Having spent a few days looking at just about everything that’s available for live music performance, home recording and both at the same time, I’ve spent a bunch of money. I find there’s a point when you have to stop looking at stuff and make a decision, or you end up just looking at stuff forever and that doesn’t really get you anywhere.

I’m quite proud of the fact that I managed to stay within the budget I set myself (by about a whole pound!) and get everything I needed. I ended up deciding to by separate hardware for the live stuff and the recording stuff, as I found it just too complicated looking for something relatively inexpensive that could do both well.

So, for the home recording side of things, I bought the Lexicon Alpha USB interface:

It seems like a nifty bit of kit, not so high-tech or impressive, but it seems like it’ll manage to record my guitar and vocals well enough to replace the not-so-great samples I’ve got on the site at the moment. The reviews that I could find generally agreed that it’s a bit of stuff worth having for home recording.

In terms of a live PA, I took a bit of a risk in buying something that I don’t know a great deal about, but the price and the scant reviews of it sold me on it – the Behringer EPA150 portable PA thingy:

The portability of it is a great selling point as I’d like to be able to transport it about in the car rather than hiring the Technodrome every time I need to get to a gig (and Krang’s a difficult guy to deal with.) The wattage should be enough for what I need it for, and hopefully it’ll last me a while before I need something better/more powerful.

There’s also, of course, a bunch of crossover stuff that I’ll be using for both live and recording implementations. Mic stand, pick holder, cables, a new capo, more cables, Fast Fret, backup cables, some picks, cables to use as a noose when I’ve had enough of all the cables and a microphone, which is the only thing I didn’t vacillate about – the all-powerful SM58:

So, as of next week some time, I’ll be able to record some decent sounding songs for the website, and I’ll be utterly prepared to perform live music at any venue that’ll have me. I feel like this is all starting to gain some kind of momentum.

Nick

I’ve been looking around the interwebs for PA/recording equipment, and I’m now perplexed by the sheer levels of choice involved. My initial thought was that I could buy one thing for both implementations, but all the websites selling the stuff, oddly, tell me that I should buy separate mixers for live performance and for recording at home. I think, though, that they may just be trying to make more money unless I’m missing some of the more arcane knowledge of sound production. Also, I don’t have that kind of money.

So I was thinking that what I need is : an active mixer, with passive speakers and some kind of funky USB converter device that’ll take output from the mixer and make my computer understand it. Obviously all the cables and a microphone (I’m leaning heavily towards the SM58, as always) etc.

I figure that I don’t need a particulary powerful system as it’ll just be a guitar and vocals plugged into it and I’m not going to need to fill the Albert Hall , so I’m looking at 200W systems mainly based on my financial situation and that I’m likely going to be getting work in pubs, which are generally quite small.

My question, then, is this (if anyone happens to read this): am I on the right track, or do I need to completely rethink this whole thing?

Cheers,

Nick