I don’t know about you, but when I start reading about audio sample rates, and scary numbers with decimal points and symbols like “kHz” start showing up, my brain tries to escape from my skull. Jeez, I’m a musician, not a tech geek (though not for lack of trying).
Unfortunately if we are going to get into audio recording, we should train our brains to stay still long enough for some fundamentals. Just as it is not necessary to understand why our iPhones work in order to operate them, we don’t truly need to know what a “kHz” is in order to grasp how it might be important to our recordings. It stands for kilohertz (or 1,000 cycles per second), and all you really need to know is that the music you listen to on your CDs is 44.1 kHz. So however you record your audio in your home recording studio, when it’s is finished, it should be 44.1 kHz.
Some folks believe you should record at higher rates, like 88.1 (stay with me!) kHz, converting down to 44.1 at the end. Personally I don’t see the point (get it? I made a decimal joke). Yes technically the audio will be “higher definiton” (pardon the video metaphor), but I don’t think most folks would be able to tell the difference. Meh, to each their own.
Here is my article on sampling frequency: https://www.homebrewaudio.com/what-is-sampling-frequency/
Here is an article that tries to make the case for always recording at 88.2 kHz:
http://theproaudiofiles.com/3-reasons-to-record-at-88-2-khz/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theproaudiofiles+%28Pro+Audio+Blog+w%2F+Articles%2C+Tips%2C+and+Reviews+%7C+theProAudioFiles.com%29
Archives for October 2011
Am I Using The Right Quarter-Inch Plugs in My Home Recording Studio?
When hooking stuff up in your home recording studio, you’ll find that most of time you are dealing with cables that have 1/4-inch connectors (or plugs, which I think just sounds less pretentious:)). But just because they fit in the hole doesn’t mean they are the correct plug for the job.
Here’s a good article that covers the differences and goes over what to use when:
http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/church_sound_clearing_up_1_4_inch_connector_confusion/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed#When:15:08:31Z
Getting Your Recordings on iTunes
In this day and age (specifically October 27th, Digital Age I guess:)), if you want to sell the audio you produce on your home recording studio, it is a pretty good…no scratch that…a VERY good (as in mandatory really) to make those recordings available on iTunes.
If you sell CDs, as in actual hard-product disk-in-a-case kind of thing, getting that music or spoken-word product onto iTunes is pretty easy right now. I personally generate more income from my CDs via iTunes than any other way. I make it easy on myself and simply put all my albums on CD Baby. Then they take care of the rest, like getting the album on iTunes, as well as most other digital music distribution services such as Spotify (!).
Here is an article on About.com talking some specifics other than the CD Baby route to getting your sale-able audio onto iTunes:
http://homerecording.about.com/od/duplicatingdistributing/a/Get_On_iTunes.htm
Reverb and Delay – What Are They?
Some folks say they are the same thing, reverb and delay (or echo). I don’t. The thing we call reverb for use in a home recording studio is really 2 things. The first is like an echo, yes. That is you hear a repeat of the original sound at some point after the original reaches your ears. But the thing we think of as reverb is the fact that the sound lasts longer. It’s like being in a large room (college stairwells had nice reverb when I used to play guitar in them:)) with stone walls. Technically the sound lasts longer because what you’re hearing is a mish-mash of a bunch of echos from all over the place. But it all blends together for a very different sort of sound than delays or echos. To me, echos are what you hear when you yell something in a canyon like: hello…hello…hello…hello.
Anyway, here’s an article that explains how you can use both to both delay and reverb to improve recordings:
http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/in_the_studio_reverb_vs_delay/
Hooking Up Monitors to Your Computer
Here is an interesting article on connecting monitor speakers to your home recording studio computer. I’ve usually used a mixer in my setup, so this is something I’ve not don,e personally. But it is a good how-to for folks who don’t yet have a mixer, or maybe don’t even need one. Heck, voice-over-only folks this may be perfect for. Check it out here.
http://www.audiorecording.me/how-to-connect-m-audio-bx5a-to-your-computer-soundcard-audio-interface.html