Rec's on home recording gear for mandolin and voice ..

[mandotool]

Putting together a basic home recording setup i can plug into an old macbook and do some Mandolin+Voice recording and be able to add some mando+Voice harmony tracks etc..

I'm a rank beginner at the recording thing and need the whole kit..
I do already have a good mic (Edwina) but need a good pre-amp? and everything else..
soup to nuts..(i dont even have a cord to plug in the mic) for instance..

I did look for recent threads on this and didnt quite find any focused on personal
home style recording..

Much Thanks in advance ..

[mikerofone]

I do quite a bit of home recording but I'm sure there are many others here much more knowledgable than myself that will opine. You need a DAW (digital audio workstation) which is the software on your computer that allows you to set up recordings, record tracks and manipulate the tracks afterward. I use Logic Pro which is Apple's DAW supposedly optimized for iOS but there are many other options including the free Reaper. Your Mac may also already have Garage Band DAW software loaded on it so you can use that, although I find it limiting.

Then you need an interface device to go between your microphone and your computer. Again, there are many options at many price points. I use Apogee Duet but there are many options less expensive (and many more expensive). The only way you would be able to skip this item is if you have a USB mic that can plug directly into one of the ports on your computer, but I don't believe the Edwina is one of those.

So that's pretty much the minimum of what you need - DAW software, and interface device and a microphone ( and a cable for your mic!). Good luck.

[Don Grieser]

Just FYI: Reaper is not free, but it is very inexpensive (around $60 for non pro use) for what you get. They do let you download the full program and try it out for free. They trust that people will do the right thing and pay for it if they continue to use it. Unlike most DAWs that have all kinds of copy protection crap. Audacity is a free DAW. The rest of the info above is great. A lot of folks like the Focusrite Scarlett series of interfaces.

[keith.rogers]

Putting together a basic home recording setup i can plug into an old macbook and do some Mandolin+Voice recording and be able to add some mando+Voice harmony tracks etc..

I'm a rank beginner at the recording thing and need the whole kit..
I do already have a good mic (Edwina) but need a good pre-amp? and everything else..
soup to nuts..(i dont even have a cord to plug in the mic) for instance..

I did look for recent threads on this and didnt quite find any focused on personal
home style recording..

Much Thanks in advance ..

I have done a fair amount of home recording for almost 10 years, going through a bunch of microphones and on my 4th set of hardware, FWIW.

You do need an audio interface to go between the microphone and your computer. There are many options and price points, but for starters, something with two microphone inputs would be my recommendation, since you might find at some point that it is difficult to balance voice and mandolin with a single microphone. Focusrite is one I used for several years that is popular and works well (IME). MOTU is a brand that received good reviews when I looked last. I have a Steinberg these days (induced by a combination of updating to a newer computer without Firewire and supply chain issues at the time), and it has been fine for my purposes.

You do not need a [separate] preamp for your microphone, since that is built in to the microphone (XLR) input channel of the interface, and especially since the Edwina is a condenser type of microphone, which will have plenty of output, once you plug it in and turn on phantom power for that input channel. You must use a good quality "balanced" cable with XLR connectors, one male, one female, at each end to connect the microphone to the interface.

The selection of DAW is dependent on the computer operating system you'll be using, to some degree, and your budget. Reaper is a popular option that has a large user community so may have more support than some of the de-featured versions that come bundled with the various manufacturer's interfaces. (I'm not a Reaper user, but I would still recommend investigating it. Logic is what I have used for some time, but it is Mac-only, and $200.) They [DAWs] all come with a learning curve, and you have to take time to learn how to navigate the features and create a "work-flow" that accomplishes what you want. You'll need to understand the hardware and software both, and, especially, become comfortable with the terminology and things like "gain staging" in order to get satisfactory results with little stress. How long that takes will depend on how much time you spend doing it, to a large degree.

The space you record in can have a pretty big impact on how the recording sounds right from the start, so I really recommend finding somewhere you can set up in a semi-permanent fashion, which allows you to quickly start recording and find the optimum arrangement of you, your instrument and microphone. Then you can easily set up, push record, and achieve consistent results.

Good luck.

[Chuck Leyda]

If you have a mac Garage band should work out great for what you're planning. It's free, it's intuitive, and you already have it. You could always upgrade later

Take the money you saved and invest in a decent audio interface. For around $130 The Evo 4 seems like a nice value.

[J.Albert]

OP:

You said you have a "MacBook".
Is it a MacBook (non-pro), or is it a MacBook Pro?

