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Cheap Home Acoustics
Self Home Recording vs Paying a Recording Studio
The home recording revolution is completely swing. Basic level recording equipment prices have hit the ground. It seams like every band has their very own recorder. Is self recording in your house studio right for you? Are you currently better off leaving your recording must a specialist recording studio? Hopefully, we'll answer these questions below.
Back in the days of the past (around 'Nam) recording at home was a fresh miracle. You could actually hit record on a tool and capture sound in your own home. Your eyes would light 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 at home for the price of a top quality,Guest Posting American made guitar. While the price of getting into home recording is much cheaper than it has ever been before, it's still a lot of money. Is setting up a little studio worth the purchase price? What are the pitfalls of trying to record yourself? Would you be better off just paying a professional recording studio to do the job for you personally? Hopefully, I'll answer these questions and much more.

What It Takes
You will definitely need a lot of knowledge, gear, time, and patience before jumping into the recording studio world. I was a computer nerd half done with a qualification 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 exactly 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 go 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 out 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.

After 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 teach you the program that you would like to use. I possibly could have saved myself hundreds of hours of headaches easily 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 if you don't need to. On my initial recording session, I had my manual in my own lap. You could only imagine how stressful it usually is should you have 5 guys staring 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 using 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 knowledge of audio when it came down to early reflections and multi-tap delays. I'm talking about just getting the stupid song onto the computer.

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

These days, it is a waste of time to use the standalone recorders you see in the mail order company catalogs. While these boxes promise to possess everything you need to record your demo (and they usually do) the training curve requirements are astounding. Yes, I simply wrote an entire section on what tough it was to learn computer recording. However, you will find a big difference between the learning curve of computer audio and the learning curve of stand alone recorders. When you learn computer knowledge, that knowledge pays to on almost every computer on earth. (I've kept myself from starving many times with my computer knowledge that i mostly attribute to recording). Also, computer recording software generally uses a mixer that is clearly a fairly close simulation of genuine. The concepts stay the same. When you are using the stand alone recorders, you wind up learning to hold E1 + Function + Menu to access Aux send page. Why do you want a page for aux send? Anyway, I've had several friends who've used these boxes and do not know anything about audio. They spent all their time learning this spanish that'll be obsolete as soon as the record is. In conclusion, I highly recommend that you go with a computer for the 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 do more projects than most. It creates an improvement when I'm rendering down mixes that I can do it twice as fast because I've too many songs to mix on a given day. I don't possess 3 minutes to sit around and wait for the computer to believe.

Along with the computer, you may need a soundcard. I recommend a soundcard with a breakout box. This means that a cable will in actuality come out of the trunk of your computer and connect to a box where your audio connections are made. Setups with breakout boxes are almost always preferred. Actually, I ownly know of one professional audio company that doesn't rely on a breakout box for his or her computer interphases. I do not recommend Sound Blaster and the ones sorts. We are not playing games or watching DVDs. We have been recording music. The demands are certainly not the same. You can find many Firewire and PCI soundcards in the mail order catalogs that work great. Pay special focus on the number of inputs and optional preamps. That is important. You may only need 2 inputs for your recording. Actually, most projects I really do seldom use more than 2 channels 90% of that time period. Of course, another 10% of that time period we might be using 19 or 20 channels. Should you be recording electronic music and only anticipate doing a few overdubs with vocals or the casual instrument, 2 channels will most likely work fine. In the event that you plan on recording your entire 4 piece rock band live with rock drums you will definitely need at least 10 inputs (maybe more). So plan ahead and work out how many mics you intend to use at once.

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

Next you will 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 purchase a supercheap mic stand, you could have problems with the mic changing it's position in the center of a session. The outcomes could be absolutely horrible. So buy decent mic stands. $30 per stand is really a reasonable low quality stand. I would not advocate that you may spend any less on a mic stand.

Next is microphones. This is where it gets fun. There are so many to select from and you can find so many tonal options. You'll want as many mics as you have preamp channels and soundcard channels (or you went overkill on preamps / soundcards). Choosing microphones is beyond the scope of the article. You can spend $50 on a mic or you can spend $3000 on a mic and you have no method of knowing which will sound better on confirmed source. This is usually a severely big deal in terms of recording and it's really one major area that seperates the men from the boys, so to speak. 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. If you try to work with a boombox you will be very dissapointed once you burn a cd and make an effort to show mom on another stereo system. Of course, you will most probably be dissapointed even when you have a $10,000 set of studio monitors because your acoustics will be all wrong in you room and even still you almost certainly haven't mixed enough songs to be worthwhile at actually mixing.

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


So when you walk into a specialist recording studio ran by way of a serious engineer who cares about your music, you can expect to focus on one thing... the recording of your music. You don't need to wonder concerning 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 as the bass player stares at chaos of cables. home surround sound don't need to buy the mess of cables. In fact, I've recorded entire albums cheaper than you would spend on mic stands. Quite simply, I've delayed charging a higher price so that I possibly could get a great deal of practice and become well known in my area. You will probably find a serious recording guy yourself who my work cheaper than you think.

What a skilled recording studio engineer knows that you probably don't.
1)The value of his time - An experienced 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 advantage? It's amazing how humans rise to meet a challenge. When you go in knowing that you're going to spend $20, $30, or $50 an hour on recording suddenly you take time to get your guitar setup beforehand. You make sure your songs are mega tight and all set. You get your butt in gear because you are going to spend some money. When your guitar players let you know that he thinks he's got the recording device working right, you do not jump up get busy. You obtain frustrated while he tries to figure out the problems on channel 1 and 5.

2)Advanced knowledge of acoustics - This is one of those areas that you'll entirely put off. Initially, you are just trying to figure out how exactly to turn the computer on. Perhaps you have really put any serious thought into the comb filtering effects of your room? The odds are minute. In fact, I bet most bands put no thought to their room acoustics. Guess what. Worthwhile studio has spent thousands and 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. From then on, acoutics is first. Proper acoustics are more important than microphones. I'd gladly record an album with $50 mics in a $2,000,000 room before I did the opposite.

3)Advanced microphone selection - Having the right mic for the work is an extremely 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 what really makes the sound quality part of recording. Recording in the home can make it hard to justify a $15,000 mic collection (or much higher). Some studios have $15,000 mics.

4)Advanced understanding of mic placement - Even more important compared to the microphone is where you put it. A practiced pro will know very well 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, nonetheless it will take a while before you get it right, more than likely.

When you combine all this knowledge together, it becomes quite clear there are serious benefits to letting the professionals handle the work. With that said, if you really want to learn audio, don't mind pumping thousands right 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.

My Website: http://www.atomictv-co.com/