How to make your own “unplugged” vocal-acoustic guitar demo at home?

This is a detailed tutorial for singer/songwriters planning to record their own demo at home. This is an “inexpensive” solution particularly aimed at producing an “unplugged” acoustic version of your song using your own personal computer. The PCI soundcard method will not provide that “perfect” or “professional” studio sound but at least having a good sounding acoustic guitar demo of your song. The external audio interface method is more recommended although it requires you to buy a new audio interface (USB or Firewire) for your PC.

Method #1: Using a PCI soundcard and a small mixer

What do you need?

It is not recommended that you buy what is being used by this tutorial. If you already have your own gears, such as having your own set of microphones, guitars, recording software, etc. Then by all means use them.

1.) At least Pentium 4 Windows PC/Mac with a PCI Soundcard , 2GB RAM, 500GB hard drive. The more powerful the better. It is also OK to record through a laptop. It is not recommended to use onboard sound card, it is not reliable. This tutorial is using Creative Audigy Soundcard, although not a professional recording soundcard but it’s doable.

2.) Recording software. There are lots of options to choose. If you want free software, you can use REAPER or Audacity. This tutorial is using Adobe Audition 1.5.

3.) A small mixer such as Behringer Xenyx 502 mixer. This is an inexpensive mixer that cost less than $40.
4.) Acoustic guitar with active pickup that allows you to adjust the volume or gain.
5.) Guitar tuner (Matrix SR-1060 Digital Chromatic Guitar and Bass Tuner) -optional.
6.) Computer speakers (this tutorial is using Altec Lansing ATP4), the bigger sound output the better.
7.) Any dynamic microphone. Shure SM-58 is highly recommended although you can use your existing microphone. Having a microphone stand is highly recommended.
8.) Microphone cable with XRL output (for low noise).
9.) Guitar cable
10.) Mixer output to Sound card stereo cable.

Setup the connection

a.) Mount the microphone in stand. Avoid feedback. Do not let the computer speaker sound to go into the microphones. You can do this by facing the microphone towards you and not to the computer/speakers. Put some isolation to prevent this problem. And make the recording environment as quiet as possible.

b.) Connect the dynamic microphone to MIC preamp input in Behringer mixer. Enclosed in a yellow box below is the microphone preamp input (XLR type) of the mixer where you will be connecting your microphone output:

IMPORTANT: You cannot use this preamp input if the microphone cable is not having an XLR output. If this is the case, you need to buy a microphone cable with this type of output.

If you really don’t have one, you can still connect the dynamic microphone to the any of the line inputs (using TS plug instead of XLR) and not to the preamp XLR inputs. But this will add some noise to the mix.

c.) Connect the mixer main output to the sound card line input. The mixer output should be stereo (left and right channels are used and then connected to your sound card stereo line inputs). Make sure to use clean sounding cables. And connect the guitar cable to any of the line inputs.

d.) Turn on the Behringer mixer. (Tip: Turn off the computer speakers before turning on the mixer to prevent possible loud noise).

Prepare the acoustic guitar and microphone levels

1.) Tune the guitar to desired pitch (e.g. standard tuning E-A-D-G-B-E). Use a guitar tuner. If you don’t have one, make sure that the guitar is well-tuned. Show screenshot:

2.) Connect the guitar cable to Line 2/3 Input-Right channel of Behringer mixer.(see screenshot below)

3.) Adjust the Behringer mixer, below are the final settings implemented:

Main mix: 30% (maximum setting is 100% and minimum is 0%)
Line 1 level: 50%-65% (for microphone)
Trim: 35%
EQ: All flat (unadjusted)
Pan: Center
Line 2/3 level: 45% (for guitars)

4.) Adjust the sound card mixer input. This is bundled with the sound card software inside your operating system. Below are the final settings implemented:

Important: Set the recording to “microphone”, un-mute the microphone source and then set the volume levels according to the screenshot above.

