Technology

[Amazing_Grace]

Alrighty, I'll keep that in mind and be on the search. :3 Thanks again!

[Cael K.]

Does anyone know of a good microphone to use? And while I'm on that, is there some sort of program or tool that cover artists use? Like, to get the background music and the voice to sound well, and not like you just played the music on your computer and recorded it from those speakers into a microphone?

... A little late to the party, but I hear that the Behringer XM8500 is pretty good for the price. Use a foam cap to guard against clicks and pops, they cost like 2 bucks.

You'll need a cable to attach that to your computer though. Think an XLR to USB cable would be what you'd look for.

There were other microphones I saw recommended, but they were either 5 to 10 bucks, or 90 or more bucks.

When you're singing, I guess you should use headphones to listen to the background music so it doesn't get included in the voice track.

Also, if you play the music at full listening volume through your headphones, you might not be able to hear yourself too well. If you can't hear yourself sing, you might go off-key and not know it. So don't play through the headphones too loud.

[Accoun]

Also, if you play the music at full listening volume through your headphones, you might not be able to hear yourself too well. If you can't hear yourself sing, you might go off-key and not know it. So don't play through the headphones too loud.

I guess you can make it so that you hear your voice through the phones, right?

[Cael K.]

I guess you can make it so that you hear your voice through the phones, right?

You can, but there could be some lag between when you speak/sing and when you hear yourself. This can mess up your rhythm and cause you to go slower.

[chihayacutie]

I'm not sure what program cover artists use, but Audacity can record your voice, and after you've recorded your voice Audacity can mix the resulting voice track with the background music. You can download it and try it out to make sure it does everything you want it to. When you're singing, I guess you should use headphones to listen to the background music so it doesn't get included in the voice track.

(When I say "you" I'm referring to Amazing_Grace)

(Sort of) seconding this. I've had some experience recording with Audacity in the past and overall it's pretty good, except sometimes when you fit the music to the vocals, there's a delay between the two, so the timing is off. I can't prove to you that it's not my singing that's off (I usually do the thing where I have my headphones on but I can hear myself singing/recording) but I've done the same thing with vocals that are not mine (like professional acapellas and the like) and it does the same thing. So I'm pretty sure it's the program itself that does it. It's not a huge issue, it's just annoying and takes a little editing to fix. Overall, it's not a bad software to start off with. If you're really interested in doing covers consecutively though, you may want to invest in Adobe Audition. (unless you want to go the piracy route...)

Funny how you said that though, because I was actually thinking of doing covers again too. I used to do them when I was like 13 but now that I'm more confident and know that I can actually sing, I'm probably going to go a more or less professional route.

[Amazing_Grace]

... A little late to the party, but I hear that the Behringer XM8500 is pretty good for the price. Use a foam cap to guard against clicks and pops, they cost like 2 bucks.

You'll need a cable to attach that to your computer though. Think an XLR to USB cable would be what you'd look for.

Also, if you play the music at full listening volume through your headphones, you might not be able to hear yourself too well. If you can't hear yourself sing, you might go off-key and not know it. So don't play through the headphones too loud.

Great, thanks! I'll be on the lookout for that next time I go shopping.

I'll keep that in mind. Thank you!

(When I say "you" I'm referring to Amazing_Grace)

(Sort of) seconding this. I've had some experience recording with Audacity in the past and overall it's pretty good, except sometimes when you fit the music to the vocals, there's a delay between the two, so the timing is off. I can't prove to you that it's not my singing that's off (I usually do the thing where I have my headphones on but I can hear myself singing/recording) but I've done the same thing with vocals that are not mine (like professional acapellas and the like) and it does the same thing. So I'm pretty sure it's the program itself that does it. It's not a huge issue, it's just annoying and takes a little editing to fix. Overall, it's not a bad software to start off with. If you're really interested in doing covers consecutively though, you may want to invest in Adobe Audition. (unless you want to go the piracy route...)

Funny how you said that though, because I was actually thinking of doing covers again too. I used to do them when I was like 13 but now that I'm more confident and know that I can actually sing, I'm probably going to go a more or less professional route.

I'll definitely keep that in mind. I'm trying to stay away from spending too much money since I'm still trying to save, save, and save some more for the half-a-million things I want. I'll work with Audacity and see how I like it, and if it turns out I'm too lazy and easily irritated to work with it, I'll invest in Adobe Audition. Thanks for all the advice, you guys are awesome. XD

You should get back into it. When I was young, there's no way I ever would have tried, but I've had coaching and professional lessons and years of experience now, so I'm going to try it. I wanna hear you sing.

