Making high-quality music recordings can seem like a daunting task to a beginner, but if you have a little bit of talent and some cash on-hand, it doesn’t take as much as you might think. For years, I was stuck with old mono microphones that I had to plug into either a tape deck or my computer if I wanted to get any song ideas down before they vanished from my memory banks. The resulting quality was less than desired, and of course, if I wanted to make a really good recording of it, well, it wasn’t going to get much better than the demo.
When I got my first digital 4-track, a new world was opened up to me. With a small to medium learning curve, these devices are very capable of producing a clear recording. I use the fairly aged BOSS BR-532, which cost around $300. It is a 4-track but allows you to record 7 “virtual” tracks around each main one, giving you a total of 32. It has an input jack for a microphone and a guitar/bass, as well as a MIDI and foot pedal jack. There is also an optical out as well as regular audio input/output jacks, so no matter how you want to record, you are pretty much covered. There is a headphone jack in the front and you can run it via battery or AC power. I use it in lieu of expensive dedicated hardware in my PC and it works just fine.
I also upgraded the microphone. Mine was $50, and while that may seem steep, it is near the bottom of the mountain of equipment that is available. A high-end microphone with a built-in compressor might run at least $350. But for $50, you get a nice, sturdy piece of hardware that does a fine job of capturing the true sound of your voice or musical instrument. And don’t worry about any background noise or static you may pick up, because we can deal with that later.
The 4-track and microphone are pretty much all the hardware you will need, provided you have your instruments already. The BR-532 records on a memory card, so you will need a reader for that and some software to transfer the WAV files. Said software should be readily available from the makers of your recording device.
Once you have the files on your computer, how do you put them together to make a song? One option is Sony’s Acid Pro. The software costs around $300, and while there may be less expensive alternatives available, the accessibility and robustness of this product is worth it. You can easily add files, or tracks, to your project, and each one will have its own set of options to play around with. You can fade in/out, pan left/right speakers, and use a wide array of effects. You can reduce background noise, add echoes, reverb, and much more.
Personally, I use CoolEdit, now called Adobe Audition, to handle the editing of my raw sound files. I remove background noise, and reverb, and use compression on those tracks which have a wide range of volume. It is probably unnecessary to not use Acid Pro for these things, but I find it is easier with CoolEdit.
Ringo in a box
In addition, since I don’t have a drummer handy and don’t know how to play them myself, I use a drum program called DrumStation. It’s a very handy application that gives you eight tracks to create your beats. You can set your tempo and it comes with over a dozen different drum “kits.” You can even create your own custom kit and save it. When you have a beat you like, you can render it as a WAV file and easily add it to Acid Pro.
Acid Pro will allow you to render all your individual tracks into one WAV or MP3 file. If you have never done any of this before, take time to experiment with all the features. It can be overwhelming at first, but once you have recorded a few songs, you will continue to get better and be able to produce near professional-quality music.
Rick Barr is a programmer and musician from Columbus, Ohio.
I used Acid for quite some years. It’s very easy to use. I think I sequenced about a 160 songs on it - very happy with the results. I actually managed to get my copy free from SoundForge for a newspaper article I wrote about digital music. But I’d pay for another copy (which I’ll be doing later this year.)
I actually combined mine with Reason, but that’s not cheap either.
This is a fantastic guide! I’ve been sneaking into my old college to use their professional equipment with shoddy results for years. Now I can do it at home and it sounds fantastic for a novice like me :)
Hey, great article! I play bass, THANK YOU a million for turning me onto drum station!
nice
here’s what can be done with garageband and the built mic on a powerbook
http://ackackack.com/index2.html
Hydrogen is another really great drum machine. Free, Open-source, cross-platform.
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/
Oh, and if you use Linux, Jokosher is a great up-and-coming recording software. (Also free.)
Great article.
I couldn’t agree more about BOSS Digital recorders. I have the BR-1180-CD (http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/BR-1180CD/) and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I already had an Shure SM-58 (who doesn’t?) but I also sprung for an Audio Technica Studio Condenser Mic which, honestly, is a difference of night and day in terms of dynamics (http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wired_mics/53b8b7998922fb02/index.html). Mind you, I built myself a sound-proofed studio which helps a lot. If you’re in an area where there is any kind of ambiant noise, don’t bother with this condenser mic. It’ll pick up *and amplify* the pics I fiddle with in my pocket as I stand there singing. It’s that sensitive.
You say “The 4-track and microphone are pretty much all the hardware you will need…” but I think a cheap old second hand stereo (the kind with the big floor speakers) plugged straight into your digital board is a great (cheap) way of getting a feel for the sound quality and level you’re aiming for. Most of us (I think) grew up on those big monsters, so we know what they should sound like. Saves you having to burn a CD or transfer your stuff out onto some other media in order to really have a listen.
