Equipment for recording guitar/vocal/bass into Garageband

Hi Everyone!
I really want to get into recording in Garageband and need some opinions on some gear to get.
I would like to record an acoustic guitar, some vocals and possible an electric bass guitar.
What do i need inbetween the instruments & my mac?
I am guessing I will need a USB device that takes Balanced XLR in (for the mic), standard guitar jack (whats the proper name for one of these???).
At least I would just like to record the acoustic guitar, a crappy microphone (unbalanced over mini jack) and the bass guitar
Thanks!
Adam

Hi Adam,
I was in the same situation 2 months ago and I finally bought the M-Audio Firewire 410 recording interface. Wow. You have four inputs (2 XLR, 2 jacks) and 10 outputs. It's perfect for home recording. Electric and accoustic guitars, vocals, basses, or any instruments you like, this machine will do the job. The quality is impressive for the price (between 300 and 400 canadian $). I would say to you to purchase a firewire interface instead of a USB one, because with firewire you wont have latency problems and the overall quality will mainly be better than USB (larger amount of information passing throught the wire).
Hope it will help you

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Just poking around the STP interface has my head spinning, but I think I see how it basically works.
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Thanks NLEdit.
I've heard good things about Logic. But since Soundtrack came bundled with FC, I thought I'd give that a shot. Good to know that it might be better for recording music than GB. I also understand that STP is designed to work with FC, and, well, doing soundtracks, but maybe I can use it in a most basic way.
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When you record anything through a microphone, there will be a noise floor to contend with. Even the quietest recording studios with the best isolation and the quietest mic preamps have noise and hum at some level. So it's critical for us without ideal recording environments to keep our recording levels as hot as possible without clipping in order to achieve the best signal-to-noise ratio. If you record something too low, and bring it up in post, you will be bringing up the noise floor along with the signal.
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- http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...lia/index.html
- http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan0...s/esijulia.htm
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- http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep0...es/emu0404.htm
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Best equipment for recording lectures to publish as podcasts for class?

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Does your classroom have AV equipment already in place? You might be able to leverage that. I was teaching in a large lecture theatre last Fall and I had to wear a wireless FM lapel mic which was connected to the classroom console and the classroom speakers. The technicians that set-up the classroom had an audio cable with a mini-jack that I could plug into my MacBook and I used QuickTime to record the lectures. It worked very slick.
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Mic suggestions for recording guitar/voice over the air?

Hey Folks,
I have an acoustic guitar and would like to buy a mic that would do a decent job of recording both the guitar and my voice. Is there anything in the $50 or less price range? As you can tell, I'm not serious, but would like something a step up from the internal mic.
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you can take a look at the USB mics here:
http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/Microphones.html
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Hello everyone. I hope someone can help me. I recently bought a new mac mini and M-Audio Firewire Solo to record music. I'm new at recording so I have no idea what to do.
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Please help! Thank you!

I connect the guitar to the guitar input that is in front of M-Audio firewire solo using this cable: http://www.livewire-usa.com/products/products.cfm?sBrand=adv . Then I turn gain up to the maximum level.
When I play the guitar, you know the bar that goes green on garageband (not sure what it's called)? Even if I strum really hard, the green never goes up past 1/4 of the bar. When I'm using the mic and speak a bit loudly, I can see that bar turning red. So it seems like it's not reading the input properly, but really I'm not sure, so hopefully you'll be able to help me
I'm actually using the mac mini's speaker to hear the sound, so I'm not sure if it's only coming from one speaker or not.
Sorry if I miss any important detail. I'm a newbie. And as always, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions!

So i'm recording guitar.... Is there any way to get the drums to match me?

I've been working with Garageband,
and I got the whole recording guitar and bass thing down
but say i'm writing my own stuff
and i like a drum loop thats in garageband
just some drum set loops that i like
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will these change ALL the tempo of my project?
I just want to be able to record a guitar riff, select a drum track, and sync the drum track to the guitar riff so it's on beat and i can make the song sound more complete

The question here is timing. If you recorded your parts sticking to an exact tempo, then you can add a drum loop. But if you didn't set the BPM to match your recording you're going to have trouble. You'd have to then figure out the BPM you played at, then set it accordingly, uncheck "follow tempo & pitch" for the regions you already recorded, then add the loops. But, as I said, unless you followed the tempo exactly, which is very unlikely, it won't match. Go ahead and experiment and you'll see what we're saying.
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But why not lay down the loops and then replay the parts you wrote?

