(omdat deze post ook bedoeld is voor m’n engelsprekende vrienden, is deze in het Engels)

Ever thought about using your computer for recording music? But did the costs scare you off? Buying expensive microphones, a pre-amp or mixer, expensive software.. even if you try to do it “as cheap as possible”, you’ll probably end up with spending at least hundreds of euro’s. Well,.. at least i did! A six-channel mixer (Behringer) from e-bay, a studio-microphone, some cables. Software. It all ads up and in the past years i’ve probably spend about 300-400 euro’s on it, if not more. Now, i must say: that’s cheap. I’ve spend hours online searching for the best value for money and am happy to say i did. For example the Behringer mixer is really great. And i’ve got a great Studio mic for only 99 euro’s.

But,.. spending about 300-400 euro’s (approx. 600-700 dollars) is sometimes way out of the budget limitations many have.

With Sinterklaas (check this explanation..) Mirjam wanted to have a “Karaoke-set”. She wanted it before, but these kits were rather expensive. Until recently, that is. Prices started to drop fast and now you can buy “Karaoke Studio Pro” for less than 50 euro’s. So, we bought one for Sinterklaas for her. It comes with a 2-channel “mixer” with echo- and tone-control, two microphones (seperate volume control on microphones) and a DVD with songs you can sing along using your DVD-player.

When the children were playing with it, i noticed the sound quality the microphones had. And since Mirjam would like to “record on the computer” i tried to attach it to the computer and see if and how it would work. I was really surprised to hear the quality when connected to my computer! Vocals, harmonica, even guitar (turn the volume on your guitar down!!).. it all sounded great.

So,.. if you’re looking for the most value for money and want to have a simple, cheap but effective homestudio with more than average quality i suggest this setup:

– Karaoke Studio Pro;
– a cable to connect it to your line-in;
– Kristal Audio (free, multitrack recording, download here)

And your done! For less than 50 euro’s you’ve got your multitrack “homestudio” up and running!

How does it sound?
As i’ve sayd – i ran a little test. So here’s a small testrecording i did using the above setup; i’ve recorded one guitar track + a harmonica-track, and mixed it down. Ps, take note! The distortion on the harmonica was added usingKristal’s build in effects.

> Just4Fun (mp3)