(Muso) Using my PC as a recording studio

[Borboski]

Now I am sure this is possible, but I have little idea about what I'm doing so hopefully some cat here will be able to point me in the right direction.

I have Soundforge, and I have a Tascam fourtrack, and a Soundblaster Audigy 2 Soundcard.

The first thing is going to be plugging my tascam, or instruments, into the soundcard. On the sound card all I have is a little line in, the type that takes small earphones, not the fat chunky plug on the back of my Tascam. Will I be able to get a lead that converts into this litte one?

I've noticed you can get an 'External I/O' that seems to be a little box that you plug into the line in that allows you plug in all sorts of inputs, MIDI, mike leads, etc. Does anyone know owt about these?

In my Creative Labs folder I have a MIDI bank of lots of sounds that are perfect but a pretty good for my needs. Now my keyboard isn't polyphonic - should it be?

Finally, using soundforge to create music is taking an absolute age. What I want is an equivalent piece of software for multi-tracking. Surely there is something out there you can use to layer seperate tracks with some of the same features of Soundforge.

As a sidenote, TASCAM have shut down their forums because people were trading old equipment and parts. This seems to have pissed off a significant portion of their audience.

I don't need this for anything particular serious, just to play around and record my professional sounding bashings by my band.

[NobodyGetsOutAlive]

Can't help much here but:

On the sound card all I have is a little line in, the type that takes small earphones, not the fat chunky plug on the back of my Tascam. Will I be able to get a lead that converts into this litte one?

Yes you can. You can get one from Currys/Dixons for a few pounds which is a little plug thing where you get the one you want, and the opposite one.

[Borboski]

Oh yeah - thash what I wanted to hear! My problem is a don't know how much of this is highly technical, and how much is solved by a trip to Dixons! Cheers.

If anyone else can help it'd be much appreciated.

[mrpants]

I've noticed you can get an 'External I/O' that seems to be a little box that you plug into the line in that allows you plug in all sorts of inputs, MIDI, mike leads, etc. Does anyone know owt about these?

In my Creative Labs folder I have a MIDI bank of lots of sounds that are perfect but a pretty good for my needs. Now my keyboard isn't polyphonic - should it be?

Not familiar with LOL NO External I/O but midi is only data.  So you can't send midi down an audio cable and therefore into your line in, it has to be a midi cable.

The keyboard only has to be polyphonic if you're going to be playing stuff like pianos and other instruments that uses chords.  Otherwise it should be ok.

[Speciality meat product]

I'm not familiar with the Tascam, but I presume that it outputs MIDI, in which case you need a cable to plug in to the joystick/MIDI port on your soundcard, presuming it has one. You can get the cable in Currys/Dixons/PC World etc.

[bill hicks]

Now I am sure this is possible, but I have little idea about what I'm doing so hopefully some cat here will be able to point me in the right direction.

I have Soundforge, and I have a Tascam fourtrack, and a Soundblaster Audigy 2 Soundcard.

The first thing is going to be plugging my tascam, or instruments, into the soundcard. On the sound card all I have is a little line in, the type that takes small earphones, not the fat chunky plug on the back of my Tascam. Will I be able to get a lead that converts into this litte one?

I've noticed you can get an 'External I/O' that seems to be a little box that you plug into the line in that allows you plug in all sorts of inputs, MIDI, mike leads, etc. Does anyone know owt about these?

In my Creative Labs folder I have a MIDI bank of lots of sounds that are perfect but a pretty good for my needs. Now my keyboard isn't polyphonic - should it be?

Finally, using soundforge to create music is taking an absolute age. What I want is an equivalent piece of software for multi-tracking. Surely there is something out there you can use to layer seperate tracks with some of the same features of Soundforge.

Don't know about Soundforge, but if you want a good programme that's basically a Porta-style multi track, but on the computer like, try Cool Edit Pro. As easy as using the Tascam. Try downloading the demo and then visiting the 'emporium' of your choice to turn it magically into the full software.

[falafel]

I've noticed you can get an 'External I/O' that seems to be a little box that you plug into the line in that allows you plug in all sorts of inputs, MIDI, mike leads, etc. Does anyone know owt about these?

