Well I basically want to record my own songs and wondered If anyone has achieved really good results from recording their own stuff at home?

I will be using vocals, piano and guitar and wondered what the best way of doing in terms of hardware and any software needed.

Thanks

Good quality kit is the main thing you need.I have one of these www.dv247.com/news/Blue%20Edirol ... fer/131763 albeit the Edirol version, which is exactly the same look only not blue lol. It's fab but discontinued, you can still pick them up of ebay etc pretty handyish. Anyway, technically, its fab, great pre amps, and xlr and line inputs all in one box. Very nice. will plug into USB. alternatively, a friend has one of these www.gak.co.uk/en/line6-pod-studio-ux2/18736 I can't vouch for it totally but he's a music teacher and he swears by it. You need a good mic, or two preferably, you can get a couple of shure SM58s they're great all round mics, and for £150 (£95 each) you should be able to get 2, be warned though if you are shopping on ebay there are some dodgy ones for sale. For software you can use REAPER for free, I use Cubase, if you are good for money then go with Pro Tools. Other than a few XLRs you are then recording to a VERY good standard and all for around £400. I've also got some SE2200s I use for Acoustic instruments and vocals. Other than that I use an Alesis Multimix 16 track for drums and a nice dead studio room. Thats pretty much everything I used to record [youtubezrfKTWJ3X0A[/youtube

Good quality kit is the main thing you need.I have one of these www.dv247.com/news/Blue%20Edirol ... fer/131763 albeit the Edirol version, which is exactly the same look only not blue lol. It's fab but discontinued, you can still pick them up of ebay etc pretty handyish. Anyway, technically, its fab, great pre amps, and xlr and line inputs all in one box. Very nice. will plug into USB. alternatively, a friend has one of these www.gak.co.uk/en/line6-pod-studio-ux2/18736 I can't vouch for it totally but he's a music teacher and he swears by it. You need a good mic, or two preferably, you can get a couple of shure SM58s they're great all round mics, and for £150 (£95 each) you should be able to get 2, be warned though if you are shopping on ebay there are some dodgy ones for sale. For software you can use REAPER for free, I use Cubase, if you are good for money then go with Pro Tools. Other than a few XLRs you are then recording to a VERY good standard and all for around £400. I've also got some SE2200s I use for Acoustic instruments and vocals. Other than that I use an Alesis Multimix 16 track for drums and a nice dead studio room. Thats pretty much everything I used to record [youtubezrfKTWJ3X0A[/youtube

We recorded our ep on location and at home using a digital home studio and a SM57. You can listen to it at www.susiejones.net We're open and honest enough to say we rushed it, and would probably, had we not been bound by time, taken more care. The key is to be hyper critical with yourself. It isn't enough to be "ok." Listen, tweak, retry. Give it a day and try again. A producer friend of ours recorded a great album on a porch in America. Catherine Craig "Porch Songs." In my eyes one of the best produced albums ever. The right gear helps, your desire to record the best you can will make it great.

We recorded our ep on location and at home using a digital home studio and a SM57. You can listen to it at www.susiejones.net We're open and honest enough to say we rushed it, and would probably, had we not been bound by time, taken more care. The key is to be hyper critical with yourself. It isn't enough to be "ok." Listen, tweak, retry. Give it a day and try again. A producer friend of ours recorded a great album on a porch in America. Catherine Craig "Porch Songs." In my eyes one of the best produced albums ever. The right gear helps, your desire to record the best you can will make it great.

I'll add my 2 penneth..
Quite a lot of audio cards come bundled with DAW software
albeit a lite/cutdown version.
Ableton Lite would be a good option I recon.
Personally I would recomend Ableton as software anyway
flexible, easy to use, not endless menu's etc as many others use.
I wouldnt touch Pro tools with a barge pole tbh, I suspect it
will probably be a thing of the past soon and I dont know anyone that uses it
any more.
U could get away with one mic, probably not an sm58 as its frequency response is too limited for serious vocal or delicate work, that said, it would come in handy for its ability to work with loud sound sources.
Feel free to PM me if you want a more in depth chat about what might or might not work for u. What kind of material are you looking to record?

