Audio Recording Tips

Do you plan to seriously record and produce music at home? Seems like a broad plan but below are the details:

1. First but the most important thing that you need is a very powerful personal computer. If you use Mac, consult them to provide a hardware specs suitable for audio recording. Then same thing for Windows PC. Invest in latest CPU, maximum RAM size for your motherboard and lots of hard disk space. I won’t go into details as I have already write a tutorial on this: Computer specifications for professional audio recording purposes.

2. Second, do not forget the sound card. This is the most important piece of hardware in your computer for recording. Creative Audigy sound cards is enough but if you can buy more expensive professional sound cards the better (if you have a big budget).

3. Buy a mixer, small is enough for home studio applications. I personally use Xenyx 502 mixer. Read some tips for buying a mixer for home studio applications.

4. Configure both your mixer and computer together by connecting the audio cables. Read some very important ways to record sound to your computer.

There are a lot of options available, select those that is easy for you to setup technically. Currently, I find this configuration easy for beginners:

5. Secure additional hardware and music instruments. You should have your own instruments like guitars, keyboards, cables, effects,etc. Then try to purchase a microphone stand. It is very helpful for vocals. Other things you need is a decent microphone. It does not need to be super expensive. At home, I even prefer Shure SM 58 or SM 57 because they are affordable yet great in performance..

6. Now that the hardware has been configured, it is the time to focus on your software. Try to buy a decent recording software, master it, love it and do not ever switch to other software. This is my advice, mastery in your software is a very important asset or skills to produce great recordings even at home. Switching to other software or even hardware can decrease your effectiveness in producing great sounding material. It is because you cannot attain mastery in a specific set of recording software unless you devote a lot of time using it. Bear in mind that these recording software has a lot of plug-ins and effects that you need to be an expert/familiar with; in order to tweak your recordings to sound great.

Advice on beginners : It is not about using hi-tech expensive recording gears, it is all about your “EARS” and years of experiences using your own original gears (it does not need to be expensive).

7. Configure your software to accept recorded sound from your hardware. It all depends on your software. Try to read the manual as it provides tips in configuring it for best results.

8. Bookmark this website, you can learn a lot of ways about home recording , mixing and mastering. Start slow but learn well. Rushing too fast makes you less effective, because recording is all about “capturing the best performances”- more of trial and error strategy, professionals even do this. It takes patience.