Computers And Home Recording

So you want to just pick up your guitar on a whim and record the latest idea that's passing by? Do you intend to record an album in its entirety at home and release it? Do you want to make podcasts to broadcast on the web? Do you want to 'flesh out' your musical ideas to get an idea of how the final product might sound. All are valid reasons for having your own home recording setup. Each one also suggests a particular amount of money you will need to spend to get the result you desire, and the amount of effort you need to expend making it happen.


What you will need.


From a basic standpoint you will need some way to record your performance or ideas - this could be into a Personal Computer[PC] or mac or onto a stand alone recorder. You'll also need some way of getting the performance into the recording medium - whether that be via microphone or a piano keyboard. You will also need to find some way to 'deliver' your product - via mp3 mix/cd or podcast. All factors to consider as you set up you home recording studio.


What is best; Computer recording or stand alone?

I will confess that in my opinion and experience, the simplest and most effective way to record anything at home is with a stand alone recorder. In 1998 I purchased a home recording unit and recorded a few songs on it ....which never saw the light of day until 2007....using a Boss BR8; 8 tracks to do the lot- including backing vocals guitars and eveything. To those of you unfamiliar with what I mean by stand alone recorder then have a look at units from Fostex, Yamaha, Roland and others. In general they have a built in hard drive or media card which records data that you produce as a result of recording yourself. This can be as simple as engaging a 'record' button and playing or singing. There's no fuss involved with this. Some of them also allow you to burn a CD at the end of the process so you can amaze your friends! There can be disadvantages as I will discuss later, but depending on your final aims as discussed earlier, you will make allowances for any shortcomings.


Recording onto a pc or Mac takes us into a more complex world, so if you're not computer savvy, or prepared to engage in a long and sometimes frustrating journey I'd go with the stand alone unit. My Boss BR8 can still make me sound like a half-decent pub band in 1972....which is the particular sound that I'm after. Different strokes for different folks and all that.


Why is it more difficult to record into a PC?


Recording into a PC has a minimum of 3 steps:


Input device-microphone/keyboard/turntable
Sound card-converts your 'real world' sound into computer language.
Recording software-does the job of 'capturing' your performance.


Once you have got your recording chain set up then it 'can' be as easy as using a stand alone unit, but to get to that point you have to deal with a number of factors-the #1 bugbear of most home computer recording nuts is a friendly tike called 'latency' .


Latency: ' something that is revealed later'.


For those not in the know, latency can be compared to hearing your voice echoing back from a canyon, heloooo-hellllllloooo. There is a gap between when you yell and when you hear your voice returned. If you plug in a microphone and set up your recording software and say the ubiquitous 'hello' you will get a similar effect!


Unless you invest in a super high end recording system such as 'Pro Tools Software', then this is something you need to work with as a home computer recording aficionado.

The reason we encounter latency is that the computer needs time to convert the analogue [physical sounds via electricity] into digital data; ones and naughts. With a good sound card this can take between 7 and 15 milliseconds [ yep that's 15 thousandths of a second] and then about the same number of milliseconds to convert it from a digital signal back into an electrical analogue system that we can usefully use to hear the sound coming out of the computer. Bare in mind that our ear 'notices' a sound as an echo at around the 50 millisecond mark [ more on this later] - so if we have a sound card with 25millisecond [ms] input delay and 25 ms output delay then our ear will perceive it as an echo- not much good to play along with as we will be out of time.


That's pretty useless you might shriek, so how do people manage to do all this computer recording stuff at home? A-ha. Those clever people who make sound cards m-audio, Presonus, Yamaha etc have done something very clever, they instigated a process called 'direct monitoring'.


Direct monitoring allows us to hear the incoming sound at its source- straight after you have plugged it in- instead of through the computer where you will pick up a substantive delay. You can still listen 'though the computer' if you choose, but in my experience it's pretty distracting especially with large latency times. The other thing that your clever software program/soundcard combo will do is to record your new track in time with the others by making allowances for the current latency times.


In summary; For ease of use and less technology hassles get a stand alone hard disk recorder. For more complex productions consider getting a computer/soundcard/software combo, but be prepared for a sharp learning curve.



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Some Fine Tuning

Following on from my previous entry regarding recording at how using a Boss BR-8 recording device you will have all of your instrumental tracks recorded and mixed to the levels that you like the sound of. Now is the time to hear what your song sounds like through external speakers.

This might be a good time to sit down and be somewhat underwhelmed.

Before you run  'line-out' audio leads to your external sound device, bare in mind that you have been listening to the same sound over and over and over again through (hopefully) high-quality and insulated headphones.

What you will hear on first listening may well frighten you by how 'bare' your song sounds. The insular nature of headphones condenses all of your tracks so when you hear them through speakers blaring your sounds into the open air, every slight imperfection will be heard. To you it will sound ghastly as you are aware of it. Surprisingly few others hear these quirks.

The most common error one makes initially when recording at home is to have their preferred instrument set at a higher level than it needs to be. Enter stage left your trusted friends who aren't going to massage your ego to give you an objective opinion. Once you have sought the opinion of a few trusted friends, this is where I find the Boss BR-8 to be perfect for my particular genre of rock music.

Instead of heading for the graphic equalizer, go to each track and have a play around with the low, mid & high range frequencies and explore what can be done with frequencies alone. Take my word, it's a little more than amazing. This is a good opportunity to listen to the sound that you hear through external speakers compared to what is heard through headphones and what is heard through your headphones. By doing so you are gradually training your ears to adapt to the difference. Over time you will have this down pat.

Each instrument reacts differently to the Boss BR-8 equalizers. The bass guitar has more flexibility than one may think using the Boss BR-8 home recording unit. Obviously the tone control on the bass guitar should be rotated to the desired position. I have also found that the Boss BR-8 has an almost mystical, intrinsic factor on how bass guitar strings

react to the plectrum used. Unlike using a bass guitar through a conventional amplifier the Boss BR-8 brings out a softer tone if a heavy, sharper, plectrum is used such as those more commonly associated with lead guitarists. At the other end of the scale thinner, flatter, plectrums give a

sharper tone.

The main variations that I make with the guitar sound is by working with the two rhythm guitars that I run in the vast majority of my material. I like my two rhythm guitars to mesh and weave ala' Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, my guitar idols (along with Mick Taylor and Joe Walsh). Rarely do I touch the low end level or frequencies. I generally push the upper level volume a little whilst lowering the upper end frequency slightly. This serves to 'push' the guitar(s) forward without actually increasing the volume. Be careful at this point not to push things too far as you will end up with a 'thin' sound. This same technique is applied to the lead guitar, which should obviously be slightly more predominant.

You may notice that on first listening to the drums through external speakers that, firstly, they they are too loud, secondly, the kick drum is 'booming' and thirdly, that the snare drum sounds tin-like. Bypass the drum sound and listen to your track through. If you're happy with the actual timing and so forth then there should be no need to re-record.

On listening to the kick drum, one should be able to hear the hammer 'hit' the skin of the kick drum. This is achieved either manually by ensuring the drum is properly tuned and/or padded or by lowering the lower end frequency on your home recording unit and perhaps increasing the lower end equalizer. This should be done very slowly. You will hear when you have the sound that you want when the kick drum neither 'booms' or 'clicks.'

The snare sound will more than likely be 'thin' on first playback through external speakers. Again, this can be resolved manually by further damping down your snare or by increasing the lower end volume of your recording and slightly lowering the higher end frequency to maintain 'punchy' sound.

All of the tips mentioned here are subject to variations depending on your own personal style. I do hope you have found them of some assistance.