Create your own audio studio for under $100.
Creating your own audio studio has never been easier. There are
so many great products around today that will allow you to
produce high quality audio for a fraction of the price it used
to cost.
HARDWARE
The first thing you will need is a compatible computer. Today
every new computer is already set up with everything you will
need. A basic sound card with a mic and line in jack. If you do
not have a sound card they are very cheap and you can get a good
one from any standard computer shop.
Next you will need a good mic. These come in all sizes and
shapes with different configurations however a general all round
mic like the Logitech Noise-canceling microphone is fine for
beginners. I suggest you get a desk top one to start with as you
may want to move into video later and so you wont want a headset
in your videos.
Of course you could go up a stage and get a preamp with a
professional mic but this will start running into dollars and
the whole aim of this article ids to help you get started.
Next you will want to get some cables to connect up your tape
recorder and other audio equipment. Again the computer stores
now have packs that will connect up pretty well any device into
your computer to digitalize your sound.
SOFTWARE - RECORDING
Recording your audio is probably one of the most critical parts
of this process and again you can get software that ranges from
free to many thousands of dollars. For this exercise I suggest
you download the free copy of Audacity. This is an excellent
software package that will allow you to record from your mic or
any equipment you have.
It provides excellent editing capabilities and also will allow
you to edit multiple tracks and then combine them into one
single track. For a wuick overview of how to do this you can
watch this video.
http://www.msincome.com.au/sound/testaudio.html Download the
software here. http://audacity.sourceforge.net
SOFTWARE - CONVERTING
The next piece of software you will need for your studio is a
converting program that will allow you to convert different
formats. For example you may have a real audio file and you want
to convert it to mp3. dBpoweramp is like the swiss army knife
for the audio industry and will convert just about any file to
any other file format.
Convert from one format to another, just about every audio type
is supported: mp3, mp4, Windows Media Audio (wma), Ogg Vorbis,
AAC, Monkeys Audio, FLAC and many others whilst preserving ID
Tags. It will also rip CDs for you.
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
SOFTWARE - REDUCTION
If you are going to stream an mp3 direct then you may want to
recompile the file to a smaller format. RazorLame is a so-called
"front-end" for use with LAME. LAME is a great MP3-Encoder: it's
very fast, it produces high-quality files, has many advanced
features (like Variable Bitrates and Joint-Stereo), and it's
open source. Unfortunately, it is a command line utility, and
that is where RazorLame comes in: It provides an easy-to-use
graphical user-interface which makes MP3-encoding even easier!
The best way to use this software is to get one file and compile
in a number of different formats to test the size against
quality. Very similar to working with graphics.
http://www.dors.de/razorlame/download.php
SOFTWARE