Home Studio-Building a Home Studio
Posted: Wednesday, July 14, 2010
by James Bond
http://www.jamesandjanka.com/
Building A Home Recording Studio
Once an artist decides they wish to have the ability to work on and record tracks at home some decisions need to be made. One of the first questions the artist must ask themselves is what level product do they wish to produce in this space? As an artist will your home studio be used to flush out ideas that you will take to another studio to record and master properly? If your answer is yes than there are several inexpensive options available to you.
Here is a song recorded on a Tascam 414
This song was recorded in Saudi Arabia in a barracks room. On these types of recorders you have 4 tracks. On one track I recorded the instrumental (drums, bells, melody) that I created on a Ensoniq ASR-X. The next track I recorded my friend Ron on Guitar. I then recorded my vocals on a third track. I probably bounced (copied) the instrumental and guitar on the remaining track, which freed up two more tracks for overdubbed vocals and another guitar track.
The next type of portable studio is the digital stand-alone studio. I have used the Boss Br-1180. The advantage to this machine is the portability, and clarity. The drawback is the price. You have more tracks at your disposal and lose less if you chose to bounce tracks because you are dealing with a digital format. I have the model with includes a cd drive which allows you to mix down your tracks internally. Look around for other digital multi-track recorders.
Here is a song recorded on the BR-1180
These machines are great but present some challenges in collaborating with other artist. The instrumental for this song was made in New York and emailed to California. Then the the audio was imported using audio cables which lost some the sound quality. Our next choice solves this issue.
Finally the to me the best choice is a multi-track recorder computer based program.
I have used Cool Edit and Protools. These recording programs allow you to import digital files as waves or mp3s so no quality is lost transferring files. You also have the option of recording audio real time which your will be doing most likely with your voice. They can be as portable as the other choices when installed on a laptop and the software allows for almost unlimited modification of sounds and editing. Check around for some muli-track recording software some times you can find demo versions or free limited versions.
Here is a song recorded in Cool Edit.
Good luck and feel free to contact me with any questions.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)James, is this the article you emailed me about? Whew, there's so much I don't understand, but I do get the concept of a portable studio, so that's a start! Sounds v. exciting to me. I love the idea of editing and mixing.I can also make a list of all the things in your article I don't understand, and go and look them up, so that's a big help, too.Thanks, great article.Feel free to ask me anything and I will help as much as I can. I know recording helps me a lot and I am actually working on a cd now with friends from Florida, and the U.K. Take a look online at the two pieces of equipment and the cool edit software. I think in the end you will go the software route. I don't know any good communities online anymore but their has to be some.I was a member of Canibusworld back in the day. Canibus was a rapper who was famous for his "battle" with LLCoolJ and this site was composed of fans of his style and music. We would work on songs together or post our songs for feedback and such. It was a lot like searchwarp and a great community.I bet you can find a group like that, that has people making songs in you genre. What do you sing?Thanks, you're very generous.
Jazz standards. Stuff sung by Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan. Am starting to enjoy blues from same era, also. I like singing some Eric Clapton songs, too!The community sounds fantastic. It's weird, I'm so intimidated by other musicians, and have never had any kind of community interaction with my music, except when I was a kid for a while and in a choir. I'm going to look at that equipment and software, it looks like a good way forward. Thanks so much.something like this would be promising www (dot) indabamusic(dot)com. It looks like they may even have software built into the forum so maybe you will only need a mic. My experience with a similar site is people there just like music. You have your mix like any other group of people. Some down to earth, some classically trained, some very passionate and helpful. I think you should check it out.
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