help me set up stuff

[rygon]

right ive got my new pc...just downloaded cubase thanx to sigma. dunno how to use it yet tho

ive also got an acoustic guitar and 2 electrics that i would like to hook up to my pc (and also a keyboard and KP2 fx unit which both use midi). how do i do this....or am i going way to far in producing music (ie leave it for later) ive been lookin at this e-mu soundcard thatr cos around £90 and has a rca to connnect me decks (so far i have an onboard soundcard)

any help however small will certainly help a newbie (and may even help me learn wot a pc is..all i see is pretty pictures)

[Steve]

Well the basic connection I use is a Y-cable. It has two phono leads on one end and a single 3.5mm jack plug on the other. This goes from one of the outputs of your mixer to the line in on your soundcard. You don't need any special kind of soundcard to do that as nearly all of them have line in. Obviously buying a better one will give you more connectivity and better sound. Once you've plugged that lead in, you should hear the sound from your decks through the speakers of your PC. I use another Y-cable going from the speaker out socket on the soundcard to the aux in on my amplifier.

 

As for connecting up all the other stuff, you'd probably need to plug it all into some kind of mixer. You'd plug all the equipment into the mixing console and then plug that into the line in socket on your soundcard. I'm sure someone like Gabe, Dee, Banano or Clown can answer this part better than me cos I've never done it.

[$a!n+]

If your gonna be hooking up different instruments pretty often, get a sound card with headphonejack, RCAs, and .25 inch inputs that are either external are that slide in the front of your PC where a disc drive goes. Crawling behind your PC and fiddling with adapters everytime you wanna use a different instrument sux and is hell on your soundcard. If all you plan on recording is with turntables go with the Y cable method Sigma stated. I have a Audigy sound card with the .25, RCA, and Head phone jack in the front and it worx great. You can even run a guitar into one input and your tables into the RCA input and run a lil live session with a buddy. I dont know anything bout cubase. But ican tell you that you need to get familiar with the advanced options for audio/video in the windows control panel.

[Max]

I think it's easiest just to run it all into your mixer. There's no sense in running the guitars and stuff straight into an external soundcard when you can just run it into the mixer and then interface the mixer with the soundcard. Running the other instruments into the mixer will give you more control over the sound, anyway. That is, you can use all your pan controls, hi mid and lo kills, effects, etc. Hooking the piano and effects unit up will be more difficult. because they're midi, they can't interface directly with the mixer, so they'll have to interface with an external soundcard. Though, you might be able to work it out with your sound card so that the outgoing signal from your mixer passes through the midi fx unit...