Where do I begin?

[L-Boz]

I'm wanting to get into music recording, but I don't know what I need. I'm looking for something that would let me record 3 or 4 instruments separately then combine them into one song on a computer then allow me to burn the song to CD-R. If possible, I would like to get only entry level equipment that doesn't cost a ton. I don't need professional quality stuff, just something to fool around with mainly. What recording method should I use? what equipment do I need?

 

[gtrman_66]

Lots of good info. on starting out here .

 

[Dani Pace]

Welcome to "the answer place." You are off to a good start by asking for advice before jumping into something. Obviously you have a computer, you probably have a sound card and CD burning with it. Add a mic and some recording software and you are ready to begin. Start simple and build on expreience. There are a number of things you will want to add in time, better sound card, mics, preamp, mixer and maybe a few more things but save worring about them for later when you decide you need them. For now you can download trial or free recording software to get a good idea of how computer recording works, after you try a few you can decide which works best for you and purchase the full version. A simple, free, and safe download to learn the basics of PC recording you might want to try is Audacity, it's not too complex to use and is a fairly good recorder/mixer program for learning how to record and mix and it works fairly well with even the most basic soundcard, and all it costs is a couple of minutes to download. After you try a couple of things I'm sure you will have more questions of a more specific nature, post them here and someone will help you work through them, so far I haven't been able to stump the experts who come here. Try things, experiment and ask, thats how we all learned. Once again, welcome aboard and keep posting, we are all still learning and shareing what we learn.

 

[Red Dog Studios]

Recording on the computer can work very well and open you up to hundreds of tools that you can use, but it can also be a really bad head ache if your not sure of what your doing. what computer do u plan on using?? are you planing on buying a gomputer for this? or are you going to use "the house computer"?? cause recording on computers takes ALOT of space and you need to make sure your computer meets all the system requirments before you try recording on the computer.

Unless you absolutley want to record on the computer, i would suggest buying a litte 4 track recorder ($100-$300), a cd player/burning deck from best buy or circuit city ($100-$200) and a few good mics ( $30 or so) and work with that. then as you get more into recording, move up to better equpment.

but like i said that's just my suggestion, you might now more about computers than i do, so just make sure you know what your gettin into with computer recording cause u don't want to spend more money then you have to fixing problems on your computer. i'll be happy to anwser anymore questions you have if you need me to. good luck man.