the Mac you'll need a USB pre-amp. Search online for what's available for Mac-compatible hardware. You won't need the extra soundcard. Your Mac already has one which will work fine.

~ smw

[re:cursive]

Put simply...you need an amp or a soundcard with gain controls if you're going to be recording an electric guitar signal. There are far too many products available that offer this feature to list here.

I've got an amp with 5 mic and line-in inputs that would do the trick. Plug the guitar into the front, adjust the EQ and gain, run the master out to the soundcard and hit record. I may be looking to sell this amp in the near future as I don't use it for anything more than powering my PA. wink wink.

As far as software goes...it totally depends on what you want to do. What audio resolution are you after? What do you want to do with the sound once it's recorded?

Generally the best bet is to get the cleanest signal possible, in which case it's going to come down to your AD converters. Once you're in the digital domain you can do a whole lot of stuff to turn you're clean signal into a rich sound.

If you're using an acoustic it gets a whole lot more complicated. You'll need to research microphones, placement and room acoustics among other things.

One thing I will say is that if you are after a really clean sound, it is worth investing in a decent soundcard. The guitar is an acoustically complicated signal and a high sample rate and bit depth can do wonders. It can also be useful to get something that will allow you to record more than one input to give you the option of getting creative with mics in the future. That way you can record the clean signal in straight from the guitar as well as recording in the sound of the pick hitting the strings, room reverberations, or even placing contact mics on the body of the guitar itself. Creative possibilities open up when you have a few channels of sound being simultaneously recorded from the same performance.

And I agree...posting on a forum occupied mainly by English teachers is most likely not the best place to get a detailed response.

Good luck.

[jhaelin]

hey thanks for all the responses, im a bit overwelmed with info.

let's see...

i'm using an ibook with garageband. i have an acoustic guitar and an acoustic-electric. i'd llike to try to record both and also get some vocals in there too.
i went over to nogwon today afterwork and looked around.
anyone heard of toneport by line6?
it was a mac compatible usb audio-recording interface or something-a-ma-jig. they wanted 160,000 won.
is that reasonable?
went online and back state-side it ran $125 after sale and rebate.
hmmm...

anyway, i'm i unwittingly walking into a hobby that will slowly kill my wallet?...lol

[jamesy]

160 is the going rate for the toneport UX-1 in korea. It's a decent soundcard. I use it for both electric and acoustic recording, but to be honest it's not great when you plug a semi acoustic into it, as it is primarily designed for purely electric guitars. Although the acoustic tones are nice, it leaves a lot of interference on the track you've recorded, which can be a bit messy when it comes to mixing. Recording through the mic line is better for acoustics (semis) but then it all depends on the quality of the mic you're using. If you buy a good mic you shouldn't have many problems recording through it.
I've heard the tascam range of soundcards are excellent for delivering a clean sound without much interference, especially for semi acoustics. However they are a bit more expensive than the toneport.

Good luck - and yes it can be an expensive hobby, but well worth it

[lion]

I was going to suggest the toneport if your main focus is electric guitar.

Note that the toneport UX1 doesn't have something called "phantom power". If you're wanting to record vocals and a nice acoustic guitar sound for anything higher than crappy demo quality, sooner or later you're going to have to spend at least $200 on a nice condenser microphone which requires power from somewhere. The toneport UX2's mic input has phantom power for condenser mics, so you can keep using it after you've (inevitably) bought your nice microphone, so if you could manage the difference in price you might be happier down the road.

Also worth a look are the tascam US-122 (a bit old, but I have it and it's wonderful) and something from Presonus called the "inspire" (not sure if it's available here though).

Your criteria should be:

1) an instrument input
2) a microphone preamp

hope this helps without overwhelming

[jhaelin]

hey can you help me with this?

so i bought the toneport ux1 and tried recording on it.
it's easy enough to get started but i can't seem to get clean recordings.
somehow, there's always the buzz/fuzzy sound in the background that you hear when you turn your amp up too high or the kind of sound you'd get in the old cassette recordings.

anyway, i don't think it's the equipment and likely me not having set the conditions right.
this is because whenever i touch the guitar-in or mic-in cables at the port the sound gets reduced. also when i handle the usb-in at the computer, the sound gets reduced.

any advice on this.
also any tips in general for getting clean quality sounds would be appreciated.
i don't clean as in with no background sounds of the tv, or the car sounds form the street outside. i mean without the the buzz, fuzzy, hum sound...does that make sense. not sure how to describe it in words...

[lion]

If you say that the sound goes away when you touch the cables, that means you have some kind of grounding problem. (You are grounding the system thru your own body when you touch the cables.)

I would say it was just a noisy guitar, except that you also mention the USB cable. Is your mac properly grounded (via a 3rd ground conductor) to the wall? Also, are your mac and speakers plugged into two different outlets in the room? Try using the same one.

[jhaelin]

now that you mention, i plug the adaptor plug to the wall via one of those cheap socket convertors that changes a three prong (two thin + ground) to a two prong circular (that are used here).
in the process i don't use the ground and it actually sticks out naked.

how do i get around this?

is there anything that will allow me to convert a three prong to the two and still ground?

no i don't use any speaker system when i hook up the toneport, because the small speakers i do use run via usb to the computer.

[lion]

Well, that's almost certainly your problem. If your macbook is OK running on 220v then go to yongsan (or technomart or wherever) and spend a whopping 1,000 won to buy a korean-style 3-prong power cable for your macbook. One way or another you have to ground the macbook.

[jhaelin]

wait i'm not quite clear on what you mean by three prong here.

1) the wall socket in my wall has only the two prong. or atleast i don't quite know how the prongs are grounded in korea (i'm a tech caveman).

2) so do you mean an adapter that will take the three prongs from my mac plug and turn it into a two prong for the sockets here...?

3) or do you mean take the three prong and adapt it to a three prong socket here?

sorry for my naive questions but was never knowledgeable on these topics.

and thanks for your help!

p.s. what other ways are there to ground a computer and or other devices?

[lion]

The third "prong" of Korean plugs and outlets is not actually a prong at all-- it's a metal strip (two, actually) on the outer edge of the plug. Check the plug of a heavy-duty appliance such as an iron, microwave, rice cooker, etc.

(getting close to my free-advice patience threshold... )

[Hollywoodaction]

You could always get a DI-box (USB preamp) that comes with free software (cheapest option) (do a search for "Alden USB DI 박스 UDB-100", that's what I use) or a Line 6 POD XT Pro (expensive). You'll need to download ASIO4ALL (simplifies your connection and is necessary if you don't have an ASIO compatible soundcard and want to use AC97 instead). I recommend you get an ASIO compatible sound card if you plan on gigging and/or your computer's CPU isn't the fastest (you should be okay if you have a dual core cpu). You can find an ASIO compatible soundcard for 60 000 won or so (I use the Prodigy 7.1LT, fits my needs, but I'm not into recording).
PM me if you have any questions.