Saving up for an upgrade from my little beginners Mahala Uke and planning to get an acoustic electric. Can anyone recommend a PC USB interface that will allow me to plug it in for recording, plus some software to lay down different tracks, add backing tracks etc?
Thanks for the replys, have downloaded Audacity to have a play with.
Those PC hookups are nice but thinking of starting out a little simpler with something like this first as I've only been playing for a couple of months.
Thanks for the replys, have downloaded Audacity to have a play with.
Those PC hookups are nice but thinking of starting out a little simpler with something like this first as I've only been playing for a couple of months.
Something to keep in mind with USB interfaces is that some of them can be "line-level" signals. Meaning they don't have much amplification. With inexpensive devices you can sometimes end up in a situation where your recording is too quiet. When you boost the volume in the recording software, you start to get white noise.
One of the nice things about a device like the Alesis mixer, and Tascam US-122, previously mentioned, is that you can increase the volume of the instrument before it enters into the computer.
You really don't need to spemnd a lot of cash. A simple USB to Guitar cable should be al you need, plus some software (effects like 'Slego', record with 'audacity')
Spots has a very good point about boosting the line level signals. Acoustic electric instruments tend to need some form of preamp. With those interfaces spots mentions you can boost the signal from the hardware instead of the software.
Alternatively you can look at the Behringer podcast studio. They have two versions. One USB one Firewire. Both come with everything you need to start recording.
Including a mic. Which I'd possibly look into using to get amped sound from your uke. And if you find out it's something you like you could consider throwing a little bit extra and get a Shure SM-57 mic. It's easily one of the best offerings out there for the money. Perfect for vocals and micing up amps or acoustic instruments.
This is just my two cents..
Audacity is great - or if you can get your hands on a cheap limited version, so is Cubase!
Re the interface, I used to use an M-Audio USB interface - was pretty good, but had a terrible problem with latency (the very very slight delay in recording), which made it really tough for multitracking as my playback in headphones was always slightly out. Horrible for adding vocal track
I therefore sold it and with the same money bought an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI sound card - this requires installing into PC (so useless if you have a laptop) but the latency is zero and the sound quality is superb.
Still looking at which uke to get, does it make much difference if the internal pickup is powered? I've seen some that use a 9v battery and other that don't?
