Beginner recording acoustic

[Thomas Atkins]

I'm 43 and starting late at this but I'm looking for advice and tips for what I need to record vocals and an acoustic guitar. 

Has anyone ever heard of Arturia minifuse recording kit? I saw one at guitar center, but like I said no very little about recording? 

Anyone have any books they recommend or tutorials? 

Also should I/could I record audio and my acoustic guitar at the same time or it advised to record separately.

And finally do you suggest getting a pick up installed in my acoustic or is it better to record from a mic. 

I'm looking at about a $1000 budget to start and would greatly appreciate any feedback.  Cheers!

[GregB]

Hey.

 

I did MY first-ever home studio album in my mid 60s!

 

I had been totally baboozled/daunted by the potential pitfalls and costs (and the fear of getting the WRONG stuff) but ended being convinced by Graham at The Recording Revolution that you don't need to buy lots of gear or spend big. 

 

And he was right.  I've released 50+ great sounding home-recorded tracks.  My 2021 setup is described from Page 14 here ... https://drive.google.com/file/d/13msJbHgSYflqawSx1z8Od88ai169AOB2/view?usp=sharing   
NOTE: Pro Tools has since been released with a free 'Intro' version which would have been fine for all my tracks, providing inbuilt plugins, 8 audio, 8 MIDI and 8 Instrument tracks.  But I wouldn't recommend Pro Tools as it is a pig of a DAW to learn).

Graham even demonstrated an impressive recording using ONLY an iPhone ... GarageBand for instruments and its mic for vocals .... 

 

 

Good luck with the adventure.

[Bridget Murphy]

On 3/19/2024 at 9:28 PM, Thomas Atkins said:

I'm 43 and starting late at this but I'm looking for advice and tips for what I need to record vocals and an acoustic guitar. 

Has anyone ever heard of Arturia minifuse recording kit? I saw one at guitar center, but like I said no very little about recording? 

Anyone have any books they recommend or tutorials? 

Also should I/could I record audio and my acoustic guitar at the same time or it advised to record separately.

And finally do you suggest getting a pick up installed in my acoustic or is it better to record from a mic. 

I'm looking at about a $1000 budget to start and would greatly appreciate any feedback.  Cheers!

Good luck on your new found hobby.

[Mahesh]

On 3/20/2024 at 9:58 AM, Thomas Atkins said:

Has anyone ever heard of Arturia minifuse recording kit? I saw one at guitar center, but like I said no very little about recording? 

 

Haven't heard of it but will totally check it out. In order for you to get things going with recording as you have described at home, you'd need the following

• A computer
• An audio interface, which is what you probably referred to here in this quote. It could be any of these brands but the most common one used by many around the world for home recording is Focusrite 2i2 or 4i4. The former is cheaper and does the job very well. This will allow you to plug both the guitar and vocals and record them both at the same time if you choose/want to. 
• A good vocal microphone : There are two kinds of mics we'd be looking at here - a conderser mic or a dynamic mic. A condenser would work best for vocals in a good room that is acoustically treated. For home recordings, I suggest you get a nice dynamic microphone. An SM57 or a Sennheiser e835 are my suggestions. Very versatile, can be used not just for vocals but other instruments too. If you have the budget, an SM7B is an incredible purchase. This is my vocal mic at home and I would not trade it for anything.
• A good space to record that isn't too noisy
• A DAW / Digital Audio Workstation to record, mix, master and produce your music. Reaper or Cakewalk is what I suggest. Both are absolutely free and yet have industry grade tech going into handling sounds. They have loads of stock effects that can help you do everything from scratch and reach the full and final product. 
  
  
   

 

I suggest you look into these to begin with. Once you have some of these things set up and you are getting into setting up the DAW, I'm sure you will have some questions. Pop back in here or create a new topic and I'll be sure to come back and send some resources your way!

 

[GregB]

I'll also add to my previous post (further above), that a free stock plugin that comes with any DAW is likely to be within a whisker of being as good as any 'premium' third-party plugins worth several hundred dollars.

 

In their article https://www.production-expert.com/production-expert-1/the-shocking-truth-about-pro-tools-stock-plugins these industry experts say:

They don’t sound bad.  In fact, when compared to the premium versions, it’s hard to tell the difference.

 

When recording my first album during 2014, I used Pro Tools' free stock plugins for EQ and Compression and in 2023 released other tracks that still use them.  These plugins (and 30 others) come free with the FREE of Pro Tools (called the "Intro" version) ... which is supposedly identical to the full version but limited to 24 tracks in a session (8 audio, 8 instrument, 8 MIDI) ... which is more than enough for most singer-songwriters.

[Thomas Atkins]

Thank you for the tips and advice. It's still overwhelming, but I'm just going to take the info and run with it.

[john]

Any questions, just ask. If you focus on specific questions hopefully it will feel less overwhelming:)