The homerecording site is real cool. Butt ugly and slow, but cool. I'm learning so much that I'm now out of my mind confused as all getout
The Behringer you mentioned looks cool. Has features I may never use, cause this is just for fun and I doubt I'll be getting much else in the way of audio equipment. Like digital recorder, compressor, effects board or whatever. I hope to do near ALL audio editing on the PC.
So based on my initial reading over there, it seems all I need is a mixer. Plain and simple. Only it's not so simple, because the mixer isn't computer connected like with USB or Firewire. Which means I'd have to have a decent sound card to take the outputs from the mixer into the PC. One product, from Yamaha, is a 10 channel mixer:
http://www.zzounds.com/item--YAMMG102. It has the 2 mic inputs as well as others. But not direct PC connection. At the same time, it's cheap. And assuming I have a good sound card, can it get me good recordings?
Say you were to compare a general mixer like this, from whoever, to the M-Audio, or any USB/Firewire device; are they pretty much the same, only one adds USB/Firewire instead of making you use normal audio cables output to input?
Only I have to be careful with mixers, because their meant to take input from another device, like a tape recorder or other "line" output. As I found a Behringer but the 10 channels were "line" level inputs, and the web site says you ONLY want to plug LINE outputs to LINE inputs and viceversa. A microphone/keyboard/guitar/vocal from a mic or jack would not technically be a line level output. But this Yamaha as 2 regular mic jacks with phantum power etc.. Although they call it "2 microphone/line inputs..."
There now you see why this is so confusing? How can it be both a mic and line input? If line inputs should only be connected to line outputs?
Sorry that I'm such a nut, I type all this for my own good, as it helps sort things out for me while I write about it. I still have much to learn.
Now that brings me back to another issue. Because I want to do all the effects and editing on the PC, why would I need a mixer? I would have no need to change pan or EQ or effects or even levels. I can do all that in the PC. So a mixer with 10 knobs per channel also seems overkill.
In the truest sense, all I need is a mic preamp and then lineout the signal to my linein on the soundcard. But since I want 2 channels or more, that becomes a mixer. But since I don't need the onboard effects, the USB connected devices are simpler in design, but can cost more then a small mixer.
If I wanted all effects onboard, I would probably shell out for a 4 track recorder instead and a mixer. Right? Not really computer controlled, but could be. And I could still have a lot of fun recording 4 tracks. But those recoders get up in price. And somehow the thought of recording to ancient tapes seems less then decent quality. So around my thoughts go to recording to PC again.
I guess what I'm wondering now is, so far in my knowledge, I just need a good mic preamp. Not many effects, EQ, or levels onboard, and a computer connection. This leads me back to the M-Audio again, like a bad penny. Because it gives me the balanced XLR mic inputs and guitar inputs, with phantom if needed. Has USB connection so I don't have to pass the audio through subpar sound card.
So once again. Well lets say this, pit the M-Audio against a plain-jane mixer/preamp. Benefits to using either?
Pit the M-Audio against the aforementioned Behringer USB device. Would you say the Behringer has 'everything' the M-Audio does, only more, and better quality? Or are there features of both I should consider?
I will register at their forums, but let's conclude our lovely coversation over here first, and then I'll refer back to this thread while over there.
You've all been great!
