Home Recording Tips

[BlackhawkFan]

Thanks for the link, Nigel.

[Granted]

I'm overwhelmed by all of this awesome advice!

As a novice recording artist, I value all of the points made in this topic. I especially love the EQ tips! Thanks, all.

[TheBrewer]

The monitor thing that jramm brought up is absolutely true, believe me! It's been more than 1 month now i'm trying to have clarity on all my mixes and it seems to remain impossible... 'til i got my studio monitors yesterday! Every sounds balance and clarity became so obvious yesterday when i plugged them in that 1 did 3 mixes in about 3 hours and , even that time is too short (i will review everything this week), everything came out clearer and nicier than my one month work i did on them! It is absolutely true that you'll see the difference right away between 'speakers' and 'studio monitors'... I bought a nice pair of M-Audio BX5a Deluxe for 264$ and it worth the spend, believe me! I was about to give my album mastering work to a mastering engineer for more money than this, and this engineer was always coming back to me saying do this and do that to your mix....

Now that i've listen my 3 mixes in different environments, i can tell you that i'll finally save a buck at the end!!!

My 2 cents!

[LilOrange]

What do I need for home recording? I've got keyboards, software Audacity and I'm planing to buy a microphone. Is that enough?

[TheBrewer]

That could be enough. But you will certainly want to extend your horizons by adding music vst softwares (drums sounds, guitar sounds, bass sounds, etc...). Audacity will probably do it, but i would recommend a studio software, like Cubase or Logic Pro.

[Retrosaurus Rex]

What do I need for home recording? I've got keyboards, software Audacity and I'm planing to buy a microphone. Is that enough?

That's the bare minimum for recording audio. AFAIK, Audictiy supports VST FX, but not VST Synths. Your keyboard might supply serviceable sounds for most instruments, so you might be better off for the time being learning recording rather than expanding your sonic horizons with software, and adding the learning curve that goes with that. Later you can move up to a full-fledged DAW (software studio) like those Pascal mentions, or SONAR or Reaper, to throw a couple of other names in the mix. If you learn the process for a few months it will also give you time to do adequate research, and some valuable experience to help you make a good decision.

[LilOrange]

Thanks, guys! What does vst stand for? I usually record drums with a sound on keyboards...but that's lousy right?

[Retrosaurus Rex]

Virtual Studio Technology... it's a plug-in format created by Steinberg. What you need to know is that it's the standard audio plug-in type for Windows. Some keyboard drums are not bad actually, even on lower-priced keyboards. Getting a drummers feel for the part if you're not a drummer is usually a bigger hurdle.

[LilOrange]

Tnx!

[LilOrange]

I have problems with recording on Cool Edit. With Audacity it's ok, the microphone works, but I would rather like to use Cool Edit because it's easier to me....Why do I have this problem?

Edited January 11, 2012 by LilOrange

[Retrosaurus Rex]

I don't know Cool Edit, but if recording w/Audacity is OK then I surmise the settings in Cool Edit are at fault. There should be a menu for "Options" or "Preferences" or "Audio Settings" ... check those... also the basics, you probably have to arm a track to record, did you do that? Are you getting a response from the track meters, but no sound? or is it completely dead? Work the problem...

[LilOrange]

I checked everything....i don't know...to arm a track? what does that mean? No, it's completely dead....no track meters...

[Retrosaurus Rex]

Sorry that was vague... there should be a field in the track info section where you select the input... make sure that's the mic input from your sound card.

[RodChandler]

I promise I'm not being a smarta** here, but whenever I have tried out a different

These are a couple just from typing in Cool Edit Pro tutorial. Good luck.

Edited January 14, 2012 by RodChandler

[Retrosaurus Rex]

In fact, I should have thought of that days ago...

[symphonious7]

This is something I do that helps alot.  Granted I know very little about recording, but basically I go to youtube or think of a visually stunning movie or something like that, it needs to have alot of motion in it and fit the "mood" of my song, so this could be a first person perspective bike ride, or someone else's music video, or people dancing, or you can look up "electric sheep" and watch one of their visual stimuluses.  And when I think my mix is getting close to finished or is finished, I mute the audio in whatever I've found to watch, and play my track while watching it.  9 times out of 10 I notice things that are off while doing so, as the visual seems to get my mind out of the technical mode and back into an emotional state of listening, and if your mix is correct, then your song should flow well with most anything you choose to watch, and if something is buried too low or not carrying the "message" of your song, it will stick out to you and you'll realize how poorly your mix would be as a soundtrack.  

 

It's good to note though that you don't want to get into the habit of doing this at every stage of the mix, or the visual will lose it's impact and start to make you think your mix is good when it isn't.  You basically do this when you think you're ready to move on to mastering as a last check like "could this be the background music to a movie?"