Need help with at2035 + m-audio fast track!

[th3pr0tk3r]

Hi, I have recently received an Audio Technica AT2035 Condenser Mic and M-Audio Fast Track Audio Interface as a gift. This that I want to do with it is just normal vocal recording with background music. Currently I am just using audacity which i don't really think its very good. Can anyone introduce me some good software for me to fully optimize the use of this mic and produce good sound quality recording. Thank you!

Afew noob questions here: There are 2 switches on the mic: 1)LOW CUT and 2) PAD -10dB and 0dB. Its my first time handling with a condenser mic so i do not know much on what are this function and how to do with it. Can some please guide me and explain more can! Thank you

 

[kongwee]

For mic, I don't do low cut or PAD -10db, cos signal will go through addition filter or passive component. Good or bad , I dun know. If you can record clear sound, this is the start to make things beautiful. Note no DAW will make your recording sound good after recording(less studio that have nice setting). For vocal normally, I will need to plug in compression, eq and reverb. Before that you need to edit your vocal, example : noise and balancing. This subject is quite big, you may find some info in web or youtube.

 

[blueprintstudios]

th3pr0tk3r : welcome to SOFT and congratulations on your freebie! and AT2035 is better than the famous AT2020 that we often mention around here.

first I'd recommend you to read and understand the basics of all basics @ http://tinyurl.com/diyrecording so we'll be on the same frequency here.

Audacity being your DAW , has nothing (or very little) to do with your sound quality as the process goes :
Recording > Mixing>Mastering etc.

recording is the stage where it's all about miking technique, performance of musician , gear etc. so even if I've been recording for years, you give me an AT2035+M-audio fasttrack (preamp) to record. sound quality it would be no different than your own recording except that I can bring out the best in the recording musician + miking technique based on experience.

Mixing is the part where compression, eq, reverb, etc comes in. so you manipulate the vocal recording. and this takes even more experience , so for starters, people will play around with presets and eventually know how to adjust them to get the sound they want.

you may try www.reaper.fm then purchase if you like it after 30 days of trial.I think for your purpose audacity should be enough as you just mount one backing track, and arm another track to record vocals and you're good to go after setting all the levels etc.

1) Low cut is the same as recording without Low Cut, then in Audacity you EQ it down. view this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nw9-HOd0TM&feature=player_embedded

2) PAD is when your condenser mic still picks up too much despite the preamp level set to +0db and still overloading , probably close miking a distortion guitar or snare or something. so you wanna force it down to prevent clipping by "padding" it -10db.

gd luck! do share with us your results hehe.