I remember as a kid going to a friend’s house, and his dad had converted their garage into a music studio of sorts. It was mostly a jam space for rock and roll. But the thing I recall most is that the walls were covered with egg cartons. They told me it was for sound-proofing. Who was I to question it. For years I thought you could do sound treatment with egg cartons. Luckily I never spent time or effort trying to acquire cartons and do this myself! I might have thought I could build a sound-proof closet-come-vocal booth for doing auditions and other recording for voice over jobs…or worse. I could have decided I needed to cover every square inch of a garage! Shudder.
Here’s an article discussing the efficacy of egg-carton sound-proofing: orignal article
Something to Consider With Digital Audio Recording
Here is a post that talks about one of the main mistakes made in digital audio recording, whether used for music or voice over jobs. I think this kind of mistake is mainly made by folks who have had experience in the analog (tape) recording realm and try to use some of the same techniques with digital. Those who start out with digital recording probably don’t have this issue as much.
Anyway, here is the article from Björgvin Benediktsson: http://www.audio-issues.com/recording-tips/the-1-mistake-with-digital-audio-recording/
Home Recording Studio Stuff To Avoid
Here’s an article on “nightmares” to avoid with your home recording studio. These tips are valid for you whether you’re recording for voice over jobs or music. It can be boring to deal with house-keeping issues in the studio, but they can save your bacon.
Here’s the article: http://www.homestudiocorner.com/home-studio-nightmares/
Sample Rate of 88.2 Kilohertz-Ouch My Brain Hurts
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
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