REASON I asked:
If it's a MacBook Pro, does it have firewire or thunderbolt?
(you can use firewire interfaces with thunderbolt, also)

A firewire interface will probably have lower "latency" than a USB interface (although USB interfaces may have improved in recent years, over the older versions).

[keith.rogers]

A little late and we’ve not heard back from the OP it seems, but my 2010 MBP was where I started recording in the Mac. If it’s that Generation with (Intel) Core 2 Duo, then if you’ve got an older version of MacOS and GarageBand, it’s worth a shot. But I would not install the latest version of GB because I found it demands more resources than you may expect that hardware to provide. I did record multiple channels in mine but had upgraded to internal SSD and 8GB of RAM. I still needed to use an external drive when tracking a lot of inputs.

Also, you’ll have a lot more options in the USB range of interfaces. FireWire will work fine in that system (I used a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26) but you need to find the right cables and that is getting into some old stuff. Also it was an older version of Thunderbolt and there you need to be familiar with the specs and [in]compatibilities and/or adapters required if you want to use that. Which is a long-winded way to say, stick with USB 2.0 interfaces if you can. (Avoid v1 Focusrite Scarlett if you’re in the used market, but there are lots of used models of that brand around.)

[mandotool]

Sorry for the delay .. got myself hijacked on a work project...

Where was i.......

So..Im currently using an "early" 2014 Macbook air
comes w/ a Thunderbolt and a couple of usb ports..

It also appears that a recent wipe an reinstall has removed Garageband from my computer..
In any event ...I was never up to speed on garageband ...so i have some options an what software to run ..

OP:

You said you have a "MacBook".
Is it a MacBook (non-pro), or is it a MacBook Pro?

REASON I asked:
If it's a MacBook Pro, does it have firewire or thunderbolt?
(you can use firewire interfaces with thunderbolt, also)

A firewire interface will probably have lower "latency" than a USB interface (although USB interfaces may have improved in recent years, over the older versions).

[tmsweeney]

I am using 2 sure sm81 (one left, one right) into a Focusrite Scarlet 2, fed via USB to a Dell Laptop running PreSonus on Windows 10. I was using Protools for a while and I thought the quality was decent, but I didn't like the subscription and having to be online to use it. I went with Audacity for a while, but I didn't really like the quality of the recording as compared to Protools. So I went with PreSonus professional which is one time purchase and has a mastering app- which haven't attempted to use yet, but the MP3 and WAV I have generated to me sound pretty decent. Minus the PC its probably around 1500 for the mics, cables, stands, headphones, Focusrite, and the Presonus. If you want to do more live channels than 2 they have larger Scarlet units or other multi channel amps that are not too pricy. The mixing board is digital on the PreSonus, if you want to go hardware faders, it starts to get pricy and eats up space. My set up is very small footprint.

[Bill McCall]

GarageBand should be a free download to replace it. For hardware I have a MOTU m4 into a Mac mini. The M4 comes with a Daw, but I just use GB. All usb, works fine, no delay. Works just fine, but I haven’t done any supplemental multitracking.

Don’t know if Logic Pro will run on old hardware and that may be a problem for other Daws.

Good luck.

[gtani7]

On the mac, you could read about the OpenCore Legacy Patcher which would allow you to install a recent version of macOS but not Ventura: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/

and then install garage band and borrow an interface, it's easy to find Focusrite scarlett's, Presonus audiobox, MOTU, Behringer that go into the big USB port. Sound quality may not be what you'd expect with one good mike, then you can start thinking about a 2nd mike, preamp and/or channel strip.

Good books on home recording: Dave Hunter and H.R. for DUmmies,

[CES]

I have a Strindberg UR 22 interface I picked up at Guitar Center that’s worked well the few times I used it. I’ve recorded with a Rode NT-1 and also used Shure SM-57 and SM-58 mics, all with good results. I didn’t need a pre-amp, as the interface did that job. Good cables and a good recording space certainly help.

I initially used a USB mic I picked up at a local music store that would have been fine for podcasting or probably just instrumental recording, but my daughter’s vocals overdrove it pretty quickly (and she was singing, not screaming), so I’d avoid that route unless you’re willing to invest in a much more expensive one than I did. Having the Edwina, you’re off to a good start.

Oh, and I used GB as it was already on my MacBook. Cakewalk came with the interface but I never really got into it.

[thesecretmandolinist]

I'm in the process of adding a Delphina to my setup then it will be Delphina -> JHS Colour Box V2 -> Universal Audio Interface -> Ableton for tracking and adding compression/reverb. Pretty simple and the Colour Box is basically a Neve strip in a pedal so you get some nice warmth and decent eq control without having to work in the box too much. I think the more I can control before it hits the DAW the less work I have to do in the DAW.