I know so many musicians that own home recording software, but don’t know how to use it. Most of these folks got the software with every intention of recording and selling their own CD, but became intimidated by the software’s seeming complexity and either gave up or put the project “on hold” until they get the time or inclination to learn the program. Shyaa.
So why in the world is home recording software so hard to learn? I don’t think it’s a plot or anything, but the fact is that many of the folks I refer to are really smart folks. But when they think about trying to learn complex software to do something they’ve never done before…well, that would intimidate anybody. How can you learn the software if you don’t know much about WHAT you want the software to do?
Imagine if someone told you that you had to design a sky-scraper using some specific CAD software if you had never done any design of any kind. It wouldn’t just be a matter of learning how to use the software. You don’t even know how to do what the software is designed to help you do! I think THAT is what would-be home recording enthusiasts are up against. It isn’t the software so much as it is the knowledge of how to record in the first place.
So what is the solution? I think the answer is to somehow teach the basics of audio recording without bothering with complicated (and sometimes quite expensive) software. This knowledge would have to be such that it didn’t matter what tool (program, tape machine, etc.) you were using, the concepts would be the same. For example, if you knew you needed to get some nails through two pieces of wood, it wouldn’t take long before someone could easily teach you that you needed to pound on the nail to make it happen. It doesn’t HAVE to be a hammer, really, does it? Any heavy hand-held object could do the trick. It just so happens that a hammer is usually the best tool for the job; but that’s actually secondary.
OK, so I lost some folks with that metaphor didn’t I? Sorry about that. I am just trying to highlight the critical concept that if you basically know what needs to happen and how, it doesn’t matter that much what tool you use to make it happen. If you can find some lessons or tutorials out there to teach you the concepts of home recording irrespective of the software you can use to do it, THAT would be worth something.
With that in mind, Home Brew Audio set out to teach the basic concepts and skills of audio recording from home in such a way that the focus is on the skills and concepts, NOT on the software. The early lessons are taught using the free open-source software called Audacity, not because it is fabulous software, but because it is available to just about everyone. But lessons are taught with other home recording software programs as well, so the task of learning any given program later will be much easier.
So if you really want to learn to use your home recording software, find some lessons that teach you home recording concepts first. Home Brew Audio is one such website. But however you do it, your learning curve for any recording software will be greatly flattened afterward.
tutorial videos
Home Recording Tips
I could (actually have:)) write a book on the technical things you can do to set up a home recording studio for the lowest cost and produce the best audio quality. But if I could only tell you one thing to get you started in home recording, it would be this: It is way easier and way cheaper than you probably imagined. I know a lot of people with a lot of talent who want or need to record audio. But the ones who have never done it before, or have limited experience, all think it is just too expensive and too difficult. I mean, like 100 percent of them!
My goal with Home Brew Audio is to provide the information and resources needed for folks to start a PC recording studio, and then show them how to use it. The price of admission is between 0 and 5 dollars. Yup, you heard (read?) right. 5 bucks…and that’s just for some sort of microphone if you don’t already have one. If you DO have a mic, your starting cost is “free.” The reason for this is the free/open source software called Audacity, which is a pretty amazing program that does both audio editing and multitrack recording.
If you have already begun recording from home, Home Brew Audio provides video tutorials and articles to keep you moving forward. There should be something for all levels of knowledge in the home recording arena.
For those who are at the beginning of the home recording learning curve, however, the most important home recording tip I can offer is to get started NOW. There really isn’t any reason not to because as I said earlier, it is way easier and way less expensive than you thought.
See ya around campus!
Ken Theriot
Myth: It is Expensive to Learn to Use Your PC for Recording Sound That Sounds Good
Before we talk about recording sound, let me ask you a question. Have you ever avoided doing something because you believed there to be some sort of barrier or consequence you didn’t want to deal with (like “recording sound at professional quality is expensive)? Then have you ever found out….perhaps years later…that your belief was incorrect, and you could have done that something after all? That feeling really sucks. I found out at a high-school reunion that I was WAAAY more popular than I would ever have imagined while I was going through it. My belief about myself was that I was a scrawny, funny-looking geek that was too embarrassed and shy to ask girls out on dates. Then 10 years later I find out that I could have gone out with almost anyone! To hear people talk about how popular I was, and how my self-image was completely wrong, was at once wonderful and hugely frustrating.
So what does that little story have to do with recording sound from home? I have heard time and time again from many people that they are going to someday learn how to do home recording, but they don’t have the time or money right now. But guess what? Getting good quality audio is more about learning a few tips and techniques than it is about buying expensive gear and/or going to recording classes. Knowledge trumps gear! And that knowledge isn’t hard or expensive for a vast majority of the folks who let this myth stop them.
Let’s say you’re a singer/songwriter with the barest of computer skills. You need demo recordings constantly and you’d really like to record a CD of your own. But everything you’ve read says you can’t do this yourself. You need a commercial recording studio where you can rent time (for anywhere between $40-80 an hour!). So you either put it off, or try to save money for a day in the future when you’ll have 5 or 10 grand to record a CD. Then 10 years later, you find out that you could have set up a home studio on your PC and learned the techniques for using it to create professional audio for under $100 bucks. That’s right.
Well don’t wait 10 years! The knowledge you can gain for how to do JUST the minimum required to record your music and release your own CD is a fraction of what you need to know to become a professional recording engineer. Since you just want to record YOUR music, there’s no need to learn a huge majority of what a pro audio engineer needs to know.
