Recording Equipment

[The Crowing]

Okay. My band and I are constantly being hasseled about not having any recorded stuff, and I want to record my own stuff as well. Ive been looking for some equipment, and to be honest I dont know my butt from a hole in the ground on this subject. What I need to know is, what all do I need to record(probably just a musical track, and then layer vocals over it...if that makes sense...), and what are the best deals out there right now( on sort of a budget until I get a job...unfortunately I am going to have to be the main source of money for this thing). If I've said something ignorant, please just ignore it because Im am VERY ignorant on this issue. Thanks

hope this merges...
Anyways I suppose I need to know about software as well

[Legend]

Unfortunetly i have no idea on this one, but im sure someone will. What i would say is head down to somewhere that does the recording in a studio, and ask them about it and that you want to be able just record stuff at home (maybe say if you get the band together fully you could record professionally there, they may help you more ;) ), find out what you need for essentials and there ya may be grand. However if your looking to record drums and all, its gonna be pricey for that equipment i think.

I sure someone else knows more than me though ;)

[The Crowing]

yeah I have no clue whatsoever on the drums, I've figured out how to record straight to my computer, but its too clean a sound, so I gotta figure out some way to get a little distortion in there. Also I found a really neat freeware program called Audacity thats really good for freeware, you can add effects and all kinds of stuff, still I'd like to get my own equipment if anyone has any ideas?

[Clutch]

First off, recording direct is incredibly lame. The only thing I'd record direct would be bass, depending on the style of music. You need a microphone, or better yet, a few microphones. Mic placement is one of the most important factors in making a good demo recording. Even with a cheap microphone, you can get a good sound by experimenting with different mic configurations. In the past, my band would record with a few microphones for the drums, and one mic for each amp. We'd record it to a cheap 4-track tape recorder, then do the mixing with Acid, and that was recording in a nutshell for us. Even on a budget it was easy to make a good quality recording. Audacity is a pretty terrible program, but that's what you get with freeware. If you have the cash (or a fast connection + Bittorrent), I'd suggest getting Acid or Cool Edit Pro. There's lots of other sequencing software out there, but I haven't tried them.

[The Crowing]

alright thanks, I'll look into it