Notes

High Quality Home Acoustics
Self Home Recording vs Paying a Recording Studio
The house recording revolution is completely swing. Entry level recording equipment prices have hit the floor. It seams like every band has their very own recorder. Is self recording in your house studio right for you personally? Are you better off leaving your recording must a specialist recording studio? Hopefully, we'll answer most of these questions below.
Back in the old days (around 'Nam) recording in the home was a new miracle. You can actually hit record on a tool and capture sound in your house. Your eyes would light up exactly like Thomas Edison did when he first invented audio recording. Fast forward to 2005. It's now completely affordable to outfit a fully functional recording rig in your house for the price tag on a high quality,Guest Posting American made guitar. As the price to getting into home recording is a lot cheaper than it has ever been before, it's still a lot of money. Is setting up a small studio worth the purchase price? Do you know the pitfalls of trying to record yourself? Can you be better off just paying a specialist recording studio to do the job for you personally? Hopefully, I'll answer these questions and much more.

What It Takes
You will need a large amount of knowledge, gear, time, and patience before jumping in to the recording studio world. I was some type of computer nerd half finished with a degree in electronics when I jumped in to the recording world. I understood electronic basics and had run live sound numerous times. I totally understood how to operate a mixer/console. So all I had to do was jump into the recording portion, right? ....Well, it turned out that there was a significant learning curve to go from an empty room to the creative process (that is the fun part) and walk out with a finished cd in hand.

I had no idea just how much time I would spend cursing Windows audio drivers, failed hard drives, out of sync audio recordings, clicks and pops, unwanted distortion, etc. Truth be told, I went from an average computer user to some type of computer master in that couple of monthes it took me to work through all the kinks in my own system. That's right. It took me several monthes before I was ready to record my first band. It was that tough. That has been in 2001. Maybe things are easier now. I'm guessing that you'll still have a significant road in front of you.


Once you get your rig fully operational, you are still going to have to learn the software. I'd HIGHLY recommend that you get a DVD and a book to instruct you the software that you intend to use. I possibly could have saved myself hundreds of hours of headaches if I would have just browse the stupid manual and had a little instruction. I learned a lot by tinkering (which might be your nature too) but there is no point in learning things the hard way unless you have to. On my initial recording session, I had my manual in my lap. You could only imagine how stressful it might be should you have 5 guys looking at you when you desperately push buttons on something you barely understand. I'd say it took me a good 3 monthes of everyday tinkering before I felt comfortable utilizing the software for basic recording. Keep in mind that I wasn't trying anything advanced here. No crazy editing, no fancy automation. In fact, I had very little understanding of audio when it came down to early reflections and multi-tap delays. I'm talking about just obtaining the stupid song onto the computer.

Okay, so I've sort of prepped you on how the learning curve necessary for recording music. Let's discuss the gear.

These days, it's a waste of time to use the standalone recorders you see in the mail order company catalogs. While these boxes promise to possess all you need to record your demo (and they usually do) the training curve requirements are astounding. Yes, I just wrote a whole section on how tough it was to learn computer recording. However, you will find a big difference between your learning curve of computer audio and the training curve of standalone recorders. When you learn computer knowledge, that knowledge pays to on almost every computer on earth. (I've kept myself from starving a number of times with my computer knowledge which I mostly attribute to recording). Also, computer recording software generally runs on the mixer that is clearly a fairly close simulation of the real thing. The concepts stay exactly the same. When you are using the stand alone recorders, you end up understanding how to hold E1 + Function + Menu to get to Aux send page. Why do you want a page for aux send? Anyway, I've had several friends who have used these boxes and don't know anything about audio. They spent almost all their time learning this foreign language that'll be obsolete as soon as the record is. In summary, I recommend that you opt for a computer for your digital recordings.

Okay, so you require a computer. The good thing is you don't need an extremely fast one by today's standards. In fact, I built my recording computer for about $300 and it's really overkill. I need a faster computer than most because I really do more projects than most. It creates a difference when I'm rendering down mixes that I could do it twice as fast because I've too many songs to combine on confirmed day. I don't have 3 minutes to sit around and wait for the computer to believe.

On top of the computer, you'll need a soundcard. I recommend a soundcard with a breakout box. Therefore a cable will actually come out of the back of one's computer and connect to a box where your audio connections are made. Setups with breakout boxes are nearly always preferred. Actually, I ownly know of one professional audio company it doesn't rely on a breakout box for their computer interphases. I do not recommend Sound Blaster and the ones sorts. We have been not playing games or watching DVDs. We are recording music. The demands aren't the same. You will find many Firewire and PCI soundcards in the mail order catalogs that work great. Pay special attention to the amount of inputs and optional preamps. That is important. You may only need 2 inputs for the recording. Actually, most projects I do seldom use more than 2 channels 90% of the time. Of course, the other 10% of the time we might be using 19 or 20 channels. Should you be recording electronic music and only plan on performing a few overdubs with vocals or the occasional instrument, 2 channels will probably work fine. If you plan on recording your entire 4 piece rock-band live with rock drums you are going to need at the very least 10 inputs (maybe more). So plan ahead and work out how many mics you plan to use at once.

