When I first started out I ______________

[Morgan C]

I'm procrastinating, so.. finish the sentence, when you first started audio engineering, what did you?

I'll start off..

When I first started out I read Sneap saying to distort the bass more than you think. So I took my bass track, took a distortion plugin and turned all the knobs up to max.

And.. when I first started out, I kept hearing everyone saying 'the tone is in the fingers', and then wondered why the tone didn't change dramatically between a 0 fret (no fingers on the board), and a 1 fret (putting your fingers on the board). Took me at least a year to figure that one out.

 

[Sickan]

When I first started out I recorded my guitars through a Zoom G2 > mixer > soundcard > Adobe Audition. Then I bought a Boss GE-7 to eq the guitars.

 

[Metaltastic]

ROFL at the second one haha - though you're not a guitarist primarily, so it's a little more understandable (a little )

For me, hmm...well I can't think of too many as an AE because I had a good tutor in the beginning (a friend of mine who learned a shitload, then abandoned it all in college, whereas I flourished), but I do remember once dreaming about owning a Line6 Spider and heralding it as the greatest amp EVAR, even going so far as to pass up playing on what I now realize was a Mesa Mark IV half stack one of the counselors (this was at summer music camp) had for the Spider at a camp show

 

[G1]

When i first started out I had no idea what I was doing

..i still dont to this day haha

 

[AeternusEternus]

Boosted guitars from 20 to 200 to taste.

 

[HandsOfDespair]

Before joining this forum, I was putting an hi-shelf on everything.

 

[Damian B]

Haha this was my first recording setup:

I had a cheap-ass, no-name 5 piece drum mic set from ebay that I ran into a Behringer mixer. I had no idea that phase existed, so I mic'd the toms from the bottom because it was easier. I also used dynamic vocal mics for overheads.

I ran bass directly into the 1/4" inputs on the mixer (no DI box or anything like that), and mic'd guitar cabinets with those $20 Nady's from Musicians Friend. Then I ran the vocals straight in without using a preamp, so I had to crank the line level all the way up to hear them.

Then I ran the left and right RCA outputs of the mixer into a Radio Shack RCA to 1/8" adapter, and ran that into the line-in on my old Pentium 3 Gateway desktop's integrated motherboard.

Sounded fucking terrible hahahahahaha

 

[Metaltastic]

Damian, that's so fucking KVLT dude

 

[sandra-]

When i first started out i didn't know every band plays in a different shit tuning.

Regards sandra

 

[Norris-wf]

Haha this was my first recording setup:

I had a cheap-ass, no-name 5 piece drum mic set from ebay that I ran into a Behringer mixer. I had no idea that phase existed, so I mic'd the toms from the bottom because it was easier. I also used dynamic vocal mics for overheads.

I ran bass directly into the 1/4" inputs on the mixer (no DI box or anything like that), and mic'd guitar cabinets with those $20 Nady's from Musicians Friend. Then I ran the vocals straight in without using a preamp, so I had to crank the line level all the way up to hear them.

Then I ran the left and right RCA outputs of the mixer into a Radio Shack RCA to 1/8" adapter, and ran that into the line-in on my old Pentium 3 Gateway desktop's integrated motherboard.

Sounded fucking terrible hahahahahaha

That's Cool! Almost the same way I began, except I was using kareoke machine mics taped onto drums lol. I even had a pentium 3 Gateway PC too. Awesome

 

[Harry Hughes]

I only started this year really, back in June.
I used to use heaps of mids on the guitars. When I showed my friend my guitar tracks, he described the tone as "vintage" because it was just heaps of mids and nowhere near enough high end

 

[beyond dead]

Haha this was my first recording setup:

I had a cheap-ass, no-name 5 piece drum mic set from ebay that I ran into a Behringer mixer. I had no idea that phase existed, so I mic'd the toms from the bottom because it was easier. I also used dynamic vocal mics for overheads.

I ran bass directly into the 1/4" inputs on the mixer (no DI box or anything like that), and mic'd guitar cabinets with those $20 Nady's from Musicians Friend. Then I ran the vocals straight in without using a preamp, so I had to crank the line level all the way up to hear them.

Then I ran the left and right RCA outputs of the mixer into a Radio Shack RCA to 1/8" adapter, and ran that into the line-in on my old Pentium 3 Gateway desktop's integrated motherboard.

Sounded fucking terrible hahahahahaha

so similar to what i did. I had an old scratchy mixer board from the 80s that i ran into that back of my old p4. basically all of my mics and cables were from radio shack
my DAW of choice was Cool Edit Pro. I used fruity loops alot too. hey, i was young and didnt really know alot about computers cuz i was always poor, and spent all my cash on guitar strings and pot.

facepalm

, I have NEVER thought the metal zone gave you the ultimate guitar tone, but when I was 14, I thought the danelectro fabtone was the best sounding thing ever

 

[GarethSE]

i used acoustica beatcraft
ew

and i used a boss me-50 with its version of the MT-2 into a pod-xt into the computer
and i used a really bad mic that came with a kareoke machine to record vocals
no you cannot hear what it sounded like.

 

[Everybody]

when i started out, i though the more plugins you put on a track (6+), the better it will sound...uke:

 

[Unavailable]

When I first started out I mic'd a guitar amp through a bass cab with a cheap Nady SDC.

 

[A Midnight Requiem]

When I first started out I wanted to put synth parts to a song of mine, and plugged them into the piano roll. Thing was, I didn't know the snap function existed, and I didn't know about the playlist view. In essence, I programmed every note all the way through the song with no guide for note lengths, without realizing I could snap to the grid and copy/paste any repeats.

Also I recorded guitar by micing a 30W Line 6 Spider 2 combo with a karaoke mic. It didn't point at the speaker though, cause I didn't have a stand, so it just hung down in front of the speaker facing the ground. :/

 

[Chryst Krispies]

When I first started out I was EQing the living fuck out of the guitars.

 

[Lodge]

I bought a Line 6 AX2 100 watt combo because I was told by an unreliable source that a modelling amp was the best thing ever and that any stack sounded like shit. So first I started recording by micing it up with a shitty computer headset microphone primarily used for Counter-Strike Then I tried unplugging the speakers and going direct into my soundcard, both sounded like shit. My drummer then tried to plug my Crate GFX120 into his soundcard direct and it completely blew that shit out, it was pretty metal

 

[P-E]

and i used a really bad mic that came with a kareoke machine to record vocals

That's what I use.
And I just started out this summer.

ITB ftw, right?

 

[Proggm]

I started in 2001 with Cubase VST32 5 and a 15 watt Ibanez combo - lows at 10, mids at 0, highs at 10, and a metal zone in front, lol. I recorded that with a old IBM pc microphone .

Then I got my first drum kit, which I got for $100... you can imagine how bad it was.

But hey... it could’ve been worse.