Note: The reason I am posting this article installment is that it is a needed bridge to get to the other more complex concepts and techniques that I want to discuss with home recordists. For many, this article deals with basics that you have already dealt with. And for others, it deals with aspects they have not yet dealt with. I can’t make a really comprehensive article about the various kinds of gear in a home studio and their functions. That requires a book. Glean what you can from this article and in the near future I will take you off into more complex techniques. Sorry if this article is of little use to many of you!
It is now possible to get very good sonic accuracy from relatively low cost equipment. There is a level of quality you do not want to go below, but other than that, it’s possible to get very good results from a fairly low cost home studio.
As I have said before, your monitors and your room are more important than anything else in your studio. But assuming you have those two issues settled, its time now to move on to the fun stuff. First you will need a computer.
The platform choice is basically between Mac and PC. My advice is that a home studio owner use the PC platform. The reason for this is cost. MAC computers are very solid and stable, but it could cost you twice as much money to get your studio running and to keep it running.
A PC may give you more problems with the fine details of installing drivers, keeping the peripherals running, etc, but this is often worth it for the home studio owner because of the lower cost and higher availability of those parts. If you do have the extra money, are familiar with the MAC platform already and want to go that route, you will do well.
Ok, if you are running a MAC you will use OS X, if you are running a PC you will use Windows XP Professional Edition. You should not use the Vista operating system unless you want to experiment a bit. If you buy a new computer that has Vista installed, you can buy a copy of XP and install that instead. Vista is very new and is not as reliable as XP for audio yet. Those running Windows XP can use this guide to optimize their settings for audio use:
http://www.digitalproducer.com/2002/11_nov/features/11_04/optimize_pcaudio.htm
The way you build a home studio is based on what you want to accomplish. I recommend that musicians use the home studio to augment time at a pro studio. Also using it for writing purposes is very handy. During this time, you can build your experience and eventually, you can get good enough to record your album at home.
The most effective way to go is to record drums at a pro studio, then record the other tracks at home and go back to the pro studio to mix and then send out for mastering. In later installations, I will probably talk about recording drums for those that want to go in this direction, but honestly, recording drums is pretty serious and those people are going to need an education much greater than these blog posts.
A very good alternative to recording drums is to use the Toontrack family of drum programs. Check out EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer 2.0 at www.toontrack.com You can get a drum sound that is nearly as good as real drums with this method.
Supposing that you have either recorded drums at another studio or have sampled drums like those from EZ Drummer, you will need to now record guitars, bass and vocals. This means that you will only have to have 2 channels of mix preamps. The more types and brands you have, the more colors you are painting with, but even just having two really good preamps is very good for the home musician. I recommend the Vintech Dual 72 for the semi pro users. It’s a Neve style dual preamp that you can use for anything. It will be super high quality and never let you down. It costs about 1200 dollars for two channels. If you need a cheaper alternative, just remember that you get what you pay for. 600 dollars per channel of preamp and higher is where real quality comes in. But you can get quite adequate quality for about 300-400 dollars per channel. There are many brands to choose from. Try www.fmraudio.com for a low cost solution. Or just keep these prices in mind and shop around. There are too many brands for me to cover them all here. Preamps that are built into audio interface cards are ok, but you should step up from this at buy a dedicated preamp or two. Buy a couple of preamps that will take an XLR or ¼ inch input that you can use as a direct input (DI). This way you can mic up cabinets or record vocals with vocal mics, or plug straight in for recording a DI track.
Another way to go is to buy a small mixing board. You will get many preamps and the ability to do more versatile operations. In the home studio range, I’d suggest you stick with Mackie or Allen and Heath. Cheaper than that and you will get low quality. Those two brands are quite good for the money.
Next is the audio interface card. This is where your analog source from the preamps or mixer get changed into digital and go into the computer. The actual conversion takes place in the A/D converter. This is the Analog to Digital converter. Many audio cards have these built into them. But a few are full digital cards and will require a separate AD converter. I recommend you get a card (interface) with built in A/D and D/A converters
If you are using a laptop, you will need a Firewire or USB 2.0 card. If you are using a desktop, you can go Firewire or USB or use a PCI card. Either way, there are a lot of options. PCI interfaces may be a more stable option though. For the higher end of home recording, I recommend RME. Under this I’d say MOTU, Digidesign and M-Audio. Also, you will have fewer problems running a desktop over a laptop, but a new and fast laptop with a good card can work for just recording a few tracks at a time. You can mix as many tracks as you need though. Again, you get what you pay for.
So far, you have your speakers, you room has been set up to work well, you have bought a couple preamps or a mixing console and an audio interface card. Now you need software. The most popular programs are Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, and Sonar for PC and Pro Tools and Digital Performer for MAC.
