[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I’m moving this to our Audio Production Forum, since it really doesn’t have anything to do with REW.

I’m actually a bit surprised that Mike says Audacity is as good as Pro Tools or CuBase. My main beef with Audacity is that it doesn’t allow for real-time EQing, gain or other adjustments, which makes it kind of cumbersome. But then, the price is right.

As far as headphones, it’s hard to go wrong with anything from AKG or Sennheiser.

As far as the signal level, just keep it from maxing out in the running plots. That’s make the signal clip, which will show it having a “flat top” if you reduce the gain after the recording is finished. It’s easy enough to increase the signal level after the fact if you need to . Hopefully you found the plug-in download for additional functions and effects – it includes one called “Simple Amplifier” that adjusts gain.

By the way, a second mic would help with a stereo/ambient effect. That might be good if you’re intending say, to distribute this to the church members. If this is just for practice, i.e., for the choir members or director to study and critique themselves for improving their performance, then the single mic will do.

Regards,
Wayne