Your Recording Studio

by Charles Morris

These are heady days for musicians! Recording technology has advanced so quickly and so far that a few thousand dollars worth of the latest gear can produce professional-sounding results that used to require a huge million-dollar studio. You can assemble a state-of-the-art mini-studio in your home, and produce your own professional-sounding CDs. And your computer is the heart of it all! In my humble opinion, the best brand to choose is Gateway, because it allows you to configure your system exactly as you want it, at some of the lowest prices around. Gateway offers a range of multimedia options, all made by some of the most respected names.
Of course, any computer equipped with a sound card can record, edit and play back both audio and MIDI. But you musicians and music-lovers out there may want a little more. With a couple of optional hardware items, your Gateway PC can be a high-quality recording studio!
First, you need a good sound card. If you're serious about recording music, then you need a full-duplex card, which allows you to record one track while another is playing back. The Ensoniq Soundscape fills the bill quite nicely. It's a good-quality card, supports all the popular sampling rates, and includes a MIDI converter and wavetable synthesizer.
Sound files gobble up lots of hard-disk space, so a large drive is in order. But for audio recording, the speed of your hard-drive is also important, because sound files are recorded in a continuous stream. Generally, the faster your drive, the more separate tracks you can use. Any of the Western Digital hard drives offered by Gateway are quite sufficient for sound recording, but serious sound recordists may want to opt for a Seagate SCSI drive. These are some of the most popular drives with multimedia pros, and consistently draw great reviews. This drive can handle the most demanding multimedia tasks. And since it's a SCSI drive, you'll also need a SCSI card, like the Adaptec AHA-2940.
A good microphone or two, a small mixer and some speakers complete the hardware picture. A Shure SM-58 mike and a Mackie 8-channel mixing board should cost less than five hundred bucks. As for speakers, an Altec ACS-400 system with subwoofer should get things hopping.
Now for some software. Cakewalk is one of the most respected names in the biz, and they have a line of products for all budgets, all of which allow you to record sound, and use MIDI tracks as well. Cubase Audio, from Steinberg, is another big name, with similar capabilities. Perhaps the most popular sound recording package of all is Software Audio Workshop, or SAW, from Innovative Quality Software. It is priced for pros, however, and offers no MIDI support. Another product in this category, with very extensive editing capabilities, is Sound Forge from Sonic Foundry.
For digital audio, you can never have too much RAM. 16 megs will do, but 32 or even more is better. So, a Pentium with 32 megs, a nice big hard drive, an Ensoniq soundcard and a set of Altec speakers will set you on the road to recording heaven. You're all set to record music as wave files, which you can transfer to cassette, or post on the World-Wide Web.
But wait! Why not a CD recorder? These nifty little things are cheaper than ever, and they make creating your own audio CDs easy. You'll also need a CD-authoring software package, like Corel CD creator, and a SCSI card. But once you get up and running, you can make CD-ROMs, audio CDs, or even "mixed-mode" discs. It's easy, and if you've recorded your music carefully, using good components like those mentioned above, your CDs will sound great!
Recommended configuration for professional audio:

Gateway G6-200 MHz Pentium Pro with 32 megs of EDO DRAM
Seagate 2-GB fast SCSI II hard drive and Adaptec AHA-2940 SCSI controller
Ensoniq Soundscape soundcard and Altec ACS-400 speakers
Internal 2x speed CD recorder/player

Gateway offers this column to its readership as a service, but please note that it is not responsible for the accuracy or opinions of the author and offers no warranty either expressed or implied that the information will produce the desired result.
The information provided in this article is based upon the writers particular experience with certain equipment. Familiarize yourself with the requirements of your local and state electrical code and insure yourself that the work you plan to do does not require a licensed professional. If you decide to attempt to do the work yourself, always exercise extreme caution when working on electrical systems because accidents may cause serious injury including death and damage your computer. If you experience difficulty or do not understand the instructions, please consult a professional in your area.