Home Recording Studio Setup

[jpfeifer]

I wanted to start a thread about some tips for setting up a basic home studio. Feel free to add your own tips to this thread.

These days there are a lot of options for setting up a basic home studio for making recordings of your own songs. With the available technology you can get excellent results without breaking the bank.

Assuming that you want to record guitar (electric and acoustic) and maybe vocal tracks, and that you aren't planning to record an entire band at once, then you can do the following:

1) Buy a recording package for your PC and use it as the main part of your studio. I use a package called "Sonar" made by Cakewalk but there are several other software packages on the market with similar features. These software packages allow you to buy optional plug-in modules for things such as drums, effects, software synths, etc. Most of them also allow you to do "loop" based recording where digital audio segments can be looped and moved around in your song. This is a great way to add drum tracks to your recordings where you simply buy a Drum Loop CD and grab drum patterns off of the CD and paste them into your drum track.

I would reccomend buying a separate hard disk for your computer to use as the storage place for your audio data. These days with the falling price and rising capacity of hard disks it's not too expensive to add an extra disk to your PC for this purpose.

2) Next, you will need to get an audio interface for your PC so that you can bring your audio signals (guitar, synths, mic's, etc) into the PC where the signals can be recorded digitally with your software. In my setup, I'm only recording 1 track at a time so I bought a decent quality 2 input audio card from a company called "Echo Audio" . I bought the card called Mia and it works very well.

3) You will also need to have a way to listen to your tracks. The cheapest way to go is simply to use a set of quality headphones, however if you're serious about doing some good mixing or mastering then you might want to use some decent near-field monitors or even your home stereo speakers. Mixing with headphones can be tricky since bass frequencies and reverb effects tend to sound a little different when you mix with headphones as compared to real speakers. There are a few companies making good near-field bookshelf monitors for around $150 to $300 range

In addition, it can be useful to have a small audio mixer (4-6 channels) so that you route all of your audio sources into your audio card on the PC. I use an audio mixer so that my mic, synth, and guitar are always ready to go. I just turn up the appropriate fader (guitar, synth, mic, etc) on the mixer depending on which instrument I'm recording, and tell the software to start recording my track. I also use the mixer to route the PC's audio output card to my studio monitors.

4) Finally you will need a few mic's if you're planning to record acoustic guitar, or mic your amp, or do vocals. Microphones vary in price by a huge amount depending on what you're looking for and the quality. For micing guitar amps you can use a dynamic mic such as the old standard Sure SM57. However, for acoustic guitars or vocals it really makes a huge difference to have at least 1 condenser mic. In recent years condenser mics have become much more affordable than they ever were in the past. Large diaphram condensers are the best choice for vocal mics, and they are also great for acoustic guitars. I use the AKG C3000 both for vocals and acoustic guitars. I've been very happy with it. If you're only going to record acoustic guitar then you might get by with a small diaphram condenser or, if money is no object get a pair of small diaphram condensers and record your acoustic in stereo.

6) Lastly, I would also reccomend getting a decent compressor if you are planning to do very much vocal recording. The dbx166A works great for this and is not too expensive.

The only other thing that I left out was the choice of guitar amps, and guitars. Currently I use a Line6 POD instead of an amp since I usually record at night when the kids are asleep. The POD works great for this. I've also recorded from the direct out of my Vox amp and disengaged the speaker by plugging some headphones into the headphone out. This sounds great too.

I hope these tips are helpful.

-- Jim

[Nelskie]

Fantastic post, Jim! For anyone looking to get started with home-based recording, this is excellent information.

Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but with the Sony Acid Music program I use (loop-based software), there are a bunch of CD loop libraries that you can get to add different instruments and sounds to your recordings. The main program retails for around $69, which is pretty reasonable. The loop library CD's run for around $40 / ea., and are well worth the $$. I purchased (2) to use in my own project: "Tony Brock - Rock Drummer", and "Rudy Sarzo's Working Man's Bass". Both are excellent. The Acid Music software also came with a sampler disc, which was loaded (like over 800) with samples from just about every CD in their catalog. The next loop CD on my list: "Organ Donor" - Hammond B3 loops. Nice! Here's a a few links to Sony's Acid Music website, the add-on loop CD's, and Acid Planet.

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/Pro...ct.asp?PID=971
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/loop_libraries/
http://www.acidplanet.com/

Another thing I shoud mention is that the stuff off of the loops is royalty-free. So, if you have aspirations of marketing your musical creations, there won't be any legal stuff to get in your way.

