Home Studio Equipment

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danczwgunz

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I am interested in learnign how to record and waht to use; this thread should be where a musician can learn even if he doesn't know the 1st thing about recording. So, if anybody knows the steps and the equipment to get for recording, write it here: start from what a musician 1st needs, like maybe a computer, and what not.:confused::)
 
It's not easy being green, is it?:D

Anyway, let's start with the very basics. A musician needs to have an instrument to play and know how to play that instrument well enough to record. Let's start here. ;)
 
Wow.

I guess I'll take a stab at this.

First things first: what type of music do you play, what instrument, what is the quality of said playing and equipment? I only ask because at this stage of the game, if you are just starting out as a musician, you probably don't want to sink a ton of money into recording. You would be best due to get a decent microphone and something like a 4-track cassette recorder. If you are further along and are looking for expandability and high quality, there are numerous other options.

Also, what kind of budget either do you have or do you want to put into this? You may very well be better off not going the 'buy a computer, interface, software & microphones' route, as that is already a multi-thousand dollar venture.

Do you have some sort of computer now? What are the specs (processor type and speed, hard disk capacity, amount of memory/RAM, etc).

Once these questions are answered, we can stear you in some sort of narrower direction. Because right now we are basically running around in a field of infinite size, completely lost :) Hope to hear from ya soon.
 
Yea, tell me about it.

Although, I've really stopped caring about where people post things, since most don't pay any attention. Ah well - I'm here to help anyway.

Either way though, there is in fact, a Newbie area of the forum where you can ask exactly what was asked above. But don't double-post, as that is even more aggravating than posting in the wrong part of the forum - at least to me, anyway.
 
My obligatory standard reply that I keep in Wordpad:

First off, immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $15
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07...ce&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance
(Wish I'd had that when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/computermusic?entry=free_beginner_pdfs

21 Ways To Assemble a Recording Rig:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

Also Good Info:
http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.htm

Other recording books:
http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html


Plenty of software around to record for free to start out on:

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
(It's $40 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($20) and Harmony Assistant ($80) have the power of $600 notation packages - http://myriad-online.com
Demo you can try on the website.

And you can go out to any Barnes&Noble or Borders and pick up "Computer Music" magazine - they have a full studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (Last November, they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150 - pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)
 
My obligatory standard reply that I keep in Wordpad:

First off, immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:..........

great response. Ought to be a sticky. I hope the original question asker has stuck around long enough to read it.
 
:D
great response. Ought to be a sticky. I hope the original question asker has stuck around long enough to read it.

It really depends upon what your final requirement is medium etc.......
 
And don't ever write ish in lime green again. As soon as you did that, I could tell that you were going to say something that most people wouldn't entertain and bash you about. Surprisingly you didn't get bashed that much and got some responses, but for future reference in other forums, that ish is cute....and I don't mean in a good way.
 
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