Wirehead Studios

I've been having a go at multitracking this week, since I'm at home a lot, and the studio I normally use is out of action, due to the owner having a hernier operation, and have tried Cubase, nTrack, cakewalk , audacity, and reaper. only reaper seems to multitrack without giving a latency, or delay before putting down the signal. Even bought a new usb sound card - creative live! which was a total waste of time. even worst that the on board sound.

anybody any expereance of sound? I intent to record guitar, bass mandolin, 8 string guitar and banjo etc. mikes will be SM58's as its all I have, and I will use solid instruments as far as I can, to keep down the noise.

Not very much, but stay away from Creative.  If you want a professional-grade sound card for multitracking, and you're serious about multitracking, you may need to get one of the M-Audio series.  Here's what you'd need:

http://www.samash.com/catalog/showitem.asp...sp?itemid=16607 (http://www.samash.com/catalog/showitem.asp?itemid=16607)
or
http://www.samash.com/catalog/showitem.asp...&departmentid=9 (http://www.samash.com/catalog/showitem.asp?ItemID=16610&TempID=1&departmentid=9)

Double check your software to make sure it's compatible, I don't see any reason why not, but they both have zero latency multitracking capability.  Not sure where you can get these across the pond...

These look the bisiness. I'll look into them. thanks

Update:
I was having so much grief with the onboard sound on the A8n sli SE board, setting it to 5 channel - it would not set, it would not auto detect, it was a real pain. so I tried the creative on the new comp, and even that would only give 2 channels. so I downloaded updated drivers after reading some forums and that worked very well - now it auto detects what I plug in etc. anyway, my point being the creative did not sound any better than the realtek AC97 onboard sound. but it was easyer to plug instruments in, being the sockets are sat on top of the tower case, rather than round the back.

but my question is this: I can now record ok using Reaper. a fantastic program with a very small footprint. its the best I've found, and will handle loads of plug ins. BUT can I use any program to record 2 seperate tracks at once? I believe the mike input is stereo, so in theory I could record guitar on one track, and say banjo on the other at the same time? no one anywhere seems to know. even with the cards Pho mentioned I can't seem to sort this out. I'll just have to spend and see.
(also got to sort out my speakers - the bass guitar will kill my existing comp speakers if I keep using them. any body recomment any good but cheap speakers? must be able to handle bass guitar.

This is turning into a blog...
I have had a nightmare of a day. I've made a lead that has male 3.5 mil jack at one end, and 2 mono 6mil jacks at the other, to allow me to use both sides of the sereo line in at once. Cost me a fiver, and still I get channel bleed.

I have found, for no reason that I can see, that the comp I intended to use for sound recording does not like it. low volumne, distortion etc. the on board sound seems best, but even that is not constant.

The other comp, the one I biult for spares while I had nothing else to do, records sound really well, and it has the same motherboard (just not the delux) with 1/2 gig of ram, and bottom end graphics. why I didn't use it from the beginning for sound, I don't remember, after being at this desk for 3 days and mosst of 3 nights trying to get it all set up.

I only have 9 weeks left before going back to work, and I intend to record a complete album in that time, (my third, if you don't count the odd tracks I've played on on other peoples albums, or the one that was recorded in a day and never got releaced due to the band disbanding and threatening to kill each other if they ever saw each other again - all irish men but me)

That 9 weeks also includes a week where I will be playing at a festival, where I intend to get a few 'live tracks' recorded if I can.

conclusion? Reaper is the best free recording prog. intuative, and small footprint. I love oit
Cubase is the best not free prog. but needs a big comp to run, really.
Audacity is ok, but Reaper is really much better.
Also - avoid the creative Live! usb card. needed a system restore to remove this properly.
sorry about any spelling mistakes, I just haven't got the energy to run this thou 'word' tonight, like I normally do.

Update---
I have now updated the onboard sound, and it seems very good quality, even better than the PCI card I got from maplins, that I could not use, as when it was installed in the slot, the input socket was so near the end of the plate (right next to the screw that holds the PCI card in, infact) you could not plug anything into it.

I have now rigged an amp and 2 x 100 watt foldback speakers to the comp. for those not in the know, they are speakers that sit at the front of the stage, pointing at the band, so they can hear the sound, or whatever parts of the sound they want to haer - e.g. I like to hear nothing but the banjo and the fiddle though my foldback speaker, not the drums or the bass. they just distract me and get in the way. Of course I hear them a bit, but only a little, so I can consentrate on the instruments I really need to hear. The fiddle and the banjo share a ' wedge'  as we call them, (as they are often shaped like wedges). as they want to hear the same instrement, the rhythm guitar, normaly me. this would explain why the flute player once fell off stage, and wedidn't notice, as we could not hear him...

I now have the loudest PC in Yorkshire.

:band: :rockon: