Working Out What You Need for Your Home Recording Studio
Author: Paul Warren
An important consideration when looking to set up a 'home recording studio'
is how you will use it. You will need to work out how many things you want
to record or plug in at any one time or you might wind up with uneccessary
gear-or not enough!
Let's look at a typical example of 'Vinnie' the guitarist who has a desire
to show his 'band' how the songs should be played.
No matter how many times he's tried to explain, they never quite get it
right, so the only way he can see to achieve this is to record it all
'properly' himself.
What does Vinnie need?
He needs to record a basic drum pattern - nothing fancy - he wants to record
two electric guitars, an acoustic guitar, he wants to record a bass guitar
and record a main vocal and two backing harmonies.
Vinnie of course will not do all this at once, so even though he needs to
record 9 things does he need 9 channels?
No.
All he really 'needs' is a maximum of 4 inputs- two with pre-amps. He will
also need a microphone to sing into and to record his acoustic guitar, we
will asume he has a guitar amp simulator to record the electric guitars and
bass and that he has a physical drum machine or one inside his computer or
stand alone hard disc recorder.
Vinnie could easily walk down to his music store or get online and find what
he needs to get the job done. He could look at a computer recording package
with appropriate software and specialised sound card for audio recording.
Some companies provide these all in one packages Lexicon, M-Audio, Pro-Tools
and Presonus are good brand names to look at as a starting point, but be
aware that recording onto a computer can be a frustrating experience if
you're not computer savy.
Vinnie's other alternative is the stand alone hard disc recorder with a
built in mixer section. Any of the offereings from Fostex, Yamaha or
Boss/Roland would take care of his needs, at this point Vinnie just wants to
get his ideas onto the physical plain as quickly as possible so others can
hear them- so he'll probably need a CD burner thrown in to the equation
unless his machine can link up to a computer-as a number of them now can do.
Now let's look at another example of Barabra who plays in a four piece
folk/rock group. They want to record a couple of songs for CD release. All
the instruments her band uses are acoustic; Double Bass, Violin ,Guitar and
Banjo.
Three of the group also sing. Now Barabara is lucky enough to have a large
secluded garage space available for her group to rehearse in and given they
don't annoy the neighbours by making too much noise she wishes to record the
band as a 'whole' for the best vibe-what will she need?
4 X Instrument Microphones or D.I. [direct injection] boxes
3 X Vocal microphones
8 inputs with Microphone Preamps
Capacity to record on 8 channels at once.
There are some limitations with stand alone recorders, some of them will
only let you record on 2 channels at once, another thing to be aware of is
the 'quality' of the recordings.
Some years ago during the 'compression algorythm' wars, clever boffins
discovered that our ears can 'fill in' missing information, in the same way
that you can look at the scrambled letters of a word but are still able to
decipher what it is.The boffins kept removing bits of what our ear was
hearing until they came up with a formula [algorythm] that fooled our ears
most of the time. These are known as 'compressed' formats as they 'squish'
the sound in such a clever way that we don't notice.
Almost all commercial and home recording computer software will record 'linear'[non-compressed]
files to your computer hard disc. Pro-tools,Logic Audio, Cubase, Sonar all
do this. Later on when you 'mix-down' your songs you can turn them into mp3
files for podcast or to load to your portable digital music player. Adobe
Audition and Steinberg's Wavelab are two programs I can think of that record
direct mp3 files- but they are not 'full function' multitrack programs.
When we deal in compressed formats- mp2 mp3 etc, 'unneccessary' information
is removed making the file sizes smaller [and hence downloads faster]- so
these are 'compressing' the files. The advantage for the home recordist is
that less hard disc space is needed.
A consideration when looking at stand alone recorders is to ask the
question- do I want compressed or uncompressed audio. If you have any
intention of turning these recordings into something for release then the
uncompressed format is the best- you will lose some quality by using a
compressed format, but your ideas will be captured quickly for you to work
on later. Also bear in mind that a number of hard disc recorders can later
transfer data to a computer software system for more elaborate processing so
if you use a non-compressed recording format you will retain the quality of
your recording.
Now when Barabara popped down the music store to express her needs she told
the sales person that, "she wants a high quality recording of her group but
I have no idea about computers" so the salesman suggests a stand alone unit
with eight inputs that records the data in a non-compressed format. As she
doesn't have a huge budget she chooses to hire in most of the microphones
for this recording session. The man at the shop suggests she uses condensor
microphones for the instruments and dynamic Shure sm58's for the vocals.
A crucial quality consideration at this point is the 'pre-amp'. What does
that do and why is it so important you ask?
After your microphone has done the incredible job of sorting out sound
pressure waves and converting them into electrical signals, they arrive via
microphone cables at the 'pre-amp'-a short way of saying pre-amplifier. For
years I struggled to really 'get' what a pre amp did, unitl I understood
this:
When the microphone puts out a signal it is very very very very tiny. I now
call this 'mouse level'. Once it's gone through a pre amp it becomes
'elephant level', something that our mixing consoles and digital recorders
can use easily.
Hear this:
Depending on the quality of the compoments used, this amplification process
can make or break the quality of the recorded sound. A bad pre-amp will add
hiss and noise to your recording
Most stand alone recorders and computer sound card interfaces have
'adequate' microphone preamps. To make your recordings 'shine' I would
suggest getting an 'outboard'[separate component] pre-amp, though having
said that the pre-amps in high end Yamaha consoles are gaining a very good
reputation. Focusrite/Joe Meek/Avalon/Tc Electronics are great brands.
Currently I use a Focusrite Twin-Trak pro, a device specifially for home
recording enthusiasts.
To sum up, our friend Vinnie will probably be quite happy with an off the
shelf hard disc recorder with 4 or so inputs that records 'compressed' files
because he is only trying to show his band colleagues a 'rough' idea of how
he hears things.
Barbara who is not computer savy is looking for a more polished end product
and wants to record her group in the best quality for a CD the band will
release, hence she needs to record 'linear' [non-compressed] data and will
look for a unit with the best quality pre-amps she can buy.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/technology-articles/working-out-what-you-need-for-your-home-recording-studio-189503.html
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