i honestly dont know where to start :(

S

Swdrummer

New member
My band has been looking around at studios and its too mind boggling. We decided we would rather consider home recording. unfortunately our gear, well, its not the best (sigh).


just some advice on what to get that wouldnt be super costly would be very appreciated



thanks

Swdrummer
 
love the sig btw, and i live in the Dayton Ohio area, and ive looked, all the things they offer is too overwhelming to a noob lol
 
A lot of people suggest reaper but am not familiar with it it is free and you purchase it if you like it $40. But you need a whole slue of mics to record your band what do you have now?
 
well we have the Four of us.

David-Vocals/rythym guitar
Kyle -Lead Guitar
Drok -Bass
and me- drums(duh)

as for gear:

peavey 4ch P.A from 'back in the day' (hand me down from dad)
2 mics (eh on quality)
the standard guitar amps
da bass amp
and the drums....

thats it....

and thats why i dont know where to start
 
Well, unless someone in the band has a good knowledge of recording gear and how it works I would take the Studio road.
You could spend a lot of money on gear, spend a lot of time learning how it works, then mess around trying to get the sounds you want and wondering why it does not sound like you favourite bands CD's.

This is my advice, find a friendly mid priced studio in your area where there is enough room to track drums, Bass and guitars live (the bass and guitars can be replaced later if need be, and this is how you are used to playing together when rehearsing), plan to record 1 or 2 songs in say a 10 hour day, don't expect too much from yourselves or the studio (as 10 hours is not enough time for 2 world class songs, except if you were the Beatles ha ha), have fun recording, learn from your mistakes and gain as much experience as you can from the process. Play the results to your friends and use it as a demo for future work.

You will find the next time you will get an even better result from what you learned and then aim to record material to release to the public.

Cheers

Alan.
 
10 hours for $400, and there is 4 of you = $100 each, could be the best $100 each that you ever spent, it is amazing what a recording session does in sorting out a band and improving the sound and playing ability.

Come on, how can you actually waste $100 each? You could spend that in 1 night taking your lady to a nice restaurant.

I have bands come in to my studio and lock it out for a whole week (they get a good rate) to use for preproduction recording and sort problems out before they go to the mega dollar studio that the label wants them to use.

Cheers

Alan.

p.s, And don't try to do too many songs.
 
Just make sure your all well rehearsed as a band and then the solos, lead vocals and back up vocals, know exactly what to do before you go in cause at the studio is not the time to figure things out.
 
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:

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...)
 
moresound and witzendoz are giving you good advice.

First ...... you'll easily spend $400 just getting started on a home studio and it'll be at least a year of learning (probably more) before you're able to get anything professional sounding.

For later on TimOBrien's post is a good source on how to get started learning for the future.
 
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