Topic: Hi! =) Simple Questions

Greetings and Welcome to the Zynewave Forum! You’ll find a few members and users of Podium here who know lots about this DAW.

You can do practically anything you wish with the free version of Podium, just keep in mind that you are limited to using only one core of your CPU (not an unusual limitation for the free version of a DAW), and do keep in mind that the free version is several editions older than what’s currently available for a very modest price. The one you have will give you a pretty good idea of how Podium looks, ‘feels’, and works, but the newest releases have many improvements.

Regarding VST plugins, both effects and VSTi (instruments) I hardly know where to begin. There is much you can read on the Net to bring you up to speed. Swing by the KVR Forum and their info pages concerning almost every VST known to man. A nice collection of plugins (90% of what I use are free ones — very many as good as you can buy) will make all the difference in the world to your future recording skills. It may seem a bit new to you now, but it will be second nature to you very soon.

These things are effects and instruments that can be controlled and used just like all the hardware gadgets you can go out and buy. To begin, remember that you want versions of these plugins that match your PC, MAC and your DAW. Are you using the 32-bit version of Podium on a 64-bit PC? Well then, you want to download 32-bit plugins. A 64-bit DAW will want 64-bit plugins. There is a feature called “Bridging” that helps to accommodate the mix of 64 with 32-bit and vice versa, but stay away from that for now until you get comfortable with using VSTs.

You are jumping in at a wonderful time for digital recording. So much free stuff nowadays and much of the previously flaky software has either been ridden of bugs and incompatibilities or has died off. There are plenty of truly wonderful synthesizers and other instruments, along with every effect you could ever need. For free or on the cheap you can have simulations of $100k studio rack units.

I would encourage you to test many many of the free ones before buying anything. Feel free to spend a few weeks as there is a learning curve. I’ve tested, used and tossed out a couple of hundred before settling on the ones I love best. On every forum in some thread or two, you will find lists of suggested best VST plugins, so some of the work has been done for you already. I find most on these lists to be the better picks for good (and often free) stuff. One suggestion I ought to make is, regarding instruments, especially the better synths out there, try a few of the top free ones and get good at using two or three, instead of trying to master the subtleties of 20 or 30 of them.

Most of all, enjoy yourself in all you’ll be learning! An awesome range of possibilities is now at your fingertips for recording music.

Yes, not long ago, I started out as completely audio-only, no MIDI, etc. That changed rapidly once I saw and heard all the other wonderful sounds some of these instruments can add. Want a string quartet filling in a bit in the background on some ballad.? You can have it.

You said ‘noise’ and ‘pickup’. You have some sort of interface to convert your guitar output to digital, and control levels going into Podium? You should have ZERO noise issues or hum in any of this. With any decent interface this will all be taken care of. After testing the too-expensive Fractal Axe FX and owning Avid’s Eleven Rack until just recently, my favorite guitar interface is Digitech’s RP500 (the RP1000 is tops, too). Just my personal choice. This way, I have not only a decent interface (-132 dB noise floor at worst), but you can also process some of your guitar sound externally, thereby freeing up your DAW and PC to spend its processing on all else. Simple, direct-in interfaces for guitars and mics start at about $50US, but read the reviews on each carefully first, since a few of the cheapest are rubbish.

Otherwise, for any noise and hum, there are a few noise gate plugins out there, and you’ll want a dithering plugin to cook down the final mix to 16 bits.

Ah, okay, I was wondering. I’m not familiar with amps that have soundcards, but you could indeed call that an interface if it converts your guitar signal to digital or MIDI and then will run into a PC or MAC.

Daws of themselves do not come with noise gates commonly, although several now come with an on-board dither to eliminate noise from the final mixdown to export at 16 bits. But no matter, get RDR dither or mda dither — both free (RDR is better).

Very curious about your amp with soundcard. Mind stating which amp offers that now? A potentially great idea that I have not seen yet.

BTW, you can skip the mixer interface if you will only be recording one track at a time, but for more than that, as in a whole band live — yes, then you would want an interface that also can handle more than one input. Rule of thumb, the more channels needed, the higher the price. Look up interfaces at Musician’s Friend and other big on-line stores. Quite a variety popping up in the last few years. Prices go up to as much as you could imagine paying, depending on # of channels and studio pro quality, too!

Most important thing first: Lexicon is owned by Harmon, same as my Digitechs. It is a name you can trust (besides Lexicon was the pioneer in reverbs and delay for years, name used to be spoken in a reverent tone). Of course, I can’t vouch for dropping any unit on a hard concrete floor, but the Alpha is a well-conceived bit of hardware — and two In and two Outs, too, for you and guitarist friend, etc. A 2-channel interface is a good way to get started.

I know nothing about that Laney. Don’t know what’s under the hood, but on most amps, running from the line out is not very good for a DAW interface. Unless it has level control, most are set firm at about -20dB. There may be some other buffer, converter or something on it, but I can see where some of the noise may be coming from. Any time you have an amp or anything running into a PC, try to have ALL on the same polarity circuit, same outlet box. You want to avoid ground loops and such.

Dither. That comes in at the end. Short story: When you go to 16 from higher, every other sample gets dropped and can bring noise into the equation. Dither IS a noise itself, best when way high in the spectrum that you feed into the audio. I record at the most common setting of 24-bit @44.1k, then mix down at the very end to 16-bit WAV and then convert to CDA format if making a CD or 320kbps MP3 for posting online or mailing my Mum a tune. Podium will let you use 32-bit float, like most DAWs now, which is my preferred, but 24 will do, too. Some insist on recording in 96k and so on, but that’s nuts unless it’s a live symphony with huge dynamics. Only 3 people on the planet and a half dozen dogs can tell the difference. Rock and Pop is less needy; some of the most famous rock producers even record in 16-bit — can actually give rock an edgier sound but I don’t do it. Just remember that a setting like 96 is 2 1/2 times as much work for your PC than 44.1.

Friend of mine uses a Laney stack driven up front by a Maxon TS-9 type OD and an average Gibson SG for his metal band. He gets a great sound but that’s far different than the amp you mentioned. Didn’t know they made anything but big stacks. I am impressed by the Laney quality and sound, much like an extra fine Marshall.

DAWs will process and record up to 64-bit float these days. Check out the Prefs page and the Podium guide. Tonnes of headroom and extremely low noise floor, along with all the fidelity you could ever want. A lot of plugins process at 64 internally nowadays as well.

Your coming in on an amp’s line out (nice you have some level control there) is not the worst scenario. At least you have a little umph in the signal. We had a guy here recently who decided to give some guitar playing a go in Podium, and we soon figured out he was plugging the guitar into the PC’s Line In on the back of his tower with no amplification to the signal at all. He wrote in stating that the guitar sounded anemic and not quite loud enough. Passive pickups, of course, and no wonder!

Yeah, I wouldn’t mind hearing a clip from that amp model. Didn’t you say it was their acoustic guitar amp model?

Polarity. Ground Loops. Sometimes in a dwelling the outlets are wired by an idiot electrician, and it is not unusual to have one outlet where the ground isn’t wired up, or more subtle yet just as potentially dangerous, the dolt reversed the phase because he was letting his mind wander. One of those $3 yellow outlet testers can save your life. But on a less serious but almost as important note, you want to try to run amp, gadgets, PC and what have you from your signal chain out of the same properly wired outlet. Run your amp from a different outlet from across the room, and it may be out of phase with the one your DAW PC is using, resulting in huge noise and hum. Extremely annoying and impossible to record anything under that circumstance.