Yup. Come as standard with the Platinum and Platinum EX versions of the Audigy and Audigy 2. They don't connect to the line in; they are basically breakout boards \ daughterboards that connect directly to a proprietary slot on the the soundcard itself. hey are either completely external - in which case you need a spare PCI slot at the back of the computer to provide the link to the outside world, as it were - or they go into one of the drive bays where your CD-RW\DVD-ROM might go, in which case it's a case of a simple cable connect. They're pretty handy - you might be able to get one from soundblaster.com, but I'm not sure whether they're sold separately. For the record, they give you: SPDIF in\out, optical in\out, fat headphone jack, fat input jack that can either be for a line in signal or a microphone (condenser or dynamic), midi in\out, aux in (phono left\right), an infra-red remote control and a Firewire extension.

In my Creative Labs folder I have a MIDI bank of lots of sounds that are perfect but a pretty good for my needs. Now my keyboard isn't polyphonic - should it be?

Umm... yes.

Finally, using soundforge to create music is taking an absolute age. What I want is an equivalent piece of software for multi-tracking. Surely there is something out there you can use to layer seperate tracks with some of the same features of Soundforge.

Well, ACID provides pretty functional multitracking for pure audio - you could process tracks in Soundforge and then import them into ACID for multitracking. Cubasis is good (and cheap) for MIDI and multitrack audio, plus has native ASIO support, natch, which gives nigh-on-infinite F\X expansion capabilities... Cubase SL/SX and Nuendo are progressively more upmarket, and naturally far more powerful but far more expensive. If all you're using at the moment is Sound Forge, then frankly I get the feeling that anything capable of multitracking would be an improvement. Sound editors are an important part of the arsenal, of course, and I wouldn't do without, but on their own they... well, they're not really for making music - not any more than, say, a piano tuner is meant to be able to play the piano.

[Borboski]

Spiffing advice guys - much appreciated. [Browsing 'shop']

We've just had the offer accepted for our first house - £120k we can't afford on a two bedroom terrace... well if it makes her happy... Anyway, I'm coping with the unexpected stress by keeping my mind on this new adventure!

Now on my Tascam, in front of me, I have the two 'line output' sockets that I've currently been plugging into my hifi so I can hear back the recording and tape the final version.

There also - monitor output (don't know owt about that), and tape outputs, plus inputs.

My guess is it's the same line outputs that would go into my soundcard... but on my soundcard I have free a mic, what i think is line in, and one that says digital. Do I then need a wire that will have two plugs into the TASCAM and one into the PC.

My next worry is getting my PC to recognise that their some sound going into it - couldn't get it recognise my mic earlier, ran it through my amp too, but from the comments above am I too understand the PC won't recognise this - it needs to come perhaps from the TASCAM or something else that will put it into MIDI form? Anyway, I'll know more once I've fiddled with some better software.

Cheers guys.

[Borboski]

I'm on the way.... took me absolutely ages last night to realise that you could move waves around in Acid Pro by clicking right mouse button.

And hopefully the cable I need from Tascam line out to soundcard line in will be purchased this lunch!

So now I can record guitar tracks and vocals via the tascam, and then upload them as wav files.

The problem is that when I record just using the PC, using Soundforge, I can only hear what I'm playing, and not the tracks already laid down. Is there a way around this? Can you record within Acid Pro for example, only record from a certain input? I notice in Volume Options you can select to record from a different number of sources - one of which is 'midi/synth' as opposed to what you hear?

But regardless, in Soundforge I can't seem to have any background noise before I press Record. (Perhaps I can load up Soundforge in another window - once you press record you can set up as many sounds as you like...

Hmm.

Any advice about playing sounds using the key board would be good. I know my keyboard must be polyphonic because you can play UT2003 on it, but you can't plink plonk on it like Jamie Cullen. I've noticed you can buy cheap key boards you can use like joysticks - anyone know about these?

[peterperv]

Only one extra thing you need for your computer - a digidesign m-box, i think it's called.

I would trawl the internet looking for it for you but i'm tired.

[Rats]

acid pro is just like having a 4 track but with loads of tracks, you hear what's already there so you can sing along to it and that. I don't know anything about soundforge. I hope you have a half decent sound card though. I had a really old crappy one and I had to get a new one because it couldn't keep up with playing and recording at the same time, if I sang over something, it would be like 2 seconds out of synch.
There's a crappy tracker called modplug that is quite good. It's no octamed but it's ok http://www.modplug.com/modplug/download.php3?session=&download=Tracker That'll let you do midi and you can export the wavs and put them into cool edit to sing over them. I was arsing about with it, testing it out and made these, every sound you hear is made from my dark barking, my mouth and my can of beer.
http://www.zen26454.zen.co.uk/woo.mp3
http://www.zen26454.zen.co.uk/pop.mp3