[chihayacutie]

You should get back into it. When I was young, there's no way I ever would have tried, but I've had coaching and professional lessons and years of experience now, so I'm going to try it. I wanna hear you sing.

dsfgjhkl thank you! I'd like to hear you too. ^^

[Amazing_Grace]

dsfgjhkl thank you! I'd like to hear you too. ^^

You're welcome.

Actually, I've recorded myself a couple times, but it wasn't professional, I couldn't sing, and it's all a Capella. XD
So.
One day.

[Virgofall]

Edit: Keeping the textwall for relevance, but a thunderstorm knocked out my laptop charger (as well as a few other electronics, turns out most of this apartment isn't grounded so surge protectors auto-fail - my PS3 is safe and sound though thank god), so I went ahead and replaced the computer outright for that + some other reasons, so I shouldn't need to get a new one anytime soon... I hope.

(verbose and sometimes unclear text wall ahead)

As of late, I've been thinking about trying to build a desktop computer.
My current and only computer is a laptop, and for most of the things I do, it works well enough, but could be better. However, "most of the things I do" - or would like to do if the specs allowed, as the case may be - tend to be resource-intensive (namely gaming, art/graphics work, and video/audio editing). I can do most of these tasks well enough, but, I know I've had to drop at least one game that I had interest in playing because, for the needs, I simply couldn't operate it well. For the heavier tasks that I CAN do/run at an "acceptable" level, the laptop runs pretty loud and hot. I've been doing my best to take care of it, but between the fact that I almost never move my laptop outside of recording (in that portability is not a massive issue), a lot of my preferred hobbies strain my computer's resources, and the system tends to be prone to BSODing semi-regularly, I think it's time to look into something new. (I've had this laptop since mid-2009, a Sony Vaio.)
One thing that I'm trying to do is to figure out, as a complete newbie, the sorts of things I need to look out for/need/worry about when I delve into this matter. I have gotten some advice from my older brother, who has had plenty of experience with computer building, but while I have a lot of information when going PAST the surface, I don't have quite the basic understanding with this topic specifically. Namely, I have a lot of information that would serve me well if I understood what, exactly, I was looking for in the context of building a computer.
I know my needs - besides the above points, I would also like to have a system on the quieter/cooler end - and what parts I'd need to worry about to an extent, but I have a difficult time understanding everything I NEED to have when building a computer and why. I can have all the best pieces in the world, but without the basic understanding of what role each of them plays, and what items are luxury compared to necessity, I have nothing.
So, when building a computer, what are the basic components (needed to have a running system at all) when compared to luxury components (which allow you to do certain things, but could be done away with with minimal issue)? What are things you need to be watchful for when looking at these components?

[altuixde]

Virgofall - I think I may know what was going on with your previous computer (besides being too slow for newer games). Dust. Have you ever opened it up and cleaned it out with a can of compressed air? I have a laptop that I bought in 2009, and twelve months ago the fan was running so loud that I finally did something about it. After cleaning out the dust it was so much quieter. I've read that laptops are more sensitive to dust than desktops because the internal parts are much closer together.

In other news...
Adobe released a digital ruler and stylus for iPad. They're definitely cheaper than buying a Cintiq, but I don't even have an iPad. Macworld wrote a glowing review of the Ink and Slide (that's what the stylus and ruler are called) and noted only one significant drawback: the precision of the stylus is sometimes a little iffy; but the reviewer stated that she did not know whether it was a hardware or software problem. I wonder whether these will be available to try out in the Apple store or other stores. Now if only Apple sold an iPad with a screen at least as big as a sheet of paper.

[Setsuna]

And in the 'While I was out' category, I nabbed an 8 port SAS controller since a friend was handed(!) one for free, and it didn't suit his purposes (He's having a SATA 6.0 problem with some his SSDs because his mainboard made 2 of the 4 SATA ports use just 1 PCI-e lane, crimping the write performance of 2 of his 4 512GB SSDs, and his work handed him a redundant one to see if it'd fix his problem. Unfortunately, the controller's not that great with SATA or at least with SSDs, but it's fully functional otherwise), so it was handed to me(!!) after confirming it wasn't useful to him, because he knows I can really use it.

He did get to borrow my broadcastable Vita though (he's on youtube as ZedameX, and I pretty much taught him how to get video of all his devices, as well as provide significant hardware acquisition advice) so I imagine he'll be using it to do some video recordings of some games with his larger PSVita collection, and he wants to do more work with my VitaTV, and I've got to help him find a suitable controller for his drives anyway, so it's more of a technical trade for the card.