3.) Open your recording software. This tutorial is using Adobe Audition. Go to Options – Device Properties. Make sure the “Wave Out” is set to the correct soundcard, and then “Use this device in Edit view” is checked. For other recording software, you simply need to configure your software to record using that device (in this example it’s SoundBlaster Audigy as the sound device).Screenshot:

Also ensure “Wave In” is set to the correct soundcard and “Use this device in Edit View” has been checked. Screenshot:

4.) Try playing the guitar and sing to the microphone. Have an assistant to check the volumes that are coming out from your computer speaker. The vocal and guitar volume should balance. This means that your vocal is not drowned with the guitar or the other way around. Tweak the mixer or the soundcard software mixer if necessary. Make sure there is no clipping on the output. Read more about clipping in this tutorial.The above settings shown in the previous screenshot are the one used to balance my testing.

The actual vocal/guitar recording

Since this is a live recording and not a multi-track type of recording, the vocal and guitars are recorded simultaneously.

1.) Go to Edit view of Adobe Audition. Go to File – New; then under “New Waveform”. Select “44100” for Sample rate, “Stereo” for Channels and 24-bits OR 32-bit (float) for Resolution. Selecting a sample rate to be used for recording is very easy to do for other recording software. The most important is to record at 24-bits. Make sure you don’t miss this important setting.

Read this tutorial why you should be recording at 24-bits. Some recording software doesn’t want you to record directly at 24-bits (such as Adobe Audition). But it will only provide an option for 32-bit float, so use that. Basically 32-bit float has the same resolution as 24-bits.

In other recording software, there is always a 24-bit option that you should be using.

2.) If you are ready, let your assistant hit the recording button. Start the recording. Give a “3 seconds dead air” before start playing. This will add some silence at the beginning which is recommended. If you commit a mistake, do not afraid to re-take. It’s normal. Of course it’s best to practice/master your song performance before doing any recording session, it saves a lot of time.

3.) Hit the stop button after all recording has been made.

Editing the Recording

Editing is important to remove some unnecessary parts like noise and optimize the volume. Below are some steps that you can try:

1.) Load up the wave in Editor view.
2.) Go to Edit – Select Entire wave.
3.) Go to Effects – Amplify/Fade
4.) Click “Calculate Now” then hit OK. This will normalize the wave for optimal volume.

Basically what you are doing in Steps 1 to 4 is to normalize the volume. Normalization is a process of maximizing the volume without clipping. Most recording software includes this feature. The important thing is that after normalizing the volume, make sure there is no part of the recorded waveform that hits above 0dB. You should also listen to the results and make sure there are no audible distortion on it.

5.) Noise reduction is optional. I would not recommend it. If you do, you can read the following tutorial:

a.) Troubleshooting the sources of noise in recordings.

6.) Put a small reverb to add some ambience. Go to Effects – Delay Effects – Studio Reverb. Select “Room Ambience 2”. And then reduce “high frequency cut” to “3000”. Click OK. Screenshot below:

Most recording software do include some reverb effect, make sure you select “Plate” type of reverb and suitable for vocals.

7.) This step is optional. Since reverb will reduce the volume of the wave, go to Effects – Amplitude – Amplify/Fade – Click “Calculate Now” again then hit OK. This will “normalize” the volume back to its previous level.

Dithering

Since you are recording at 32-bit float or 24-bits, you will need dither it to 16-bit format in preparation to MP3 or CD audio distribution.

1.) Save your work.
2.) Use Voxengo R8brain sample rate converter to do this job.
3.) Launch Voxengo and do the following settings:

a.) Resample to: 44100Hz (unchanged).
b.) Output bit depth: 16-bits.
c.) Quality – highest possible.

4.) Click “Perform r8brain” to start. This will convert 24-bits/44.1Khz to 16-bits/44.1KHz.
5.) The resulting format is now in 16-bits/44.1KHz. You can now convert it to MP3, etc. Listen to the completed sample track implemented using the above steps (from start to finish):

Song Credits:
Jeanine Maningo – vocal/guitar performance
Song title: “Feel so Close”

Note: If you listen closely, there are some slight hiss in the recordings primarily because it is not using balanced cables when connecting the microphones to the mixer (not using the preamp input).