So how can you acquire this knowledge? One great source on the web for tutorial videos, articles and other resources focused on recording sound from your PC is Home Brew Audio. It won’t take long. It will be fun. And in 10 years, you’ll have one less regret. So when you get a chance, check out Home Brew Audio and other great sources on the web. Good luck!
Your Own Music Production Studio at Home – No More Excuses
Indie musicians! How much did you pay at the local music production studio the last time you visited? Or maybe you haven’t gone yet. Do you have a CD? Have you been wanting to record one, but just didn’t have the time or money? Wish you had your own music production studio at home, where you could take your time and not worry about racking up fees at a commercial studio? Well, what’s stopping you?
Before you answer, let me guess. You know that “audio engineering” is a massive and complex body of knowledge that people go to expensive schools for. So you believe you have to obtain that entire body of knowledge if you want to record. Why not let the pros do what they were trained to do?
How did I do? Was I close? If it wasn’t the assumption that you have to learn too much to be able to set up and record on you own home studio, it may have been another mistaken belief that you’d have to spend loads of money to get the stuff you need just to set your home recording studio up. Well if one or both of those beliefs are reasons you don’t act on recording from home, I have doubly good news for you.
Let’s start with the good news, and then I’ll tell you the other good news;). First – You don’t need to obtain the entire audio engineering body of knowledge in order to record your music. In fact, I estimate you don’t even need to know 1/100th of that material! Why? Because you aren’t trying to be a professional audio recording engineer. You’re trying to be a professional musician! Let me put it this way. Do you need to understand how to build a computer in order to use one? All you need to know are some basics, and away you go! The same is true for audio recording!
Now for the other good news. Not only do you not need to spend boat-loads of money to get the stuff you need to start your music production studio, odd are you already have it! Yup. If you have a computer with a sound card, you already have the main components. All you need is recording software (which you can get for free!) and a microphone.
The software I refer to is called Audacity. It’s open source and amazingly powerful, especially for the price;). You can learn all the basics you need with this software, including multi-track recording and audio editing.
As for the microphone (or “mic” for short), this may be considered quite controversial by some purists, but I say start out with a humble plastic PC mic, which you can get for about $5.00. Once you learn to wring the best possible audio quality from that thing, you’ll be able to get the most from any mic you buy thereafter. It won’t sound fabulous, but you will be amazed at how good you can make it sound with the right techniques. Then your next mic should be a USB mic like the Samson Q1U (not the headset kind!), which you can get for about $49. Your audio quality will be loads better than the PC mic.
So basically, if you’re a musician and have wanted to record from home, but haven’t acted due to belief in bad information, excuses are over! If you’d like step-by-step video tutorials on setting up and using your studio, come visit Home Brew Audio and find a site that wants to teach you only what you need to know to record and produce audio from home. HBA aims to use language and terms anyone can understand to make it fun and fast to learn professional quality music production.
See you there!
Ken Theriot
What is Digital Audio and Why Should I Care?
What is digital audio?
Wow, that’s a question that you’ll find answered all over the internet. And you might actually be able to understand some of them. It is almost an irrelevant question in this day and age, because it is the rare person who can even FIND analog (the opposite of digital) recording gear anymore…at least stuff you can afford on a really tight budget. If you want to start recording right now, for a budget of $5.00 or less, then you’ll be recording on computer, which means you’ll be creating digital audio.
OK, so I kind of hinted that I’d explain what digital audio was so that regular people can understand it, so I hope this will do the trick. If the audio is in a computer, it’s digital.
See? Was that so hard? Now you’re asking what I meant earlier when I said that “analog” is the opposite of “digital.” OK, how’s this? If the audio is on something physical like tape or on a record (those are the black, round, flat things your parents used to listen to music on) it’s analog.
Now there are some trouble-makers out there…I see you in the back! You want to get all picky and point out that “lots of audio outside the computer is still digital,” and just because it’s on tape, the audio could be digital.” The trouble-makers aren’t wrong, folks.
But ignore that! Yeah, forget about the fact that audio on phones and iPods is digital also. The smart ones out there knew that those things are just little computers anyway, right? And it won’t affect many of you to know that some digital media can be recorded to tape. But guess why you don’t need to remember that? Because if it’s digital tape, IT WILL SAY SO. It is rare enough that it will have a label saying something like DAT (digital audio tape) or something similar with the word “digital” in it.
So now you know the difference, right? Digital audio is “computerized” audio, and analog audio is recorded in some physical way onto records (all those little grooves) or tape (all those little magnetic particles).
Why should you care if you are going to be recording audio on your computer anyway? It’s digital right? Well…yes and no.
Getting Audio Into A Computer
It WILL be digital once it’s in the computer. But when it’s just a voice coming out of your face, it’s still analog. The physical medium is the air molecules your voice is moving. In order to make it digital, there has to be a machine that converts analog audio to digital audio. Amazingly enough, these are called “analog-to-digital” (A-to-D) converters. The converters play a large role in how good the audio sounds. If you’re just using the ones on the garden-variety sound card, the audio probably won’t be “high-end.” Audio interface boxes (mainly USB these days) typically have much better A-to-D converters.
One good example (and not just because I use one :-)) is the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or Focusrite Solo.
These interface units are actually doing two main jobs – conversion, as I just discusses a bit (no pun intended :-)), and amplification (mic preamps). In the old days you’d have two units for this – a converter and a preamplifier. But mostly these days (updating this in 2018) these interface units combine many functions, including A-D conversion, D-A conversion, and preamplifiers.
So now you understand the difference between digital and analog audio. Go forth and use your knew knowledge well!