Newbie Home Recording Questions

[Horsey]

Hello everyone!

I've been trolling this site for some time and now that I'm trying to build my own home studio, I have a couple of questions.

First off, I am recording on a Tascam 488 mkII 8-track which I just bought off eBay. I am in the process of recording some songs with live drums, bass, guitars and vocals. I don't really have any other equipment other than the instruments themselves, mics and a few effects (distortion, chorus and reverb). My only other home recording experience was recording simple guitar and vocal parts on a 4-track. Scratch tracks, I guess you'd say.

I know this is going to sound stupid, but what exactly is a "compressor" and do you think I need one? I know when I've recorded professionally in the past, that the engineer used it on the bass parts, but I'm not sure if it's something that's used more prominently in all aspects of recording. Also, what is a "pre-amp" and do you guys think I will need one for home recording? In general, besides a mixdown deck, is there anything glaring that I'm missing if want to record on this setup?

Boy do I wish I would have paid more attention during the time I've spent in the studio! Thanks a million for any help you guys can afford me. It is greatly appreciated. Have a great day!

HH

 

[dejacky]

Personally,
I recommend you just go digital, since you don't have to wait for tapes to rewind etc. But anyways, a compressor will compress sound dynamics by raising the sound level of really soft parts to match them closer to the sound level of really loud parts. You might need a preamp if you have a Condenser microphone.
These are those huge tube looking microphones that you see in studios. These require extra power (phantom power) to operate, so your mixer board or preamp provides this power. In the case of your 4-track, it doesn't have switcheable phantom power built-in, therefore you can only use Dynamic microphones (doesn't require phantom power and looks like the normal hand-held things). This is not a setback since I think all beginning and hobbyist recording persons should start off by mastering Dynamic microphones first. Condenser microphones tend to be more sensitive to picking up really low noises in more detail. This can be a bad thing too especially for amateur singers, etc. Everything I told you has exceptions and is not fact for fact, but this is the general idea. I hope it helped. btw, you don't really need a compressor, just be careful not to overload your signal so it doesn't distort.

-dejacky

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Welcome,

Good questions but you need to trawl the boards (use the search facility)

You'll find that the broader questions Like 'what's compression' or 'what's a pre amp' don't get too much of a response because regular users of the board know that the info's here somewhere already (usually duplicated in several threads).

I'll give you a starter for 10 tho':

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_articles/apr96/compression.html

All the best