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Can you hear the sound? Perhaps it is recorded at such a low level that you can't see the waveform. Try raising the audio gain of the track. The best solution would be to sort out the recording levels.
RMK

Garageband - "System Overload. The audio engine was not able to process all required data in time. (-10011). Im making a song on Garageband and I have recorded guitar, drums recorded on the musical keyboard, and vocals. It now says this, and won't play.

Im making a song on Garageband and I have recorded guitar, drums recorded on the musical keyboard, and vocals. It now says this, and won't play. Ive worked so hard on this and I don't know how to fix it. I am not very skilled or knowledgable in computers and barely know how to operate Garageband as it is. I have many different tracks in this song for different drums and beats. Please someone tell me how to fix this, I'm not even finished it! And again I am not very informed on how to work computers as well as most of you are, just saying. thanks!!!
P.S.: In my about this mac thing, it says i have version 10.9.1, 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, and Memory is 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Could you do this?
Go to Finder
Go to Applications
Go to Utilities folder
Launch Activity Monitor app
go to its Memory tab on top
tell us what you see at the very bottom?
Here is a sample of mine.
I bet your page/swap amount will be huge.
If there is not enough RAM, OS X temporarily stores RAM data on the harddrive and tries to retrieve it back into RAM when needed, unfortunately that is so slow that GB throws an error as it cannot play it all in real time.

Compare ipad2 with ipad3, garageband for acoustic guitar and voice recording, backing tracks.

I am interested in purchasing an ipad for recording music using garageband, acoustic guitar & vocals, and using to add rhythm/bass, to create tracks to use in performing solo gigs.
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is a viable purchase. If this is my main use of the ipad (along with itunes, chart storage and general use for solos gigs), should I be going in this direction, or more of a simple recording studio?
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Thanks,
walkman1187

Assuming it does not have a pickup, any instrument that the microphone picks up can be recorded.
(If it does have a pickup, you can probably just plug it in.)
GarageBand is simply a fancy tape recorder. Anything that can be converted to an audio frequency electrical signal can be recorded.
Unless this is like the joke where the man with the broken hand asks his doctor whether he will be able to play the violin when his hand heals. "Sure." the doctor replies. "That's great!" says the man, "I couldn't play it before!"

Recording audio (vocals and acoustic guitar) on logic for youtube.

hey guys, im looking to post some videos on youtube, but instead of just simple playing into a camera, i want the audio to be recorded into my mic.
an example of what i'd like to do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieu3jSr_CDA
then i can input the audio into the video.
how do i play my guitar live with my vocals though?
please help me !!!

The poor man's way:
1. get your mic and guitar plugged into separate channel strips in Logic (I think the guy in the YouTube video had a pickup in his acoustic, and was running that into his DAW, and the vocal mic was a separate track
2. have your camera set up and ready to go, and Logic ready to record the vocal and guitar
3. start record on video and Logic
4. clap your hands a few times before starting your song .... helps for syncing up later
5. mix down and bounce your logic audio to a stereo file
6. in iMovie (or the like), with your video track open and in place, import your audio track
7. manually "slide" your logic audio back and forth in time until it syncs with your video
8. post online and wait for MTV calls

: how can I import mp3s from my gmail account into my iTunes application so that I can import audio for recording into GarageBand ?

: how can I import mp3s from my gmail account into my iTunes application so that I can import audio for recording into GarageBand ?

Save the file from Gmail onto your computer and add it to iTunes. How you save from Gmail is a Gmail question (their own support pages), not an iTunes question.

I'm trying to record audio into my iPad2 using GarageBand and an iRig, but I can't monitor my tracks at the same time as recording, meaning if I lay down a drum track and attempt to record guitar, I can't hear the drums while recording. Thoughts?

I'm trying to record audio into my iPad2 using GarageBand and an iRig, but I can't monitor my tracks at the same time as recording, meaning if I lay down a drum track and attempt to record guitar, I can't hear the drums while recording. Thoughts?

Hi, I have this exact same problem. I haven't been using an iRig, just a cheap USB-jack cable. I managed to do this with the first cable I bought, but since it broke I've been unable to find a replacement that allows me to hear the drums while recording. DId you manage to get over this issue? If so I would really like to know how. Thanks and best wishes.

Equipment for recording guitar/vocal/bass into Garageband

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