Home Recording Books

J

johnnynoony

New member
I just purchased a Yamaha AW4416 hard disc recorder and was wondering if anyone could fill me in on some good books to help me with this recording thing. The learning curve is pretty big for someone with limited recording experience. Thanks for your time.
 
About general recording issues, just do a search on this forum: there are tons of books recommended. (I know I asked the same question you ask right now several montrhs ago, and also back then everyone told me : 'do a search!!':)). And they were right, there are lots of threads dedicated to that stuff.

For your Yamaha, you'll have to count on your manual or on help from websites. Those working stations have some strange habits, so just try it, and post questions on this board.

greetz

Brett
 
"Home Recording" by Peter McIan is a bit dated (digitally speaking), but covers basics quite well. Good luck!

Bob
 
Hey man, go to artistpro.com and view their extensive collection of
books on recording etc.!! You are bound to find that RIGHT book to suit you!
If that doesn't work, feel free to ask as many questions here as you can!!
 
Johnny

Without meaning to be flip, the best book to help with the AW4416 is the user manual(s) - I presume you have the three of them (or 12 if you got them in 4 languages like I did!). The tutorial section will take you through the mixing part of it, and the Operation Guide will show you elementary recording - from there it pretty much depends upon what you want to do with it. Go through this one page by page and actually do everything and it all starts to fall together. The Reference Manual is useful too - it goes through every screen and tells you what's what. A useful exercise, even if you don't immediately understand what it all is - you'll remember that you saw it at some stage in the future when it starts falling into place.

The biggest problem I've had to date is the logical separation of the mixer and recorder sections of it - still gets me. And signal routing. If this is your first all-in-one machine then you have a pretty steep learning curve ahead of you - it's a complex beast. My advice would be to spend at least a month recording crap just for the experience of learning how the damn thing works, before trying to seriously record music that you care about.

There are a couple of user forums at http://www.aw4416user.com (run by Wink, who is very helpful) and also at http://socialentropy.com/aw4416/ (run by Ripe, who is also very helpful - a particular poster on this second site can be less than helpful sometimes, you'll figure him out pretty quickly, I'm sure).

In terms of general recording books, I've taken to hanging round in bookshops doing a lot of reading as I don't like forking out $ for books containing information I already know 95% of - just a matter of finding the 5% new info - just start reading

Hope that helps

Cheers

David
 
I've found Peter McIan's 'Using your portable studio' very useful despite being dated. He's prepared to be more specific than many writers of books for home recordists. e.g. he includes EQ settings for drums, guitars, bass, etc., to get you started. He compresses everything at 4:1 though.
 
Hey Guys,
Thanks for the replies and David I already joined that AW4416 yahoo user group and the guys there have been so helpful. I also ordered both of those Home Recording books that were mentioned. I have to stop feeling so intimidated by this machine and get my hands dirty- kind of like what you said- trial and error. I have a pretty big learning curve ahead of me though but I'm prepared to do what it takes. Thanks again for all the info.
 
Another tip - do google searches on keywords and you'll find all sorts of useful info on the Web, some of it copied directly from the books you can buy - I've downloaded and printed hundreds of pages of general information about recording from what's out there - I don't always understand all of it, but every now and then you get another bit of the puzzle and go "Ahah!" and the light bulb clicks on over your head.

Then you go and try to do it on the AW4416 - for instance I just figured out what an EXPANDER actually does after reading something yesterday, even though I knew the machine had them in the channel dynamics section and had read the manual - when you read the same thing three or four times in different places it really starts to sink in.

Good luck, see you round the boards I guess, still in the newbie class myself!

David
 
Compressing everything at 4:1? Well, there was a concensus on this board a while back that final mixes should never be compressed at more than 2:1. Compression should be adjusted to suit the track or mix. McIan says this, to be fair - his settings are only starting points. It's just by always giving a setting of 4:1 he could give the impression that this is the setting you should always use.

BTW if you've ordered both books by Peter McIan you're going to find a lot of repetition of material. You might want to send one of them back. I have them both myself but I've only ever used one of them.
 
Don't forget that it was McIan who engineered the first Men At Work LP, and his use of gated reverb and echo was first rate! I consider his book(s) the Bible.
 
I found that a whole lot of this recording at home stuff is litterally trial and error. Keep in mind that every guy here has a different rig...... some worth hundreds of thuosands, some of us with rubbish. As well the whole sound scheme that each dude shoots for makes a difference. So all the "how to" advice from forums, books and videos only goes so far. I happened upon a couple pocket sized books by Paul White that are part of a series called "Basic". He did not so much say plug this into that and you get a special result..... but he did do an excellent job of explaining what each gizmo and gaget is and does.
Kind of saved the proverbial day for me. I kept reading in here that "you really gotta get a....." and all the cool kids have one. But I was sort of clueless what it did.
 
Peter McIan!

"THe Musician's Gujide to Home Recording" was just added to my collection of home recording books yeasterday. Yes, it's a bit dated, but as someone else here said, it's got incredibly useful information. Unlike other authors, McIan isn't afraid to say "Try doing it like this." There isn't much in there about digital, but the concepts and techniques he covers are pretty much timeless, in my opinion. Plus, there's over 300 pages in this BIG book, which sells for about $19.99.

artist-pro.com is also a tremendous resource. Amazon.com also has a ton of home recording books.

Bruce in Korea
 
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