Make Tim a sticky

[grimtraveller]

My obligatory standard reply-for-newbies that I keep in Wordpad so this is just a paste (I don't want to re-type this all the time):

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/04...mp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0470385421
(Wish I'd had that when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)
You can also pick up this book in most any Borders or Barnes&Noble in the Music Books section!

Another good one is: Recording Guitar and Bass by Huw Price
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Gui...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215734124&sr=1-1
(I got my copy at a place called Half-Price Books for $6!!)

And you can get a FREE subscription to TapeOp magazine at www.tapeop.com

Barnes&Noble or Borders are great places to start --- they have recording books and you can go get a snack or coffee and read them for FREE! Don't pass by a good recording book --- this is a VERY technical hobby and you REALLY want to start a reference library!!!

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics and have good tips:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/computermusic?entry=free_beginner_pdfs
http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/tips-techniques/168409-tips-techniques.html

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

Still using a built-in soundcard?? Unfortunately, those are made with less than $1 worth of chips for beeps, boops and light gaming (not to mention cheapness for the manufacturer) and NOT quality music production.
#1 Rule of Recording: You MUST replace the built-in soundcard.
Here's a good guide and tested suggestions that WORK: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm
(you'll want to bookmark and read through all of Tweak's Guide while you're there...)
Another good article: Choosing an audio interface - http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep08/articles/audiointerfaces.htm


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

Sony ACID Express (free 10-track sequencer): http://www.acidplanet.com/downloads/xpress/
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net (multi-track with VST support)
Wavosaur: http://www.wavosaur.com/ (a stereo audio file editor with VST support)\
Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/
Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com/smm

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/ (It's $50 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)
I use Reaper and highly reccomend it...

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($25) 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 FREE studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (November 2006 they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150, November 2007-on the racks Dec in the US- they gave away SamplitudeV9SE and July 2009 issue they put out Samplitude10SE. FREE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)

I may live to regret this but I'd like to propose Tim O'Brien's obligatory answer to Newbies as a 'sticky'. I've no idea how these things are decided and if I'm treading on any toes or trampling etiquette, I apologize.
Yes, there may be one or two questionable points in there and yes, not everything he points out will have 100% agreement. But it is a very useful start point that may go some way towards cutting down the onslaught of repeat requests that can really dog the Newbies page and it may encourage some of those newbies to do some of their own in depth research so that if they do end up with questions, they just might be a little more, um, focused and specific.
Seeing it crop up time and again, it's like getting the story of Little Red Riding Hood read to you every night ! Which is no disrespect to Tim; I think it's a good post.

If, on the other hand, this is just a lame idea, please ignore it so it goes away very quickly and hopefully, my embarrassment at such a resoundingly public defeat will do likewise !!

 

[Steenamaroo]

+1 for that.


if i had a £ for every time i'd seen it...


that's not a bad thing though. it's always appropriate, and i think, very helpful.

 

[moresound]

Good for you Grim ....you read the whole thing? That's a novel in it's own.

 

[grimtraveller]

You read the whole thing? That's a novel in it's own.

I wish they'd had it in the library I was made by my Mum to join as a kid all them years ago !

 

[guitaristic]

+1 to that too. And give it a catchy title so all newcomers will be irresistibly drawn to it!

 

[The Cancers]

It's already a sticky.
It's like the fourth or fifth post on the ultimate newbies thread.
If someone new can't be bothered to click on that and scroll down half a page, I doubt they're gonna take the time to read through all of the excellent information on offer in Tim's post.

That being said, +1 to everybody new reading it.

 

[RAMI]

+1 to everybody new reading it.

....BEFORE they post.

 

[grimtraveller]

It's already a sticky.
It's like the fourth or fifth post on the ultimate newbies thread.
If someone new can't be bothered to click on that and scroll down half a page, I doubt they're gonna take the time to read through all of the excellent information on offer in Tim's post.

You're absolutely right. The only thing is, I don't know if I'm the only one but I find the ultimate newbies thread a little confusing. The intention of the thread is given three posts in by msHilarious but there appear to be answers to points already made throughout the thread so it's not like a conventional FAQ. And because the first post is about compression, a newbie may feel they've got that covered and not necesarilly want to read what they may think are loads of replies to that subject.
I'm with you on this, but then, I like reading what people have to say. Even the long posts.

 

[Jim Lad]

It wouldn't work.
That's why Tim has to post it so often.
New folks do not read the stickies.
If you made it a sticky, Tim would have to come up with a new one.
Maybe we should all start directing newcomers to the stickies instead of Tweakheadz but we would pretty well all have to insist on it.

 

[grimtraveller]

It wouldn't work.
That's why Tim has to post it so often.
New folks do not read the stickies.
If you made it a sticky, Tim would have to come up with a new one.
Maybe we should all start directing newcomers to the stickies instead of Tweakheadz but we would pretty well all have to insist on it.

