Build Your Own 2-Channel Guitar Recording Studio Without Expensive Studio Gears

I'm posting this to follow up on what I promised in my previous article Original Music Composition (Track Name: Perfect Jingle). Originally I thought of telling you guys how I connected my guitar using only my computer and recorded the demo sound I posted in my above post. But with the bit of research I've been able to come up with much useful setup that is equivalent to 2-Channel Audio Studio specialized to record guitar w/effect + vocals simultaneously each in 44.1 KHz frequency, which is equivalent to CD Quality (I haven't gotten a chance to check on other settings. Maybe you can try and tell us about your finding).

I used my P4 2.4GHz desktop for this project that is equipped with 3 sound cards (including 1 built-in SoundMAX sound card). Usually I'd only be using my PRIMARY sound card (Audigy SE) most of the time which I purchased especially to experience EAX sound effects. But this project utilizes all three cards to record sound from two different sources to 2 separate tracks simultaneously. The best part is even if you currently don't have 3 cards right now you can easily find them in the market without burning the holes in your pocket since they are pretty ordinary ones (I'd suggest you to get the ones supporting the latest version of ASIO low latency WDM driver. Hint - most of the non Creative counterparts will support those drivers, even the primitive ones like SoundMax).
One thing you'll have to do though is get your hands on decent multi-track audio editing software, and Guitar Effect Processing software. I currently use Cool Edit Pro 2.1 (which is now acquired by Adobe and is sold under the name Adobe Audition) and Amplitube 2. Both of them are great tools.

Here's the the chart which tells you exactly how my devices are all connected. The configuration should be pretty self explanatory with the presented description. Just click on the image to enlarge.



You can let me know how you felt about it by commenting or writing to me at udz.blogger AT gmail.com

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