Set up a homestudio to make your own recordings
Nowadays affordable computers and great audio hardware make it
feasible for anyone to make great recordings. The number of
soundcards available for example, is enormous. It is impossible
to tell in a few words what you need to start a homerecording
studio, but in this article I will give some valuable advice to
get you started.
Choose the right soundcard
Forget the standard soundcard that was present when you bought
your computer. It lacks the features that are really important
for recording. Have a look at some entry-level or more
professional audio interfaces. One of the important differences
is the quality of the analog-digital conversion. Decide in
advance whether you want to record multiple instruments on
independent tracks simultaneously. If not, a decent two-channel
audio interface may be sufficient. Other things to look at are
latency (degree of delay as a consequence of internal
processing), bit depth, sampling frequency and the availability
of preamps.
Whether you want to record your guitar or the signal of a
microphone, the sound level will be usually very low if you
don't use a preamplifier. Preamps are built in in some
audio-interfaces, in most mixers and, recommended if quality is
your primary concern, are available as standalone units. They
offer at least a gain knob that allows you to adjust the sound
signal level.
Get software that suits you
You will definitely need some software to record the incoming
signal to your computers hard drive, to edit wave forms and to
mix down your music for burning a cd or distribution on the web.
Software can be simple, and sometimes free, but advanced audio
sequencing software is generally not cheep. Have a look at Adobe
Audition for some simple work, and look for Steinberg Cubase,
Logic Audio (on Mac) and Digidesign Protools (Mac and PC) at the
higher end. Decide whether you are going to use MIDI or not and
whether the availability of a lot of audio effect plugins is
important. The more advances software offers many routing
options, automation and an enormous flexibility, however keep in
mind that you need time before you can work with it comfortably.
Some learning curves are indeed very steep.
Monitors are essential
Having an audio interface and recording software is not enough.
You need to be able to listen to your recordings and judge their
quality in a proper way. Therefore you need a set of dedicated
speaker, called 'monitors'. Although some hifi-speakers may do
the job for a while, judging sounds is ideally done using a pair
of monitors.
Microphones and preamps
Once you have these essential elements of the recording cascade,
you can start investing in microphones and other gear. Choosing
the right microphone is a difficult task, but as a simple rule,
it is better to buy one decent microphone than a number of
crappy ones. This also applies to preamps.
Conclusion
Building a cheap recording studio around your pc is perfectly
possible nowadays, but you should carefully consider your needs.
Check out each element of the cascade, since the worst component
will actually determine your sound. And then the creative
process only starts... To find out more on setting up a
homerecording studio, you can start looking into various
webresources on audio recording, for example RecordingFreaks.