For those who know anything about the equipment being talked about, you'd probably know how happy I am right now. (And why the !s exist.)


For those who don't know what it is though, the SAS controller is a card you put into a computer, and you use to load up SAS drives... Well, to be honest, they're actually designed for servers and heavy duty workstations.

For those who don't know what SAS drives are (or can be at least, they're graded like all drives), they're enterprise grade drives which (if you own the right ones of course) can write 200-300MB/s sustained (under SAS 6.0Gb/s, and generally controllers will limit you to about 1800MB/s sustained write per controller) until the very last byte due to the fact SAS uses a protocol (NCQ off the top of my head) which basically allows you to throw stupid amounts of data at a drive (or RAID usually) and have it write pretty much non stop.

The drives can be very expensive, and bigger ones (600-1TB) can set you 600 or much, much more and that's just at SAS 6gb/s. I heard a 1.5TB top of the line (12Gb/s) one will set you back 11000 per drive and will in a set of 4 or more will beat an equivalent number of SSDs in the read/write category in RAID). No that's not a typo.

Now you ask, why don't I just get SSDs instead? They're a lot cheaper and some of the newer ones can write at 300+MB/s, and more importantly, don't require special hardware to put into a computer.

Your average SSD has a lifespan of roughly 400000 write cycles +/-10% before the NAND wears out and you need a new drive.

Your average SAS? It has a lifespan of 100000 hours (under warranty) with full load and usually last +/-50%. Some of the older ones are in the vicinity of 7-10 years old, and still going, and this is older tech.

I've got a stack of 5 drives not in use (4x 87GBs, and 1x450GB, all rated at 15k rpm and are SAS 6gb/s) since 4 of them are currently used right now and is what drives my recording work.

The controller itself is probably worth 1000, since it came from a production server.

... And it's now mine to use as I see fit, as it was released to me at no cost. I'm thinking of JBODing it, and clocking somewhere in the vicinity of about 1GB/s write.

It's probably not that exciting unless you know how I record video (Think 'Always record at the highest possible quality, then scale down to suit' taken to the logical extreme, namely, I record pixel perfect raw footage every time, and know my ultimate goal to record 4k footage requires about 1000MB/s write sustained).

... That and let's face it, sometimes it's just a lot of fun playing around with powers way beyond a consumer level.

For those who need me, I will be away drooling working on installing this precious item. I'll need more connectors for a start...

[Accoun]

Well... can't say anything more than "wow". :-P

Although I'm curious what would you record at 4K and at what FPS. I assume you have (or at least you're going to have) a grabber working at that resolution? Not sure about the consumer hardware, but there probably are professional solutions already, and I'd guess it's too much of a strain to record via software. Although someone on GAF managed to run DMC4 at 8K/60 FPS, so maybe it would be possible to record it at 4K and the game itself didn't look that bad from what I remember.

Unless you're just talking about some unidentifiable future. ;-)

[Setsuna]

Well... can't say anything more than "wow". :-P

Although I'm curious what would you record at 4K and at what FPS. I assume you have (or at least you're going to have) a grabber working at that resolution? Not sure about the consumer hardware, but there probably are professional solutions already, and I'd guess it's too much of a strain to record via software. Although someone on GAF managed to run DMC4 at 8K/60 FPS, so maybe it would be possible to record it at 4K and the game itself didn't look that bad from what I remember.

Unless you're just talking about some unidentifiable future. ;-)

I have the ingest card to do so (A Blackmagic Decklink Extreme 3D) so it's not a theoritical. I also have the ability to record 3D, although I don't have any interest in that.

Essentially, if I can see it and convert the video format to a standard TV format, I can record it.

Installing the card and reconfiguring the system is going to take me a while (I need to get two sets of a particular breakout cable), and configuration burn in is projected to take a week.

[animagic4u]

Anyone have a recommendation for good headphones for Jazz and Acoustic music? Anything under $200 is fair game.

[altuixde]

Are you going to be listening to the headphones tethered to a computer or are you going to be walking around listening to them? One of my headphones has way too much cable to be convenient for stuffing into a pocket. The second pair of headphones I use is discontinued. The third is just a pair of Apple EarPods. I have more than three kinds of headphones but those are the three that I actually use. I'm actually going to be ordering a new pair of headphones myself (these). I'll post my impressions of them here. It'll take a few days for them to arrive, though.