Recording Devices

[Carta's]

So, sorry to make another thread about this but I didn't want to cast a necrospell on a dead thread. So, I've been getting my summer pay, and alongside a new amplifier for my guitar, I've been meaning to get a microphone to record some raw demos for bass, guitar and voice (no drums).
I've been putting my eyes on a Zoom H2 for 175€ (that's the only cheap recording device they seem so sell around here). Can anyone tell me how it is? Is it waaay overprice? Do you know any other recording device around the 150€ mark that could sound great? Oh, keep in mind my demos would be something along the lines of ambient-dark ambient (so maybe I'd also like to record some rain effect), folk (so acoustic guitar and flute/violin, I know friends who play them=), eeeevil blackmetal but with a less mosquitos-like distorsion but a full, liquid-like distorsion a-la-Opeth.
Last but not least, it should absolutely have some means to plug it into my PC (I guess that most of them have some kind of USB plug-and-play device?).
Thanks to all of you!

And, also, I take my time to thank NicholasDWolfwood for the response in my other thread, yesterday I was able to do a proper pick scrape!

EDIT: I reckon most of my requirements won't be met in that price range, but I'd like it to be listenable, at least

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

Personally I get a good guitar sound from an old Fender Bass VI clone (it's string B-B though, like a baritone guitar.) going into my line-in on my SB Audigy 2, into Cubase with Waves GTR3 on the signal as an amp simulation. It's not a real professional way of doing it, nor is it a good way of doing it per-se (you're not supposed to plug a guitar into the line-in through an unbalanced cable, iirc) but it gets the job done for demoing material or just jamming. Waves GTR3 is probably the best program I've found for a good distorted amp simulation on a computer. Check out some demos of it on their site or youtube or something.

That method isn't for everyone though. I'd personally shell out the money for a cheap Pro-Tools rig or something - but I'm not so experienced in computer recording, as seen by my recommendation above

 

[Carta's]

Mmh, once I've tried one of those guitar amps programs for computer with a lot of various effects to apply, but when my guitar was plugged in it I had a huge delay and couldn't play for shit. Seeing as the PC isn't processing any data of the sound but only recording (if I understood correctly, which I'm not sure I have), than I wouldn't be affected by this delay thing?

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

It has to do with your soundcard. Normal soundcards generally have a 10ms+ delay on them when processing things like guitars, or probably even vocals. Thats one of the bad things about recording the way I would.

 

[Arjen W.]

Yes, professional recording soundcards have something called ASIO, which among other things gets that latency to a minimum. The one I use is an E-MU 0404, which is pretty cheap, but good for starters I think. I don't really know how those cheap stand-alone recording devices perform, but if you have a PC that is capable, a soundcard + a reasonable mic and preamp + decent recording software is a good way to go, especially when you need lots of layers and effects.

The 0404 was €99 when I bought it, and you can get something like a SM57 mic for the same price. You'd only need a preamp with it (I use a cheap Behringer mixer for this purpose). Then you'll have a basic home recording setup and the possibility to record all the tracks, make sampled drums with it, etc. It won't be that much more costy than one of those stand-alone devices. It depends on how far you want to take your home recording possibilties, I guess.

 

[Carta's]

Uhm, thanks, my PC is fairly performant but I guess the soundcard has an high latency, since my CPU is a Athlon 3800+ dual core. My soundcard is a Realtek High Definition Audio (or that's the only thing I get when I look at my system specs, I guess it should have some sort of other specifications but, oh well, what do I know?). Anyway, since I'm a complete noob on the subject of recording, what are usually the advantages of a portable mic like the Zoom? Apart from the "u cans bringz it with u!" thing.

 

[Arjen W.]

Uhm, thanks, my PC is fairly performant but I guess the soundcard has an high latency, since my CPU is a Athlon 3800+ dual core. My soundcard is a Realtek High Definition Audio (or that's the only thing I get when I look at my system specs, I guess it should have some sort of other specifications but, oh well, what do I know?). Anyway, since I'm a complete noob on the subject of recording, what are usually the advantages of a portable mic like the Zoom? Apart from the "u cans bringz it with u!" thing.

Yeah, it's probably just the onboard sound of your motherboard. To make decent recordings with your PC you need a seperate soundcard, which is usually a PCI card or a USB/Firewire interface.

For example, this here below is the one I was talking about. Simple card but it does the job. It has 6.3mm jack ins/outs and MIDI I/O which are the two most important things for me. This card also uses ASIO drivers, which means low latency.

About the advantages of a portable mic, well yeah, it's portable. I can't say I ever tried one but I guess it's just handy because you can record ideas within a few seconds without having to set stuff up and launch software and the fact that you can take it everywhere is handy too. Actually I think Mikael also uses something like this (well, not a portable mic but a portable recording system), a Boss BR-8. I think it's great to quickly record ideas, but if you really want to go for more quality I think you should look to building a little PC-based home studio. Depends on what your goals are.