Home Studio Advice

dnmwales

New member
Hello! I'm in the process of setting up a home studio. At present I have a Rode NT1A mic connected to a Behringer 1002fx mixer which then connects via line in to my PC. Everything works fine and I've been using Audacity just to find my feet and record a few basic tracks but have now taken the step into Studio One Prime. It's obviously taking a bit of time to get my head around everything but so far I'm enjoying the learning experience of it. My question is, when recording should I be isolating my vocals from the backing track in order to mix later and if so how do I go around this? I have headphones connected to the mixer and can hear both the backing track and my voice and at the moment when I'm recording it's creating a track which contains both the music and my vocals. Do I need to be isolating the vocals at all or is my current setup adequate? Any advice and help would be really appreciated. Thank you!
 
Hello and welcome! A couple things here. First.......it's highly unlikely that you would want to proceed the way you are currently recording. You can of course........but that will limit your options later. Yes.....you will almost certainly want to keep all tracks separate from each other prior to the final mixdown and or mastering stage. It seems that you already know or suspect that. As well......you might want to think about getting an audio interface. That could make your recording process much easier....especially since you are going to be using Studio One. They're not terribly expensive. Why don't you tell us a bit more about your overall recording goals and a bit more about the equipment you currently have......especially your PC and any mics etc.

You're in the very early stages of learning how to record and mix and produce....and as a result......you're going to have lots of questions. Ask away!!! Fortunately.......you're in the right place to get the BEST answers you'll need going forward.
 
Yes, you absolutely need to isolate the vocals so that you can apply whatever effects (compression, reverb, etc.) to the vocal track without muddying up the mix. I would recommend to get yourself an audio interface as opposed to using a mixer for this. The mixer may come in handy later but, for most of what we do, it's going to be one mono track at a time.
 
Welcome , I think the set up you have now is adequate , if all you're doing is getting a copy of an original song you want to record at a later date. If you get an interface with line in inputs , you can still use your mixer for eq and some preamping on the way in. Everything should be isolated on a different track. A decent pc, audio interface, studio monitors and you are good to go for quite a while. Best of luck .. mark
 
Back
Top