I'm looking to do a couple of things with a combination of equipment I either already have or need to purchase...and I'm totally clueless. Need help.
What I'd like to do:
1. Jam along with pre-recorded drum loops, bass, other instruments, and
2. Record my own guitar riffs along with the above pre-recorded loops and send to bandmates to communicate ideas
This is what I have:
* A Dell 5150 laptop
* A Gibson SG Standard
* M-Audio preamp (although I think the Dell has a soundcard...purchased the preamp a while ago)
* A small guitar amp
* Cakewalk Guitartracks Pro software
What I don't have:
* Stereo speakers
* A drum machine / loop software (are they the same?)
* Probably things I'm not thinking of that I need
I want to get this setup right from the start.
Understanding what my setup is, what should be my plan of attack? Get speakers first? Then a drum machine or something like Band In a Box?
Also, will my existing Cakewalk Guitartracks software be compatible with drum machines or BIB?
I need serious help here. So many questions.
Thanks. KY
You could probably skip the drum machine for the time being. If you do a web search for backing tracks, you can find all kinds of them. Save them them to your hard drive and play along with them. Do you mean you have no speakers for your computer. If not then yes that you will need. Not to sure about the pre amp. If it will connect to a mic or your amp then you can hook it to the sound card and record to your hard drive.
You'll need the peamp. The signal from a guitar is pretty weak and needs to be amplified before going into the sound card. Preamps often offer gain - so you can put a distorted signal into the sound card and not rely on cakewalk's effects.
Speakers are not necessary if you have headphones - less disturbance for the neighbours/family.
To jam along with loops, you make use of the multi-track facility on Cakewalk. Get some drum and bass loops and create tracks in cakewalk (save as files for later use). You can then, either jam along with the tracks (play them in cakewalk or Winamp, etc) or you can play the track, in cakewalk, whilst recording onto another one.
You have the option of having the loops recorded along with your jam track or not (just your guitar).
I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in any dictionary?
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Here's some free loops.
Joe
Get a 4 or 6 chanel mixer. You can run guitars, bass, mic, keyboard, etc in to that. Then connect the mixer output to your soundcard(just go to radio shack to get the adaptors.).
cakewalk should have some drum beats that you can loop to keep a steady tempo. After you record your instruments you can always change the drum beat, but making sure your tracks are at a specific tempo will allow you to loop and edit much easier.
YOu can also download free drum machine software.
Just start experimenting with the program and use the tutorials. Its just a matter of time before you'll get comfortable
