Home recording

[Don W]

I am at a place where I want to do some "home" recording....all fingerstyle acoustic. I have an instructor who does recordings for a living but charges $50 per hour and lives almost 2 hours away. He said we could do one song at a time and slowly compile a CD and that he can fix small playing mistakes. My question is, is there a way to do this myself? I have a Mac laptop with garage band (haven't tried this yet...seems complicated). Any suggestions on where to start...I would like to have a finished good quality CD when I'm done...not for distribution...simply for mysef and friends.

[MikeBmusic]

"Good quality" means different things to different people! There is a learning curve no matter what method you use to record at home.
Equipment - a way to get the music recorded and into the computer. This could be e stand-alone recorder or a microphone and audio interface. Headphones and monitors (speakers) to track and mix. Acoustic treatment in the room - to make it sound better when recording and to be able to mix so that it sounds good when played back on any system.
The question becomes - how much money and time do you want to invest it this?

[BoneDigger]

Lots of good articles online. To start, you will need the following:

Computer
DAW (Garage Band)
An audio interface
Microphone(s)
XLR cables
Mic stands
Monitor speakers
Good headphones (closed and open)
A good place to record

Or

You can skip a lot of that and buy a good all in one device like the Zoom H6. If you plan to only use it for acoustic fingerstyle, you don't necessarily need the ability to layer tracks. I play multiple instruments, so I generally layer them for a song. It doesn't sound like you need that. You can still import the recording into your DAW and modify it or add effects.

Having a good room for recording is very important. Bass traps and other sound panels will make a huge difference.

Todd

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Don W

I am at a place where I want to do some "home" recording....all fingerstyle acoustic. I have an instructor who does recordings for a living but charges $50 per hour and lives almost 2 hours away. He said we could do one song at a time and slowly compile a CD and that he can fix small playing mistakes. My question is, is there a way to do this myself? I have a Mac laptop with garage band (haven't tried this yet...seems complicated). Any suggestions on where to start...I would like to have a finished good quality CD when I'm done...not for distribution...simply for mysef and friends.

You might start by reading this:

http://www.bluestemstrings.com/pageRecording1.html

[tonyo]

You can start with something like a zoom recorder. I have an H5 and it's helped me a lot with my playing (acoustic fingerstyle). It's as simple as pressing the record button and off you go.

[tonyo]

The cheaper models like the H2 will also work to get started initially. I have a H5 which is 4 channel, today I was recording with my wife in mic myself on the built in x/y mic (2 of the 4 channels) and my guitar on the 4th channel and wished I could have had another channel or two (which is available on the H6).

[DesolationAngel]

Recording just yourself, for yourself, is dead easy.
Recording just yourself, for others to listen to is orders of magnitude more complicated.

The key reason for this is that other people will not be listening to your recordings in the same space or with the same equipment as you, it is, therefore, almost impossible to assess what THEY are hearing and whether that is serving your music well.

So one important thing to making recordings that work everywhere is to understand some of what happens when you record and mix your music. If you are listening to your music recordings in a room that emphasises the bass frequencies then you're likely to think it's too bass heavy and you'll cut some of the bass out. Now when someone plays your CD in a room that does NOT emphasise the bass frequencies the recording will sound kinda thin and bass light (because you cut it out).

So, the key to that is making sure that you record and monitor in as controlled (or at least understood) environment as possible. This is one reason why recording studios have controlled recording spaces and very expensive 'reference' monitors. BUT just understanding the problem can help you to combat less than perfect recording and monitoring. For instance, you can take some commerical music that you know very well and go play it through the speakers that you listen to your own music through... then go play it in the car... then in the kitchen... play it on an excellent stereo system... and even go play it on a poor mono system somewhere. On each system and in each location you'll hear the music differently; on one system you might not hear the bass players part, on another system the bass players part may be too strong. Returning back to your own recording and playback area you now have a sense as to how what you're listening to THERE will 'translate' elsewhere.

Of course having all the other stuff–acoustic treatments, bass traps, reference nearfield monitors, open and closed cans–is great and will get you to a point of being polished quicker but don't be put off from having a go without all of that.

Another thing to think about is to consider WHERE you're recording. Consider that sound travels not unlike light. Think of a room with a marble floor, stone walls and a glass roof... it's going to be highly reflective of light, right? Well, if it's reflective of light it's probably going to be reflective of sound. Now imagine you standing in the middle of that room and clapping your hands. Now imagine standing in a carpeted room with a typical office suspended ceiling, bookshelves all around you and clapping your hands. Which one is going to echo more? Which one is going to sound 'dryer'? Use that to your advantage when you want to record... it may be that the stairwell in your office building has a killer 'natural' reverb which might suit a certain sound you're after. Or it may be that the den, surrounded by soft furnishings and heavy curtains creates a dryer, more intimate sound which suits what you're trying to say. Dryer recordings sound closer to the listener, more reverb/echoey sounds further away. It's one of several dimensions in music; close/far, left/right and low/high.

My plain advice to you? Get an Apogee Mic. It's a USB microphone of excellent quality, is plug and play with Garageband and just record yourself everywhere and anywhere with it. Sit with just in front of on a coffee table. Point it at the soundhole... then move it along so it's in front of your fretting hand at the cowboy chords end of the neck... now listen to how different those positions sound when you playback. Listening to what you heard when you recorded, what you hear when you playback and what you hear when you playback in different places and on different systems is critical to your learning curve when recording.

If you don't have good speakers, get some good 'reference' headphones... bear in mind that closed back are generally considered better for tracking (recording) and open back are better for mixing. If you don't mind hearing yourself acoustically while you record then get the open backed. If you're not playing to a backing or any kind of click (and don't, therefore, need to hear anything but yourself) then discard the cans once you've determined that you sound good. Bear in mind that the 'soundstage' for headphones is very different to that of stereo speakers so make sure you don't JUST do everything on cans.

Then you're ready to start learning GarageBand... Hope some of those are useful starting points.