But there's only two. Super's one is excellent but how much it lends itself to reply from a n0ob is hard to say. But to date it's had 3256 viewings and 77 replies. We don't know how many would've been n0obs. And the other one I commented on earlier.
Tim's post has landed on so many threads. But say, if someone new came on today for the first time, there's more than a good chance that they may never see it as it drifts down the sands of 'archive-anity'. True, if it was a sticky it might well be ignored. I'm not idealistic enough to believe it would solve all the problems of repeat questions every day. But at least it would be there, staring one in the face whenever they hit the newbie page.

 

[Jim Lad]

Then what I would suggest is that Tim (who has no say in the matter) construct an introduction thread, similar to the one he has cut and paste, so often and that we direct newcomers to it.
But it really won't change anything.

 

[Armistice]

I think if the Ultimate Newbies FAQ thread cut straight to the chase it would be more successful, even though Tim's post is about 4 down... perhaps they dont' see it.

And if you entitled the post - "Don't ask anything until you read this - Ultimate Newbies FAQ" we might have more luck...

Which is what grimT's proposing, I imagine...

And it would require a new thread, and to ditch the old one.

On the other hand, I'm getting really good at recommending USB interfaces, even though I've never owned one...

grim - True-Eurt and Chili seem to be the active mods around here, I'm sure they can engineer it, perhaps try a PM to them suggesting it?

 

[Steenamaroo]

maybe it's a losing battle..

there are two kinds of noob right?

noobs like we all were, who wanted to learn, and for that reason, were happy to read and only ask questions when we were really stuck.

then there's the "how do i make a pro album for $50?" noob.

It doesn't matter what stickys are where. Some bell end is still going to ask a stupid question, or a question that's been answered a million times.



It doesn't bother me, but if admin deem this to be an issue, maybe you should implement a test quiz. i've seen it on other forums, where you can't post until you get 10/10 on the test, but in fairness, i think it was more to prove that you are human.

 

[Armistice]

then there's the "how do i make a pro album for $50?" noob.

Yeah, how out of touch are they?

Everyone knows it only costs $39.95 these days...

 

[mshilarious]

The basic problem is that the homepage (you remember that, right?) is about 12 years out of date. The admins are supposedly working on a rewrite. Let's hope that day comes soon . . .

 

[guitaristic]

I agree. When I was new here, I was happy to be able to click on something entitled "The Ultimate Newbie FAQ Thread"....but aside from a tweakheadz link and TimOBrien's regular post, there were very scarce pickings.

PLUS the first thing in there being a tutorial on compression kinda freaked me out. Why is that even in there? Definitely shouldn't be the first thing newbs see.

 

[Jim Lad]

I'm not sure that I've actually looked at the home page.

 

[exhnozoaa]

PLUS the first thing in there being a tutorial on compression kinda freaked me out. Why is that even in there? Definitely shouldn't be the first thing newbs see.

I always wondered what compression was until I read that thread...
But I agree that it doesn't exactly belong where it is.

Honestly, I don't really like Tim's standard reply. I am just a noob, but I don't really agree with it. I don't think the first thing you need to do is buy and read a bunch of books. I think it's more useful when people partially answer the person's question and say to look around the forum more. Reading people's experiences with home recording and the help they have received somehow seems more helpful than a recording textbook.

I think a better starting thread would be one that early on splits off those who just want to rap to some background music, those who want to record acoustic guitar + vocals, those who just want to record electric guitar, those who want to record their band, etc. I know there could be endless categories, but I think we could reasonably split it up into a few common ones, and I think we need to. The information that a person-who-wants-to-sound-like-T-Pain-for-less-than-$50 needs is different than the information a person-who-wants-to-record-vocals-and-guitar-with-no-effects-for-up-to-$1000 needs.

 

[FLYcrash]

Haha, I've already quoted Tim at least once...

Yeah, stickies don't work so much because of the fun of joining a forum and seeing your own post published there. That's possibly the main reason to come here rather than to Google your way to a solution (which works as long as you know which words to search for).

One thing that would be immensely useful, though...a thread full of short posts where people describe minimal recording setups (in full detail, which computer and OS, every cable, etc.) and the application in which that setup has been successfully deployed. Maybe put the application in the subject line of each post. The Tweakheadz "21 Rigs" guide is great, but it's got so much analysis and discussion that it's a little overwhelming. The direction I've decided to explore thanks to HR - a handheld digital recorder, potentially with external mics, to record an acoustic instrumental performance - is an appendix to Rig #20 on Page 6. I would guess that this setup would be somewhere on page 1 of such a thread.

 

[mshilarious]

Well here's the thing, I can't reorganize a sticky, posts will appear in chronological order. If someone wants to repost stuff in a better order (do it on this thread please), I can move those posts to the sticky, and delete the stuff that's in the wrong order.