One Thing To Improve My Songwriting/recording

[acesover]

Trying to think of a Christmas gift that my wife can 'get' for me to help me make better sounding songs, and looking for suggestions. I write a mix of pop, country, gospel, rap, whatever comes to mind in my head. Currently I have a Macbook Pro with Garageband, an Acoustic guitar and a MIDI controller. Some of the things I"ve thought of are:

 

Electric Guitar

Studio Monitors

A sound library (like East/West, etc.)

A synthesizer library

A songwriting course

Electric drums

New Computer (capable of using latest VSTs, plug-ins, etc.)

 

 

Open to suggestions, thanks.

 

 

Dan

 

[acesover]

Yes, I do have a mic, I think it's a Rhode NT-1 or something like that. Thanks for the suggestion Tom.

 

Dan

[MikeRobinson]

Santa App-Store bought me a copy of Logic Pro X.  (And that's ideal for me, because all of my music is created within the computer.)

 

The Easter-bunny Amazon bought me a good pair (Audio-Technica ATH-M40fs) of studio headphones.

 

When, many decades ago, I was first dating my wife-to-be (and wife-still-is ...), she gave me the very good advice that, when setting up any sound system, you should put your money first into speakers, and you should also pay very close attention to how you arrange those speakers in your room.  You can buy "cheap" sound gear, and if the speakers are good, the sound will be good.  In the same vein, she taught me that when shopping for a camera, you should put your money into lenses (and select a camera system based on its complement of professional-grade lenses).  After all, apart from the all-important lenses, a camera's just a box with a hole in it.  If the lens is great at gathering and focusing the light, the picture will be as good as you know how to make it.

Edited January 6, 2014 by MikeRobinson

[dnafe]

Damn smart woman you married there. 

Another highly overlooked aspect of recording by the majority of home recordists is room treatment...taming those reflections and low end in you room.

For the the price of a decent set of low price range monitors you could build 12 acoustic panels that when placed correctly in your room will smooth out the frequency response and tame a lot of the reverb (early reflections) of the room not to mention significantly tighten up the stereo image of your recordings.

I can't stress this enough...after you monitors you need to address your room.

 

You'll thank me later 

 

hehehe

[JDR]

Hello all!

I didn't see an audio interface on your list, IMO, move from GarageBand to Logic, or Live to create, or even Pro Tools if you are feeling brave. Get decent headphones (if you live in a an apt). If you go for monitors, go for Mixcubes, as they emphasize your mid-range, which will help you mix for laptops and 90% of consumer electronics, if your mix sounds good on them, odds are high they will sound decent in other places.

If you have a house, get some 5" monitors, as they will give you best bass response. The important thing here is that you learn the sound of the monitors you choose and your room, that way you know how your mix will translate in the real world.

Again, my opinion, hopefully this helps!

[dnafe]

I'd be very hesitant to record and mix on headphones but it can be done and is done all the time by home recordists  Please understand that I'm coming at this from the point of view of someone who works in a small studio and records and mixes for a living and has on occasion mixed on headphones out of necessity but they were Grado RS1 headphones and even then I had to be very careful with the low end.

I'd also be leery of using any speaker that hypes any frequency as my primary set of speakers. I know exactly where JDR is coming from and he is absolutely correct about hyped mid range and your recordings sounding good on ear buds and 90% of computer speakers.

As JDR said if you can make your mixes sound good on them they'll sound good anywhere...true but not entirely honest. the thing with small mid hyped speakers like the Auratones, Mixcubes, NS10s is,  you really need to learn these speakers and how music mixed on them translates onto other speakers. They are not accurate by any stretch of the imagination and there are so many more honest speakers out there to choose from.

Just remember that when you go to check out speakers, go first thing in the morning (no other customers around) and bring 4 or 5 CDs you're really familiar with and start comparing speakers - take your time, take some notes and then do it again a few days later and see what you think.

After all they are going to be the single most important piece of equipment you're going to be buying because everything you record and mix is going to be referenced through these speakers. Trust me, if you do your homework, take your time and stick to your budget you can find good speakers for the job.

 

Edited January 25, 2014 by dnafe

[drumguy4all]

I agree with the comments above, get some good monitor speakers so you can actually "hear" what you are recording and mix accordingly. Without the means to get a good mix the other items you mentioned are irrelevant.

[acesover]

Thanks for all the ideas. Christmas has come and gone, I was too busy to actually go out and get my gift (pathetic possibly), so in the end my wife decided to get me guitar lessons, something I hadn't thought about. And yes, my guitar playing is a bit suspect at times, so this was actually quite helpful, and I'm taking the lessons now. But since my Birthday is coming in a few months, I now have some good ideas thanks to the suggestions. Currently I do mix on headphones (Sennheiser 280 Pro), so probably going to start shopping for monitors soon.

 

Dan

[Ben Makes Music]

My vote is for Logic X as well. I produce professionally and use it for making songwriter demos pretty much every day!

[dnafe]

Excellent DAW if you're on a Mac.