Software Audio Production Blog, for beginners
Ivan Milenkovic
Jun 5 2011, 08:28 PM
Instructor
Posts: 25.396
Joined: 20-November 07
From: Belgrade, Serbia
Hey guys, I'm trying to make a small blog here that will combine some of my older posts with new material in wish to help the beginners to make their first steps towards more professional software recording:

Digital Processor for Guitar:

Processor is a digital unit that changes the way you guitar sounds. Example of a processor is Boss GT8, but there are cheaper models, varying in price from 20-30$ to thousands of dollars. The reason you would need a processor is because they can convert guitar unbalanced signal into a balanced one which your card can take. They also process your sound, emulating famous guitar gear, and convert your signal into digital one. Here are some processors ranging from cheaper to more expensive ones:


Zoom G2


Line 6 POD XT Live


Roland VG99


TC Electronics G System


Fractal Audio Axe-FX Ultra

Computer Audio chips


can be roughly categorized like this:

1. integrated cards
- these cards are of the worst quality. You get them with your motherboard and they should serve mainly as a worst case scenario backup situations. If you consider the fact that you get them for free bundled with the motherboard, you can presume what quality they have. Nevertheless newer motherboard models have more advanced chips and these cards are now enough for mainstream users, and some pilot recording projects.
This is the looks of one chip called Realtek that is often used for integrated solutions:


2. mainstream pc (aka gamer) cards - these cards are more expensive than integrated ones, they offer better sound quality, more clearer sound, and more accurate sound response. They also have bigger processing power than integrated ones, and the memory of their own, which enables them to add some effects on the sound of the computer. A lot of consumer cards will have options for enabling reverberation or chorus effects that can enhance gaming experience. The example of these cards are Creative Sound Blaster Series as one of the best selling cards on the market. Here's example of the high-end consumer market gamer card:


3. music production cards - these cards are mainly intended for music producing purposes, and branch into several categories, but most popular for beginners are audio interfaces. These interfaces have all the inputs and outputs for connecting instrument to computer and recording it with no problems. Interfaces are made mainly as external products, which means they serve as a external sound card with USB or Firewire connection.
Here's an example of a cheap Line 6 interface, notice the guitar input and modeling software that you get with the device:


There are also other music production systems, both PCI, external or combined solutions, but let's not go in-depth about it now.


If you wanna record sound on your computer, the wisest thing to do is to buy a small cheap guitar interface, like this Line 6 Toneport GX is on the last picture. This will get you a solid working sound card for recording, and program that has different guitar effects that you can apply to your guitar when recording in real-time.

Couple of words about latency:

In real-time speaking in audio production terms, means that there is a small amount of latency involved. smile.gif Why is this important? Well because signal that goes into your card must travel through the card, and processor, and back to the card and to speakers, and be processed in the meantime. This time is mesaured in miliseconds and it is called latency. Anything above 15-20ms is generally not good, and you can perceive the delay, and anything bellow is good. Integrated and consumer cards are not optimized for low latency monitoring, but music production sound cards are. They usually have some sort of direct monitoring that can send signal before it reaches the processor. This enables you to hear and record your guitar in the same time you play it. Well not exactly in realtime time but with less than 15-20ms latency.

In the end I wanna say that you can record things with your integrated card as well, just don't expect that good performance and you will need a device that will transfer your guitar unbalanced signal to line-level one that sound card can take via Line In.

If you buy a cheap interface you will not have these problems and can record much better, and plug your guitar straight into interface. The latency will be small and you will have effects to color the sound a bit.


In the following posts I will go through software and other interesting things you should know about making music at home! smile.gif

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net


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This post has been edited by Ivan Milenkovic: Aug 18 2011, 06:36 PM


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Posts in this topic
- Ivan Milenkovic   Software Audio Production Blog   Jun 5 2011, 08:28 PM
- - Daniel Realpe   Very nice! Excellent post Ivan!   Jun 5 2011, 10:12 PM
- - quadrium   Awesome article here. I'm sure this will help ...   Jun 5 2011, 10:23 PM
- - Todd Simpson   Great post! For players jumping in to the worl...   Jun 7 2011, 03:19 AM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   Let's talk a bit about the connections today...   Jun 17 2011, 09:11 AM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   OK, let's continue with connections! IMP...   Jun 19 2011, 09:19 PM
- - Daniel Realpe   this is excellent Ivan, thank you!   Jun 19 2011, 11:13 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   Cheers mate, more to come very soon!   Jun 21 2011, 10:21 PM
- - Fran   Omg how did I miss this thread! This is tasty ...   Jun 21 2011, 10:24 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   Thanks a lot mate. I'll do some modifications ...   Jun 25 2011, 06:33 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   After all this technical mumbo jumbo about connect...   Jun 26 2011, 12:35 PM
|- - Todd Simpson   Great posts This is stuff that every guitar playe...   Jun 26 2011, 05:56 PM
|- - mguimaraes777   QUOTE (Ivan Milenkovic @ Jun 26 2011, 09...   Nov 29 2011, 03:05 PM
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- - Sinisa Cekic   Are you sure that this topic should be only for be...   Jun 26 2011, 10:04 PM
- - quadrium   This is awesome Ivan! Thank you for sharing th...   Jun 26 2011, 10:31 PM
- - Fran   OK, I'm adding all this info into our wiki in ...   Jun 29 2011, 04:39 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   Thanks a lot Fran! I'm continuing the a...   Jul 27 2011, 05:07 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   3. Plugging guitar into processor, connecting the ...   Aug 18 2011, 06:32 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   4. Connecting the guitar into audio card with Hi-Z...   Sep 1 2011, 03:44 PM
- - Fran   WoW at that Ivan! Bookmarking this to update ...   Sep 1 2011, 03:48 PM
- - Bossie   Well 15 years ago i ate guitarmagazines ..i knew e...   Sep 3 2011, 09:40 PM
- - tonymiro   QUOTE Fortunately, audio interfaces and audio card...   Sep 4 2011, 12:48 PM
|- - Ivan Milenkovic   QUOTE (tonymiro @ Sep 4 2011, 01:48 PM) N...   Sep 4 2011, 03:21 PM
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- - Fran   Here's the article in the wiki, with all the n...   Sep 22 2011, 04:28 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   great, continuing very soon, and doing some multim...   Sep 23 2011, 03:05 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   Back to the story of software audio production...   Nov 20 2011, 09:29 PM
|- - Todd Simpson   This is another AWESOME post from Ivan detailing t...   Nov 28 2011, 10:10 PM
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- - mguimaraes777   Ivan, it's so great idea putting everything to...   Nov 28 2011, 08:38 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   Hey glad you like it man!   Nov 28 2011, 08:58 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   It's no problem man, don't worry about it....   Nov 30 2011, 10:01 PM
- - Ivan Milenkovic   Once we choose our DAW, it's time to put it in...   Dec 30 2011, 06:32 PM
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