Studio Stuff
Well after all the ups and downs of the stuff I had done in studios so far, I finally decided to make a clean break and go it alone…. I should have done it years ago! No, to be fair, to get a good grasp of how to get the most out of a home studio, you really need to spend some time around people who know what they are doing.
So here’s a bunch of stuff that I have learnt thus far… comments welcome xx
I remember years ago when first getting into some recording, my first issue was how to connect my keyboard to my computer. I bet there are heaps of girls out there who sing and play keys or guitar that would love to get into some basic recording but just don’t know where to start… here’s how I started – a very basic, yet portable setup…
The four main things you need to set up a home recording studio are:
- A computer – laptop or PC is fine. The computer should have at least 2GB of RAM – a type of memory that communicates between the hard drive and the CPU (central processing unit) of the computer. If you plan on using lots of high quality virtual instruments and mixing gear (also known as VST plugins) then the higher the RAM the better! The computer should preferably have a firewire port as well, as these are much faster than the old USB ports.
- Recording software – I’m sure most people would have heard of programs like “pro-tools”, “cubase”, “nuendo” and “ableton” (these are just a few of the more well known products on the market). All of these programs are pretty expensive to buy initially, but if you are serious they are well worth the cost. There is also a free program you can download from the net to get started, it is called “audacity” and this is the link: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
- A recording system – this is an interface between your microphones/instruments to the computer. These range from pretty cheap to very expensive. If you are planning on doing lots of recording via microphones (vocals, guitars etc) it is important to splash out as much as you can afford on getting good quality pre-amps in this interface. To illustrate this, here is the link to the presonus range of recording systems: http://www.presonus.com/products/productListing.aspx?ListingType=1
- Microphones/instruments – which can be plugged into your recording system using basic leads that you buy from a music store. If you want to use your keyboard to program other instruments using MIDI, you will need to get a midi interface that goes from your keyboard to the recording system (again, you can get this from most music shops or on the net). You will also need to make sure you have a keyboard that has MIDI capability. You can buy special keyboards that are called “MIDI controllers” – these don’t have any sounds of their own, but are used exclusively to program other virtual instruments that you can load onto your computer. If you want to get into programming, I would recommend getting a keyboard with touch sensitive keys (ie if you hit it hard, the note is louder than if you hit it softly) – this is really a MUST!
And that’s really it folks, 4 steps to a basic home studio…. next stop – mastering your new recording software. I’ll try and put a pic up of how the basic setup should look if I get a chance.
Good luck,
-Tomi
