recording guitar onto laptop. advice needed quickly

Take a pass on installingv it now. Do it once your settled in it will be less of a headache. In the meantime look around for your options. I use Cakewalk for recording and SoundForge for effects with a cheap mic I bought for $50 USD at the pawnshop. There are freeware programs that will let you multi-track.

Hi Jason
First thing first, check forum "In the studio" http://forums.guitarnoise.com/viewforum.php?f=26
Lots have been "written" there about how to record with a Laptop.
My advice is not to buy a lowcost PC compatible mic , they are not good enough for you as been used to use the very good SM57 mic. Instead buy a better mic with a mic pre-amp or a small mixer. You will find several advice on priceworthy mics, preamps and mixers in "In the studio".
There are also some good free multitrack recording SW as Audacity or Kristal Audio Engine that can be used.

I'd say get a small mixer, and some mics. Not nessacairly Shures, as they are expensive, but an mic. People will give you many recommendations around here.

You can download audacity for free online which will work nicely for software.

For a microphone, try the $10 PC junk microphones. They work suprisingly well. They work better for full room recording then the high end mic's we have.

anyway, there's some quick input for you.

It's really not the best idea to buy a $10 PC microphone when you can get this for $20.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Live/Sound/Microphones/Wireless?sku=270490

Please keep in mind that you will need some sort of mixer/interface to be able to plug a non-PC mic into your computer.

If you want semi-decent quality, you need to have a good audio card. If you don't have this, an external USB one can be had for around $150 (tascam). (These have a bunch of input/output jacks on them as a bonus if you don't have a mixer)

oktay

Yeah but doesn't that microphone require an interface? I was merely showing how you could get recording with a new laptop and a ten dollar bill. And I was very suprised at how well it recorded. I mean really suprised. Even with the drum kit a blazin it picked up the other instruments pretty well.

Not a long term solution of course, but a better then expected stopgap....

You can just use a cheap pc mic and it will record, my friend does this, it definatly doesnt sound that great but if u just want to record stuff so that u can hear yourself it works. I bought a Tascam US-122 usb interface from my GC a couple monthes ago. Just a little two channel mixer that goes into the pc slot on my laptop. The nice thing about it is that is has XLR inputs so I can plug my mics in, and if i want to record myself playing and singing I can use the two mics. Guitar would be left channel, and voice would be the right channel, then I just edit the channels in soundforge and mix em together with acid. Works quite well I say.

Altogether I spent $300 on the interface, $100 on my seinhieser mic and $75 on my shure mic.

You should be able to get by with a cheap mic (I use the MXL 990 LD condenser, and a SM57 on occasion), some sort of audio interface, mulitrack software, and an audio editor - well, good headphones would be nice, and monitors if you can swing it. I use Ableton Live (it makes a great DAW) on my laptop (Cubase on my desktop), along with SoundForge...but I use Audacitiy just about as much as I do SoundForge. For multi-track, NTrack is cheap, Kristal is free (I've never used it, though). For demos at home, I still use a little MR-8 eight track, and move my tracks over to my laptop. Old habits die hard.

Or you can use a M-audio mobile pre, which , will connect to your laptop via USB.

http://www.zzounds.com/item--MDOMOBILEPRE

From what i have heard , it is a brilliant recording interface and i think our member nils also uses it.

Good luck ,

Rahul

well, that is what i ended up getting, the m-audio, with live lite4 software (included). anyway, i'm having problems with volume. even with the gain turned up all the way until there's a bunch of hiss, it's still really quiet.

Are you using a Mic connected to the XLR mic Channel 1 or 2 Connectors ? (maybe the SM 57).
Or are you using a mic with 1/4" jack cable connected to the channel 2 instr/line 1/4" jack ?

Can you get the "CLIP" LED indicator to flash when you try to record.

If you sing loud with the mic appr. 10" from the mouth , the "CLIP" indicator should flash if you have channel gain at max !

If you monitor the sound in your input channel with a headphone, whats the sound level in the headphones ?