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I'm a Guitarist/Pianist and I love making music for video games. But... Thing is I can't decide on a good way to get my recordings onto the computer and what format they should be in. I would goto my studio but I can't drive yet and my dad can't take me everyday. oh and we're having a bunch of gigs so everything that's in the studio is moved around and unplugged and whatnot. I'll put my computers specs on my signature.

Direct input your guitar into the PC, using a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter. Use something like Adobe Audition to record (in wav format) then render it to anything you want. I like OGG Vorbis, personally. MP3 is cheap and sounds crappy. Plus OGG is open-source.

You can DI an electric piano, too (same method). Borrow a condenser mike and plug that into the mike jack on the computer if you want to record an acoustic.

Oh, and DON'T run your guitar or piano through an amp before hooking it up to the computer. Just treat the computer like an amp.

Adobe Audition to record (in wav format)

Worst advice ever. But yeah, find a good sound recording program and run your guitar directly into the computer. It might take some tweaking with volumn, but it will work.

or you could use http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ since it's free and not bad. Does multitrack stuff too so you can sound like a full band

If you're hooking up your guitar directly into the computer surely that would require a pre-amp? Personally I use a Line6 GuitarPort. They're excellent as you can hook it all up so your guitar goes into the GuitarPort then into the computer and with a bit of software you can emulate pretty much any guitar sound there has ever been

Then use Adobe Audition and you can get some really decent quality input. Plus, the GuitarPort software can pretty much emulate any situation on guitar. Any head or cab, mic'ing the cab up, loads of different types of pedal etc.

ive tried recording guitar, and i dont recomend using audacity. it might be just me, but when i start recording, it does a weird fade in, so when you playback and here the guitar when it starts, it starts off really quiet. this happens at anypoint i stop playing guitar, even for 1 or 2 seconds.

you dont have to, but it is good to have some kind of effects unit to make your guitar signal a bit stronger. my zoom 505 II died recently

or, get a mic, plug that into your pc, turn on mic boost, and then put ur amp a certain distance away, and record like that, u get a bit of noise tho, but thats probably something some software can remove mab?

hopefully in the future, my band can do some recordings for my game :p

Well I don't need to worry about all the equip,
I have a A Carvin custom that's 21 years old here's some pictures
And a Ovation Acoustic with built-in tuner

Then I got all the Guitar proccessors and pre-amps and pdeals I would ever need.

Just one question... Where do I plug it in on my comuter?

TheLamerGamer wrote:Just one question... Where do I plug it in on my comuter?

Well, you could switch the lights on first!

Get a soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS platinum sound card. I have used it to record a bunch of friends on the guitar. Those cards also have effects built in that you can tweak just like you pedals. I have used a mic on accoustic guitars as well. All in all, you get a great sound card, it comes with tons of good software for recording and you get great quality. Those cards come with every input you could ever want. This is the way to go IMO.

Ahh sorry I misspelt computer and I have a Sounblaster live 5.1 channel so I dunno. I geuss i'll goto the store and pick a couple up. Thanks for the tips

plug it into the microphone port

line in is much cleaner sound, altho on mine, i only get 1 side of the stereo recording for some unknown reason :S

Instruments are stereo anyway. Use the line in, then copy the one channel to the other one. It will sound better.

No, you usually don't need a pre-amp, but you will need to tweak levels. It is sometimes necessary if you have a weird processor setup between the instrument and the PC.

Quote:
Adobe Audition to record (in wav format)


Worst advice ever.

I don't think it's the worst advice ever. Audacity does do weird stuff to your files and is not very efficient to work with. Sure, you could get Nuendo, which is far better, but Audition has a free 30-day trial, it's easy as hell. I have been recording with my band for two and a half years, and Audition is still the simplest way to get a basic song done.

Well when Audition records for me, it just kinda hisses. It didn't before, when i used my integrated sound card. Now I have an Audigy 2 ZS.

Awww no hooters today guys =/
I was supposed to goto hooters for the whole day and run the sound for all the bands and setup and tear down but my dad didnt have any room in his truck =_=. Maybe my mom will take me and i'll post pictures of the Midas board and some the equip and bands.

For recording electric guitar, I can strongly recommend getting a Line 6 Pod XT pre-amp. I tried it a couple of times in a local store, and it's simply awesome. It emulates more than thirty different amps, and the quality of the effects is nothing less than incredible. In addition to that, it doesn't cost a fortune.

Awesome I was planning on getting one of those btw

We use one for piano effects. They're good.

ahuh... I gotta try that <_<

Adobe audition

That piece of soft started to suck the day it was bought by Adobe. It's greatest (and last non-Adobe) incarnation remains Cool Edit Pro 2.1. Amen!

As for what format to use, I'd say : MIDI. You can do some pretty awesome stuff with MIDI, a good professional soundcard and some good soundfonts. Then, when you're done, and only then, dump it to Ogg Vorbis.

If you're not convinced that MIDI can be made to sound great, go visit http://sycraft.org/content/audio/doom.shtml and download a doom soundtrack remake. And in the README, the guy explains that all he has done is render the doom music with a combination of hardware MIDI synth and software MIDI synth with a variety of soundfonts. No by-hand remixing involved there.

cool, Thanks Bloodypriest

Bloodypriest wrote:

Adobe audition

As for what format to use, I'd say : MIDI. You can do some pretty awesome stuff with MIDI, a good professional soundcard and some good soundfonts. Then, when you're done, and only then, dump it to Ogg Vorbis.

ummm... wasnt his intention to record live guitar/piano tracks? MIDI is a pure controlling "language" (basically its just a data transmission protocol).
So it wouldnt help in any way recording live sound.
And if you want to produce non-accoustic (live recorded) music, soundfonts only is also of no use. Taking samples and a step-sequencer is MUCH more flexible! If you have some hardware equipment like samplers or synths THEN use MIDI or nowadays maybe OSC (if supported).

As a conclusion you can do nothing with MIDI which sounds great because MIDI does not produce any sounds. Buy a few good sampling cds and do the triggering as you like (step-sequencer(FruityLoops(?), Logic+Some Sampler App, ...whatever).

actually, i get really good quality recording using a mic (turning mic boost on) and aiming it at my amp, that way you still get the decent sound from your amp (if its a good amp that is)

What's that one format that's not .mp3 or anything normal, but it's a really hihg awesome file format for audio, does anybody know?

FLAC ? maybe?

Here's one with an M in it...
.mpc MusePack or something like that.

I think it had a M in it... I'm not sure but i'll try looking up FLAC also : )