Sony's Acid Music Studio is a cost-effective, easy-to-learn, and easy-to-navigate program that produces excellent results. For me, it's worked wonderfully, and has been a great way to get my "foot in the door" with home-based recording.

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

Hey Jim brilliant post ...i have ventured into computer based recording and had cakewalk installed a few years back , biggest problem i encountered was the latencey issue , and found it to be very frustrating , but i understand those issues are pretty much in the past, i used a layla card and have since passed it on to a friend and have not realy kept up with the latest and greatest , i have a friend with a small digital studio and a bottle of scotch usually gets me some noodle time , but your post is so well laid out i just might have to look into it ... cheers 6S9L

[Tone2TheBone]

I agree. Very good post with important tips. I too use Cakewalk (Guitar Tracks Pro) and did a couple of demos with it and they came out pretty good considering the way I recorded them. I think its interesting how some of you record your stuff and I enjoy listening to your work. Keep up the good work.

[aeolian]

I've also recorded from the direct out of my Vox amp and disengaged the speaker by plugging some headphones into the headphone out. This sounds great too.

I had asked a question about using an AD30 for direct recording and was told that it does not sound very good. Can you go into more detail what you do to have it "sound great"?

I'm under the impression that the lineout of the AD30 does not have the same sound processing as does the speaker, and that is why recording off the lineout will not give me the sound I physically hear.

I have been recording (sparingly) for the last several years using a J-Station amp sim to a Fostex MR8 digital recorder. I do the 'mixing' on a computer with ntrack to get the final mix. I do this just for fun, the results are OK but not anywhere close to professional quality.

A couple of tunes I made up:
The Unanswered Question
http://home.comcast.net/~kitn13/music/quest.mp3
Chinese Takeout
http://home.comcast.net/~kitn13/music/takeout.mp3

[jpfeifer]

Hi Aoelian,

Reguarding the AD30, the key thing to check is whether or not the line out jacks have a "cabinet simulated signal". The owners manual should describe it. On the AD120VTX they describe the line out jack as having this feature. With this kind of simulation the line out will sound more like a mic'ed cabinet rather than one without any simulation like this. Usually if it doesn't have the cabinet simulation then the signal sounds very bright and harsh. Your guitar tone on the recordings sounds pretty good. It doesn't sound overly bright. You can usually tell when you play the overdriven sounds. If it sounds like a tin can then the line out jacks probably don't have the cabinet simulation circuitry.

I liked your tracks. Nice keyboard and guitar tones. The tunes have an atmospheric sort of quality. Good job on the tunes.

-- Jim

[Robert****]

Great post, Jim! It's great for all of us here that your share your experiences with home recording. You are probably one of us with the most experience in this area on TheFret.

The AD50/30/15VT don't have the cab sim - that's why they aren't great for recording direct. I guess they had to cut corners somewhere to get the costs down.

[aeolian]

The AD50/30/15VT don't have the cab sim - that's why they aren't great for recording direct. I guess they had to cut corners somewhere to get the costs down.

Hi Robert,

I know you have given me this explanation before. The reason this is confusing is because I found this in the AD15/30/50 Users Guide:

LINE/PHONE
Use this jack if you're plugging directly in to a mixer, recording device, or if you're using headphones. The output from this jack is taken from immediately before the ValveReactor power amp, and the character of the guitar amp cabinet is applied to it.

It could be that they took the wording from the AD150 writeup and didn't edit it properly to remove the reference to guitar amp cabinet.

Since you have actually experimented with this on your AD50 for recording, I believe your observations are exactly right. Maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part to hope I can use an AD30 for all things.

Thanks for clearing all this up for me.

[jpfeifer]

Thanks guys! I'm more than happy to share whatever experience I've gained from home recording. There is a lot of great information on the Cakewalk forums where there are some pro-recording guys who are very helpful with questions. They will even critique your mixes for you and give you advice on recording techniques.

I was just thinking about this direct recording issue and the lack of the cabinet simulator. There is a box that you can get called the "Red Box" that is made to emulate the sound of a mic'ed cabinet. I used to use one with my old Rivera amp when I needed to plug into a P.A. You just plug into your line out or you can even put it line with your speaker cable. Here is a link where you can get it if you're interested:
http://www.americanmusical.com/item-...RBCLASSIC.html

-- Jim

[Spudman***]

Jim
Do you have experience getting drum tracks into your home recordings? Do you use a rhythm machine or drum loops or samples? If you do could you describe how you do it and what you might do so that the drum track doesn't sound so monotonus? How do you put in fills and breaks?

Thanks. I like your tunes.