Method #2: Using an external audio interface

What Gears do you need?

1 External Audio Interface (USB or Firewire) = with at least two pre-amp inputs. This audio interfaces should be capable to perform multi-channel recording and will be using ASIO drivers (most audio interface drivers used in home recording are now using ASIO).

1 Professional Vocal Condenser microphone = you will be using this to record your vocals. You can find a lot of lower cost microphones with superb capturing quality.

1 Acoustic guitar with pickup = make sure the pickup is of high quality and does not introduce noise. You can check the guitar sound thoroughly with the pickup before buying one in the music store.

1 quality guitar cable = any brand will do, a shielded cable is better for lower noise.

1 DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) = there are lots of cheap solutions out there that can bring outstanding results at less than $100 licensing fee. Do not use free solutions such as Audacity.

1 working PC configured as recording studio = if you do not have a recording studio in your home, read this tutorial on how to easily convert your pc into a recording studio.

Case Example/Illustration

In this tutorial, a sample short 15 second acoustic guitar demo of the song “Forever and for Always” (written by Shania Twain and Mutt Lange) will be created. The following are the gears used:

Audio interface: Focusrite Saffire Pro 40
Vocal microphone: Rode NT1A
Acoustic guitar: Custom nylon guitar with pickup
Digital audio workstation: Reaper
Operating system: Windows XP 32-bit

Step1.) Connect the vocal condenser microphone to your audio interface input 1. Use the manufacturer supplied microphone cables which should be XLR from end to end.

Step2.) Connect a standard guitar cable to the acoustic guitar and connect one end to the audio interface preamp input 2.

Step3.) Position the vocal condenser microphone around 6 inches to 12 inches from the singer. Use a pop screen such as shown below:

Step4.) Turn on the phantom power in your audio interface. Vocal condenser microphones need phantom power to work.

Step5.) If the audio interface has some features that can recognize instrument level signals (like Saffire Pro 40), enable them. If you are not familiar with instrument level signals; read this post: Difference between line, instrument and microphone levels.

Step6.) In Reaper DAW; insert two new tracks. Configure the first track to receive the recorded audio from audio interface input 1 (vocals) while configure the second track to received audio from audio interface input 2 (acoustic guitar). This is how it looks like:

IP 1 stands for the audio interface input 1 while IP 2 for the second input.

Step7.) Set for optimal recording levels, it is suggested you understand the concept of proper gain staging.

Typically you would be aiming around -16dB to -6dB max. Some audio interface has some level meters so use them.

Step8.) Play your guitar and test your vocals. You should be able to hear them in your studio monitors. Look at the level meters to make sure you set it right (not clipping).

Step9.) Turn your studio monitor off so that it won’t interfere with the recording and make sure the entire recording environment (your room) is quite to avoid some leakage.

Step10.) Start the recording (record at 24-bit/48KHz). In this, you are recording the demo song live. But there are two waveforms (one for vocals and one for guitar) that should be capture in your recording software (in this case Reaper), see the screenshot below:

At this point, you have completely recorded the demo. Sample:

Mixing Acoustic Guitar and Vocals

Once recorded, you can now mix them. Since mixing itself is a very broad topic, you can refer to the following tutorials:

Mixing vocals – tips on processing vocals in the mix.
How to add reverb on vocals -moderation is the key.
Clean guitar mixing – techniques on applying effects on guitar in the mix.
Panning guitars – how to place guitar strategically in the mix for best results.
Applying EQ on guitar – how to make your guitar sound clear.

Some mastering suggestions

Mastering is simply bringing up the volume of your track. It is also a very broad topic by itself. For details, I encourage you to read this post. It uses REAPER as the software for audio mastering.

Content last updated on June 15, 2014