I'm a guitarist, and now that our band has gotten to recording demos I'm finding that the equipment I have at home is really lacking for doing any kind of recordings. So now I've decided to invest in some affordable quality gear to further the art, and I figured I'd ask you guys for hints since many of you seem so knowledgable and lots of the stuff posted here sounds totally awesome

To start off, I think I'd be getting an M-audio Audiophile 192 soundcard (1/4" inputs, and can run a version of ProTools if I ever feel rich enough for that) and a Shure SM57 (apparently it's THE choice for recording guitars, plus it's versatile enough to be used for vocals and anything else I might want to test).

The problem, however, is that the Audiophile doesn't have XLR inputs, so... is solving this as simple as getting an adapter like this:
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop ... t_id/34976
or could there be issues with this kind of setup?

What about headphones and monitors? Sennheiser or AKG or what should I be looking at?

Anything else you can think of? Eventually I'll be getting some kind of midi keyboard and perhaps Roland V-drums or something like that, but one step at a time...

Hi there mate, i had a look at the soundcard you where thinking about, i would be useless without a preamp like http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/DMP3-main.html your best bet might be something along the lines of this http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/F ... -main.html It would let you plug into your usb ports so its very straight forward, I've not used that interface myself so can't vouch for its quality but M-Audio make good gear in general.

Also unless you've got a room in your house you can crank your amp for recording you might want to consider getting some kind of amp modeller something by Line6 or software like Guitar Rig, or Amplitube
http://www.native-instruments.com/index ... guitarrig3
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/Main.html?g ... /index.php

You could solve the Audio Interface and Direct recording problems by buying something like this http://line6.com/toneportux2/ since it does both for you.

I would go for headphones over studio monitors because they let you record at 3am without disturbing anyone and without proper room treatment with acoustic foam studio monitors would be a waste of money. Though its not a big issue if you aren't planning to mix the music yourself.

Hope that was in some way helpful to you.

Cheers

If you are looking at some Monitor headphones, I'd recommend the Sony MDR-V6. Fantastic set of cans with an amazingly flat frequency response (obviously important for monitoring/mixing), I even use them for everyday music listening. Also, they barely draw any power (unlike most monitor headphones), so if you're so inclined you could even use them with an mp3 player or other portable music device. In my opinion they blow most other monitor 'phones out of the water, they're just so damn solid in all respects. Plus they're cheap; you can get them for about $90.

~Josiah

Thank you both very much for the suggestions! I was considering some USB thing like that, but the problem is that those seem to be very poorly supported under linux. Well, maybe I'll end up doing most recording under windows anyway... And the USB thing does have the added benefit that you can use it with a laptop for greater mobility so guitars could be recorded at our rehearsal space, for instance

Either way the aim isn't immediately to get professional quality, but just to have the possibility to experiment all kinds of crazy ideas to see how they work. Any serious recording would most likely be done elsewhere anyway.

Those Sony headphones do seem like a good pick, I'll have to see if any stores around here have them so I could try them out.

Cheers!

Hey there, Grrrv. Well, I must admit, I don't know much about modern computer recording.... I'm still using a Roland VS 1680 I got
about seven or eight years ago, so I'm outdated for sure. But I can tell you that I own a Shure SM 57 myself, and I love it. I've had it for
years, and it's a great mic. As far as the Roland goes, it's a great, great, little machine. I bring it up because you mentioned Roland V drums,
and it they are anything like their recording equipment goes, I'd say you can't go wrong with them.

Oh, and some friendly advice: I'd listen to anything Josiah has to say, as his recordings are REMARKABLE.

Good luck,
Kyle

Oh, and some friendly advice: I'd listen to anything Josiah has to say, as his recordings are REMARKABLE.

Aww, thank you kindly

~Josiah

Oh, and some friendly advice: I'd listen to anything Josiah has to say, as his recordings are REMARKABLE.

Yup, I agree

I've had generally positive experiences with Roland/BOSS gear, so that's probably why I mentioned the V-Drums as a specific brand. But I'm still a beginner drummer and it might be a while until I can devote serious time to that, so I'm not actively looking at those yet. My dream is to one day write and record an album completely by myself (ALL instruments) and I'm working on eventually learning all of the skills that are necessary for that