Re: Still Lost Re Recording Gear
There's nothing wrong with the SB Audigy Platinum. True it's not what the pros use but then, frankly, you're not one of them. You have no burning need of zero-latency - the interface alone won't give you that, you'd need a smoking-hot PC dedicated strictly to that one function - no web-browsing, no email, no antivirus, etc.
You're not at that stage yet, so don't go shelling out money you can't spare for gear you don't need.
As for the track issues - go through the program's options menu and preferences settings and all the sub-menus to find everything in it. Somewhere in there you'll find the settings for default track/session layout (mono vs stereo, 44.1kHz vs 48kHz, etc).
The SPDIF input is also known as lightpipe and fiber optic. Your Casio might have an output that would connect to it, but it's not essential at this stage.
The Line In will do you just fine for now, and for about the next year or so as you learn the intricacies of PC-based recording.
One very important thing to remember is that the PC's speakers will never sound like your amp, unless your amp is made from PC speakers. This is usually the first complaint new recordists have, and it's always the one I find to be the most obvious. A 100w amp head into a 4x12 cabinet cranked and killing the neighbors cannot be matched by any self-powered external WalMart-bought PC speakers, even if they are 7.1 Surround Sound with a 6" woofer.
As well, most PC speakers are voiced to accentuate the bass (so those video game explosions and mp3s rock). You can throw a bunch of money at some full range/flat response self-powered studio monitors ($$$$$) but quite frankly, no one but the Puritanical audiophiles actually listen to pre-recorded music through them, and no one but the professional studio engineer who has to master tracks for all-system compatability actually needs them. They're a nice toy to impress your friends with, but that's about it.
Once you start recording tracks, get used to how different your tone is when comparing the amp to the PC speakers.
Above all, take your time. It's learning a new instrument, so nothing is going to happen overnight. Record a few things and put them on a CD and put it in your car stereo, your home stereo, and whatever else you can find. This will give you a good idea of how your mixes will sound in various systems, and you'll be able to dial in the EQ in your mixes to accommodate all of them equally.
But, as I said, that takes time. Your ears have to be trained to spot the things that need to be fixed in the mix, and only experience will tell you what needs to be fixed at the source (i.e. the amp or other input source).
Post-production EQ can only do so much, so the better sound you have going in, the better it's going to sound coming out.
Another major point many guitarists fail to realize is that everything in a mix has to work together. You can get away with a lot in a live setting - vocals and solos are sharing frequencies, bass and drums are competing for freqs, etc. In a recording situation, such is not the case. A low-level bass thump perfectly synched to the kick will stack on top of each other, increasing the output, and thus driving that one thump into Peak territory. Add a synchronized palm muted guitar chug to it and you've hit the Red Zone. That's where you blow speakers.
As well, when each one hits separately, they don't sound as heavy, so you find yourself trying to crank the gain on each one, only to have the 3-part stack thumping even harder than before, and still heavier than each component.
This is where Compression can be both a friend and a traitor.
Compression smoothes out the spikes. However, the higher the spike, the more it gets cut. So much so that where the 3-part thump was previously louder than anything else, it's now softer than anything else, and you have this odd "ssssSSSHHHHP" effect building up after each one, as well as what sound like cymbal swells where you didn't want one.
And that's only the very basics of PC recording. Wait till you get to the part where you have to pan mono tracks to keep them separate, and actually futzing with the graphic EQ to notch out certain frequencies.
People who complain about not being able to understand women have never experienced the greater challenge - sound engineering :lol:
