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Trogluddite
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22 Aug 2018, 12:55 am

SabbraCadabra wrote:
I've tried recording in my computer chair before, thinking "if I just sit really still, it won't squeak..."

:lol: Rented houses with dodgy floorboards! 8O

Another old favourite of mine was listening back to my perfect take only to realise that a police car or something went past that I was too hyper-focused to notice at the time. On one of the demo's I recorded with my first band (we had a whole four tracks of cassette, luxury!), the drummer decided to start chatting before the last cymbal sounds has died away. Just as the song's ending, this Yorkshire voice says; "Eeeh, ah walked inta'a forkin' lampost today." Naturally, we had to keep it in the mix! :lol:

Hyeokgeose wrote:
I guess I should've specified the instruments, they are an electric bass guitar & an older electric piano (piano has no USB compatibility, has that other type of port which I forgot the name of). Another device I will be using does have USB compatibility, so it won't be a problem.

That sounds pretty easy to do then. Would you be using an amp for the bass or just plugging straight in? If straight in, does it have passive or active pickups? (if they're active, it will take a battery.) To plug a passive bass in, a USB audio interface might be handy. A typical motherboard input is likely to be a bad impedance mismatch, so you lose the high end of the sound. An interface with a high-impedance input will make it sound much clearer, and even more so for electric guitar (sometimes called a "Hi-Z", "guitar" or "instrument" input.)

I would guess that the electric piano port will be a MIDI port - round, with five pins. If so, that's handy, as you can either record the sound of the piano itself, or use the MIDI data to drive virtual instrument plugins on the PC. Most motherboard sound doesn't support MIDI so you might need an external interface for this; most USB audio interfaces include MIDI as well.

A reasonable USB interface that would give you all of the above (if you need them) plus a couple microphone pre-amps and headphone output should be well under $100, maybe even $50 if you shop around.


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Hyeokgeose
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22 Aug 2018, 9:23 pm

Yes, it's a MIDI port, that's the one! I did not know it had that compatibility. My only thing is, I would like to be able to record the various instruments and sound effects that are on the electric piano, and I thought MIDI couldn't do that, I guess that's why you mentioned virtual instrument plugins? In that case, would I be better off just using something like the LaunchPad (which is something I want to invest in eventually)? It would be more convenient in regard to where I can place it down in my room.

With the bass guitar, I wondered if it could be plugged directly into the computer in some way -- that's awesome in that case. That is exactly what I want to do then, if it's more convenient than plugging it into the amp to record. I want to have as much flexibility as possible when it comes to editing on the computer.

Again, thank you so much for your help so far!


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SabbraCadabra
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23 Aug 2018, 5:19 pm

Hyeokgeose wrote:
With the bass guitar, I wondered if it could be plugged directly into the computer in some way -- that's awesome in that case.

You can, but you might not get the sound you want. I've done it before, but I get much better tone through my amps.


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Trogluddite
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23 Aug 2018, 7:01 pm

Hyeokgeose wrote:
My only thing is, I would like to be able to record the various instruments and sound effects that are on the electric piano, and I thought MIDI couldn't do that, I guess that's why you mentioned virtual instrument plugins?

Yes, that's right. MIDI is just a bunch of messages saying what keys you pressed. So long as you have enough audio inputs, you would be able to do it by recording the audio output of the piano - these are generally really easy to plug into a PC, as they will be at good healthy volume level.


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Gallia
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23 Aug 2018, 7:04 pm

i'm just jumping on this thread to say how cool this is. ok bye. i don't understand computers.


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Hyeokgeose
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23 Aug 2018, 7:35 pm

Thank you folks! :D

Gallia wrote:
i'm just jumping on this thread to say how cool this is. ok bye. i don't understand computers.


Thanks for stopping by. Cheers. :wink:


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"It’s not until they tell you you’re going to die soon that you realize how short life is. Time is the most valuable thing in life because it never comes back. And whether you spend it in the arms of a loved one or alone in a prison-cell, life is what you make of it. Dream big."
-Stefán Karl Stefánsson
10 July, 1975 - 21 August, 2018.