AUDIO GEAR AND RECORDING
Just a quick overview of what I do to record.
I have an audio mixer (a Mackie 1202VLZPro) and six microphones:
I typically use one mic for vocals and the other for my acoustic guitar(s). (Although, my Martin HD28 has a pickup and I sometimes connect that directly to the mixer for recording.)
The stereo outputs of the mixer feed into the line input on my computer's sound card, a Creative Labs Soundblaster Live. Not the best but it gets the job done. I use Sony Sound Forge software to record the analog output of the mixer to the hard disk on my PC. The audio is recorded and saved as a stereo wave (.wav) file. This method produces a stereo recording on the PC. Most times this is all I do, a live recording, and I'm done.
If I'm going to add any other tracks (harmony vocals or other guitars) I import the wave file into Cakewalk Home Studio. There I can adjust the mix, record new tracks, etc. In this case I may, during the original/first recording, just record the guitar track. Then I import that file into Cakewalk and begin to record other tracks using Cakewalk. You could also use Cakewalk to do the very first track.
To hear to the recorded track(s) while laying down a new one (and without suffering feedback) I listen through headphones. If your PC speakers have a headphone jack they can be plugged in there and that will mute the sound coming out of the speakers.
In my case, I take an audio output from my sound card into a stereo preamp. Using the Windows volume control I can turn off the sound card's output that feeds my speakers. That automatically turns on the output feeding the preamp where I plug in my headphones.
Once the final mix is done I can use Sound Forge, Audiograbber, Xing, or MusicMatch to convert the wave file to an mp3 if I want to email it to someone.
I have five acoustic guitars:
Miscellaneous Audio Recording Info etc.
Musician's Tech Central - Music Equipment, Recording, MIDI, Digital Audio, Indie How-to
Restoring old vinyl records Audio Restoration
Audio Software
Ace of Wave - a wave file editor, the first one I found and used when I started getting into all this and before I decided to spend some serious money on software. No putdown, it's still pretty handy and works fine, just doesn't have all the filters and format conversions I need. Cheap too!
Audiograbber - CD-ripper for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
Cakewalk Home Studio - a powerful multi-track mixing program for MIDI and analog audio.
EAC - Exact Audio Copy - another CD ripper
Enhanced Audio DCART - wave editor with very good processing filters for cleaning up audio wave files
MusicMatch - Jukebox Software, mp3, wave, CDs, ripping, burning etc.
Sony Sound Forge - create, edit, convert wave, mp3, etc.
Total Recorder - schedule recording of Internet audio streams
Tracer Technologies - Noise Reduction, Microphones, CD Recording,PC Audio hardware and software.
WM Recorder - Record Windows Media (tm) Video and Audio streams even when Web sites don't want you to.
Xing Technology Corporation - now owned by Real Media, one of the original and best rippers for mp3. The free Audiograbber program is actually what Xing became after it was abandoned by Real.