Pro Tools needs a Digidesign approved audio card to run it, but the others will run on any audio card. Pro Tools is the industry standard and if you plan on going back and forth with another Pro Tools equipped studio, that’s your best bet. You can buy a book for Pro Tools on Amazon.com and learn it. It’s a bit of an odd program, but there are tons of people to help you. It is the most popular program.
Steinberg is the maker of both Cubase and Nuendo. Originally, Cubase was more geared towards home recordists and Nuendo was more pro, but now they are almost identical. Pick one and run with it. I use Nuendo myself and it’s a very intuitive and stable program. Sonar is made by Cakewalk and is also very good but it will not be quite as easy to get help with because it’s not as popular. I hear it works just as well as the others. I’m sure it does. Digital Performer is a very deep and high quality MIDI and audio program for MAC and most MAC users use it in combination with Pro Tools. You can buy instructional books for all of these programs and I would advise it.
I would also suggest that those individuals who want to get into home recording begin using the internet as a library and start visiting as many forums and websites as possible that pertain to recording. Don’t get caught up in gear lust, just try to glean as much information as you can. Getting into recording is like taking yourself to college and you will need to be constantly on the lookout for new techniques and pointers. Always ask questions and keep absorbing information like a vacuum cleaner.
You will undoubtedly run into many problems installing drivers, getting things to work properly, etc. For this reason, you should try to find an audio buddy. Find another person who has a few years experience in this that is near you to help you when you get stuck. If they are running a certain program such as one of those listed below, find out what they run, and you can run it too. This way you can compare notes. They can come over and help you when you are stuck or talk you through a problem on the phone. If all your friends are running Nuendo on PCs and you get Pro Tools and a MAC, you’ll be very sorry you did.
Ok, back to the gear. Most musicians who want to just record their ideas at home and start to learn the art of recording only will need speakers, computer, sound card, preamp and software. They can use sampled drums and record direct guitar or bass tone from a Line 6 POD or use a guitar simulator plug in. If you want to actually mic up a cabinet and record guitar tone the professional way, watch my video for instructions on doing that. If you want to record bass, the best way is to plug in directly from the bass into a preamp and from there into the audio interface.
If you want to record vocals at home you will need a good large diaphragm condenser mic. On the low end I would recommend the Oktava MC319 and on the semi pro end, I’d suggest the Neumann TLM 103. Actually, the Neuman is a fully professional mic. You can also try an AKG 414 BULS. Other good inexpensive mics are the Audio Technica 4033, 4055 and 4060. There are many Chinese made mics that are pretty good these days but none of them will be better then these I just listed and you are in hit or miss territory. There are also a lot of half Chinese, half American made mics and I’d just stuck with AKG, Neuman or Audio Technica if I were you.
You can record a singer with just a good preamp, good converters (probably built into your card in most cases), and that’s all. But usually, the best way to record vocals is to compress them with a good compressor before they go into the digital domain. The problem with this is that you now need another piece of gear that is often expensive, but you also now have to learn how to listen to compression. But you have to start somewhere. For a cheap compressor, I’d recommend the FMR Audio RNC compressor. And if you want to get better, you should spend about 800 dollars or more. With the RNC, you can set it on auto, let it peel off about 4 db of volume off the vocalist and just record that into the computer. Vocals are very dynamic. They always need to re-compressed with your plug in compressor in the computer during mixing, but it’s very beneficial to also have them pre compressed on the way in. But when you do this, you are locking the compression into the audio track and you can’t go backwards. But then again, it’s necessary for vocals if you want a pro sound. Here is a good reason to let a pro do your vocals for you if you are not sure if you can understand compression. I’d say, watch the professional do it and ask him questions, then try to mimic what he does. I’ll do an installation on compression in the future. It can take a few years to really get the hang of it. But if you are not trying to record your best album at home, you can always record without compression or with an RNC and just experiment. It’s best to get your hands dirty.
There are so many other aspects that I should try to put into this installment but really can’t. In fact this entire article is really too basic for those that are already building a studio and too complex for those that are just getting acquainted with the technology. I hope there is something that is in here that can help bridge a gap in your knowledge. For future articles, I will have to suppose that the reader has already done their homework on basic techniques. But let me just list a few key terms. If you don’t know what these are, find out, and take yourself to school on the basic concepts of recording. There are many books and I will try to make a list of them later. But you will need to know these terms if you are going to be even slightly successful with recording.
Signal to Noise Ratio
Dynamic Range
Bit Depth
Sample Rate
Analog to Digital Conversion
Digital to Analog Conversion
Sample Rate Conversion
Dither
DI Track
Reamp
Line Level voltage
+4 and -10 level voltage
Nyquist Frequency
Attack
Release
Threshold
ADAT Optical
XLR
AES/EBU
Instrument cable
Speaker cable
¼ inch mono and ¼ inch stereo jacks
Insert cable
Patch Bay
EM interference
Human hearing frequency response
Standing waves
Diffusion
Absorption
The list goes on and on…….
Are you sure you want to record your own album??
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