Next, you need preamps. Preamps boost the signal of a microphone around line level and are virtually required. Preamps are usually the top knob on the mixer of one's PA. You will need one preamp for each microphone you intend on using at one time. You'll want to have the same number of preamp channels as you do inputs on your soundcard. There are many soundcards that come with preamps. There are home acoustics that may improve you sound quality just slightly. If all else fails, utilize the preamps in your PA mixer. If your mixer uses inserts it is possible to split the signal quickly the preamp by only pushing in the cable half way. I'm discussing the cable that goes out of your preamp and into your soundcard.

Next you'll need mic stands. There aren't way too many cases where you don't need a mic stand. You need to be very careful with mic stands. If you buy a supercheap mic stand, you may have issues with the mic changing it's position in the middle of a session. The results can be absolutely horrible. So buy decent mic stands. $30 per stand is a reasonable low quality stand. I would not recommend that you spend any less on a mic stand.

Next is microphones. This is where it gets fun. You can find so many available and you can find so many tonal options. You'll want as much mics as you have preamp channels and soundcard channels (or you went overkill on preamps / soundcards). Choosing microphones is beyond the scope of this article. It is possible to spend $50 on a mic or you can spend $3000 on a mic and you have no way of knowing that may sound better on confirmed source. It is a severely big deal when it comes to recording and it's one major area that seperates the men from the boys, as they say. Home recording studios will often have terrible mic selections from which to choose.

The most important piece of gear in your studio is your studio monitors. In the event that you try to work with a boombox you can be very dissapointed when you burn a cd and make an effort to show mom on another audio system. Of course, you will most probably be dissapointed in case you have a $10,000 set of studio monitors because your acoustics will be all wrong in you room and also still you probably haven't mixed enough songs to be worthwhile at actually mixing.

Okay, I've outlined what goes into recording your cd. Guess what, any decent studio has all of this looked after you. Are you aware about audio latency in XP? Have you any idea anything about room nodes? The studio guy probably does. That's how he makes his living.

So when you walk into a professional recording studio ran by way of a serious engineer who cares about your music, you can expect to focus on a very important factor... the recording of one's music. You don't have to wonder about the specs of the computer, the cables connecting the preamps and the soundcard. You don't need to worry about wasting large sums of time while the bass player stares at a mess of cables. You don't have to choose the mess of cables. Actually, I've recorded entire albums cheaper than you would spend on mic stands. Quite simply, I've delayed charging a high price so that I possibly could get a great deal of practice and become well known in my area. You might find a significant recording guy yourself who my work cheaper than you imagine.

What a skilled recording studio engineer knows that you almost certainly don't.
1)The value of his time - A skilled engineer isn't cheap (but could be much cheaper than trying to record yourself) but he knows that his time is worth X dollars. How is this an edge? It's amazing how humans rise to meet up a challenge. When you go in knowing that you're about to spend $20, $30, or $50 one hour on recording all of a sudden you take time to get your guitar setup beforehand. You ensure that your songs are mega tight and all set. You get your butt in gear because you are about to spend some money. When your guitar players let you know that he thinks he has the recording device working right, you do not jump up get busy. You obtain frustrated while he tries to determine the issues on channel 1 and 5.

2)Advanced understanding of acoustics - This is one of those areas that you'll entirely put off. At first, you are just trying to figure out how to turn the computer on. Have you really put any serious thought into the comb filtering effects of your room? The odds are minute. Actually, I bet most bands put no thought to their room acoustics. Do you know what. Worthwhile studio has spent thousands of dollars pefecting their acoustics. The only thing more important than acoustics in a recording may be the song, the musicians, and the instruments. After that, acoutics is first. Proper acoustics tend to be more important than microphones. I'd gladly record an album with $50 mics in a $2,000,000 room before I did so the opposite.

3)Advanced microphone selection - Having the right mic for the work is an vitally important part of being truly a recording engineer. When you understand that a guitar is too bright, you put a mic on it which will reduce this brightness. When a vocalist sounds dull, you put a bright mic on them. It continues on and on. This is exactly what really makes the sound quality section of recording. Recording in the home will make it hard to justify a $15,000 mic collection (or higher). Some studios have $15,000 mics.

4)Advanced knowledge of mic placement - A lot more important compared to the microphone is where you put it. A practiced pro will know what has worked on days gone by 10 albums he's done. He knows what he likes and what he doesn't. He does not have to wait until after the mixing is complete for him to figure out that the snare sound sucks. You will be experimenting like crazy, but it will take a while before you get it right, probably.

When you combine all of this knowledge together, it becomes quite clear that there are serious advantages to letting the professionals handle the work. With that being said, if you actually want to learn audio, don't mind pumping thousands into a bottomless pit, and are really that excited about taking years and years and years to learn the craft properly, do it now. I did.

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