The kicker (pun intended) here is that the BR-1180-CD version comes with its own integrated drum machine that does everything described above. But if you can’t go that route, you might as well check out the open source option posted in a comment above. I like open source… here’s why:
Once you’ve transferred your files onto your computer, I recommend Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). It does everything those other (co$tly) options do. No question. I’ve done it. As an example… a few years back I hired a recording engineer to digitally remaster some old songs that I had on cassette from many moons ago. It cost me $400 for one tape and the resulting CD is nowhere near the quality required for resale (or radio for that matter). With Audacity, I spent $0 and was able to digitally remaster the same songs to the point that I’m actually considering not re-recording some of them. It’s that good.
The money you save on not buying any software will make the cost of the BR-1180CD more attainable.
Good luck!
I need to record my voice on a cd to make a Demo. What do I need to do? I am an amature. Thanks
I’m looking forward to your response.
What if you want to record a standard drum kit (snare, kick, toms, floor, cymbals, hats) and wanted to change the levels of each of the pieces of the kit?
Could you do that with this setup?
hey im trying to record my band, we have a sound proofed room but i have absolutley no idea what else i need to get (apart from music equiptment). plus, how do i record the drumkit? do i need a computer? as you can see i really have no clue about anything other than playing music so a reply would be greatly appreciated.
Linda,
For the simplest of setups, you could get away with plugging a microphone into the jack on your computer’s sound card, but the quality would not be great. I would strongly recommend shopping for a 4-track recorder. Depending on your budget, you may want to go with analog (tapes), though in general, the digital media is easier for transferring files back and forth.
If you are wanting simple voice recordings, you may not need the editing software, though it can be very useful in cleaning up background noise. Once you have a WAV or MP3 file, you can burn that to a CD.
If you have more specific questions that I can help you with, please visit my web site and e-mail me. I apologize for not getting back sooner. I check e-mail every day, and would be very happy to help. rick@barr26.com
Thanks to everyone else for the comments. For anyone with any kind of musical talent, I think it’s fantastic that we have all these tools available to us.
RsplatPC, if you pick up DrumStation, be sure to check out the wide variety of drumkits they have available. I was such a novice when I first started using this stuff that I created my first album with the default drumkit, unaware that I could have been making much nicer sounds. It can be a little tricky at times to make it not sound like a “machine”, but lately I’ve taken to completing the ddum track for a song, rendering that as its own WAV file, then doing more editing in CoolEdit (reverb in particular is helpful). That helps quite a bit.
Luc, that’s a very good tip on plugging in a stereo directly to the 4-track. I only recently hooked up an older system right next to my 4-track, but hadn’t thought to connect the two.
Separator, DrumStation will let you change the volume of each and every piece of whatever drumkit you are using. if you create a beat that has a bass drum, snare, hitat, and cymbal, each of those levels are customizable, and each has its own set of effects that can be used, including a “shift” effect that allows you to play a piece slightly off the regular beat if you need to (often very useful if you’re doing a lot of fills).
Richard, if you already have a sound-proofed room, I would strongly reccommend going ahead and getting good PC or Mac software (the stuff I se certainly isn’t your only option!) and a digital 4 or 8-track recorder. With a decent microphone, you will be all set. The drumkit software is computer-based, and I don’t really know of any other alternative if you don’t have real drums.
I was wondering what are ur rates for to placing a song(s) on demo. I have some songs on demo now. But I have been browsing around to find the rate I can afford. If u want to view some of the songs I have on demo. My myspace site is http://www.myspace.com/karenlorraine I do get good views on some of the songs I already have up. If u have any questions u can let me know.
Karen Johnson
man you should try using fruity loops! for the drum machine
that shyt pwns
ive never tryed drum station but i know fruity loops is good not only with drums but alot of cool sound effects
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Hey guys, great article, if you ever need any help on a professional level check us out. We’re called GEMMusic and can be seen at http://www.GemMusicDemos.net.
We are songwriters and producers based in New York City who specialize in making cutting edge demos for unsigned artists and bands. We also offer GENUINE career guidance.
Mike G
I agree with Rsplatpc. Thi is Great article!
so do i pay for everything .or how can i get these thigs or where can i find them.
Great article. But you don’t say what method you use for getting the sound from your instuments to your 4-track. Do you plug guitar, bass etc into the 4-track? or do you run them through amps and record ambiently with the mic?
Thought i should drop a note that I stumbled upon a music production site that has really low prices. It’s called Audiostarter.com (www.audiostarter.com) and yeah as said they seam to do quit much things. As it is now they have this special price now. Go check it out I say if you want some help.
They record what you want them to record, whole song, part of song, single track or even help with the composing part and arranging the songs if you like.
They seam to be ok :)
http://www.audiostarter.com hope the link is displayed now!
Great article. I have fond it very interesting.
i would first like to say thaks for this article. i like the way everything was worded and set up. it was very easy to use.
i personally use a few programs to do my recording. i use fruty loops studio 8 and audacity. together they make music so well, but alas for those who play a specific instrument such as guitar or bass, you will need to have a mixer board. cause using a microphone for those instruments is hell. also for recording with a midi keyboard, audacity is a good program to use.
audacity is free software, however fruty loops isnt. its somwhere around $200+. but it is a wonderful program to invest in.