Re: [linux-audio-user] where to begin or where's the beginning begin?

On 7/19/05, Mike Jewell <mj405@email-addr-hidden> wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 04:52 +0000, Richard Hubbell wrote:
> > Very new to sound input and linux. I've listened to music on linux
> > but recording and manipulating sound is all new to me. I'm just
> > going to put into words what I'd like to do and take it from there. I
> > have an electric guitar and I'd like to record riffs and then apply
> > software filters (right word? maybe software effects?) to the riffs
> > to give them a different sound. I'd like to be able to edit them,
> > save them and record them to disc (cd/dvd). I'd also like to be able
> > to record singing and sound effects. I have read the archives a bit
> > and I saw a July thread about hardware but the original poster had his
> > thread hijacked and it went a little astray.
> >
>
> You sound a lot like me a year and a half ago.
> I built a Pentium 4 PC for the experience and so I'd know it inside and
> out but most would just buy one. Someone had given me a Fedora Core 1
> distro on CDs which I struggled with, having had little Linux
> experience. Then I did some web searches and discovered Planet CCRMA

I looked at this and it seems to be a great idea, will probably try it out.

> and my life changed. They hold your hand and walk you through setting
> up a first class Linux audio workstation. I know there's pros and cons
> to all distros but for a beginning Linux audio user, it's hard to
> imagine a better start.
>
> I first was using the sound "card" built into my motherboard. It is, of
> course, just two channel (stereo) in/out using the AC97 (codec?) but I

I have a PCI SBLive (EMU10k) and the MB has a Via AC97 which I think is
disabled but I'll have to try it out, I think at one point ALSA didn't
handle multiple cards well or maybe it was the linux kernel....

> got pretty darn good results. My setup was pretty simple and included a
> V-Tech VTND3 condenser mic which can run with a battery OR phantom
> power, sounds great and is only about $80. I ran that into one of the
> little Behringer mixers like the UB802 which has two built in mic
> preamps and about 6 other phone jack inputs for about $60. I used this
> for micing vocal and my acoustic guitar. But when I tried running my
> electric guitar into it, it sounded really bad (very dead) until I
> guessed that it was an impedance mismatch thing so I bought one of the
> very simple and cheap Dinosaur Direct Boxes which does impedance
> matching and unbalanced to balanced conversion for $25 and makes a huge
> difference in the electric guitar sound. Radio shack actually has
> little inline adapters that do the same thing for about $18 (without a
> few of the Dinosaur features). I run the XLR balanced line out of the
> direct box into one of the mic inputs on the Behringer. (I've since
> bought 3 more of those little mixers so I can have 8 fully separate
> channels going into my computer.)
>
> For software, it seems to me that the only logical choice for a beginner
> is Audacity. You don't have to learn the complexities of JACK and the
> program is extremely intuitive and easy to learn with some amazing
> editing features. (And, of course, it is part of the "Instant CCRMA"
> experience. 8^)
>
> Later, I figured out that two (stereo) inputs is pretty restrictive, so
> I bought a Delta 1010LT 8 track sound card which works great with my
> Linux box (now running Fedora Core 3) but that little piece of hardware
> was over $300. (Well worth it, though.)

You've given me plenty of good info, as have others, now I have to try
and digest it all.

If you want to see a pretty neat setup, on the "Once upon a time in
Mexico" dvd there are some extras and the filmaker shows his audio
recording setup, very nice.

>
> Hope this helps.
> Good luck.
> Mike
>
>
>
>
Received on Wed Jul 20 12:15:06 2005