Cheers guys,

Im planning on simply using guitar, piano and vocals.

I have plenty of time to carry out more research though but your advice is a great starting point.

If you're recording acoustic guitar, be sure to use a microphone over the "sweet spot." If you're doing electric, mic up the amp. Don't be tempted to DI. You won't get the same quality. Good luck, be sure to post it when you're done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww5ZL3QQinI here is my new collab with dutch DJ Armin van Buuren

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww5ZL3QQinI here is my new collab with dutch DJ Armin van Buuren

What bit have you done?

The singing bit and the writing bit mostly

So you done the singing? I noticed another of the video with singing by the same person had like 6 million hits was that you too?

Sadfish,check out "Sun & Moon" or "Alone Tonight" by Above & Beyond both these contains vocals by Beax, both leave shivers down my spine even though heard many many times

Yep, very good vocals.

yeh that was an earlier track mate.. I am guessing you mean Sun & Moon which was 2011.

My favourite DAW is Cubase. It's the one I started using and the one I find easiest to navigate.

If you're recording voice and acoustic guitar I'd definitely go for a condenser mic rather than a dynamic one like the SM58. Something like the Rode NT1A is a decent entry level condenser.

The most important thing is the room you use and its acoustic properties. Get this wrong and even the best gear will sound crap.

Don't forget Rock God that if they are using a condenser mic they will need an audio card capable of phantom power!

To help sort out room acoustics you can buy fairly inexpensive "reflection" filters. The original ones from SE Electronics were a bit pricey but you can get a few different ones now and they are quite useful.

Yes, of course, phantom power is a must! Was going to mention the reflexion filters myself, but with the caveat that they're only successful if the room isn't too bad to begin with.

Well, yes and no.. kind of depends what you are after but you can largely get some pretty good "deadish" results with them and breathe life in the production. Getting a good sounding room is more inportant I recon in the mixing phase when things can become misleading.

The ones I've used seem to be fine in a room that's not too 'fluttery', but not so effective in a very echoey room. They're good, but not miracle workers. That said, I have only used the lower end ones, so the professional ones may be a lot better.



You could be right. I'd tend to err towards it being equally important in both instances. Sh*t in, sh*t out, as they say.

#ive often used an se2200 and an sm58 to record vocals and done a slight pan gives a nice mix, but also my studio live room has an area of wood floor that just gives a little natural reverb, meaning i need to do less in the mix.

Its horses for courses though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIijQ6G2z9g recorded this with a SE 2200a worked better than my Neumann on her vocal.. vocal starts at about 1:29 as its a club mix tho if u want to avoid the beeps and beats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIijQ6G2z9g recorded this with a SE 2200a worked better than my Neumann on her vocal.. vocal starts at about 1:29 as its a club mix tho if u want to avoid the beeps and beats

I'm not a fan of club music at all but that section from 3:17 to 3:50 is the kind I really like.

Ressurecting a thread for a bit of a plug. Self recorded and produced single available for download by us. www.susiejones.net

Ressurecting a thread for a bit of a plug. Self recorded and produced single available for download by us. www.susiejones.net

hey!

don't know if this thread is still active but thought i'd throw in my two pennies for how to record at home..

im a 2nd year Music Student at university doing tech and composition.

first off sort out an interface, i currently have the Roland Quad Capture which has an auto-sense function making setting levels rather easy. it isn't firewire but then it doesn't really have to be as it won't lag on two channels.

i use Logic Pro 9 at the moment. fair enough it cost my 170 quid but it was money well spent, although it can be a little daunting it is really easy to use but not that user friendly to 'newbies' to the recording game.

i then have a choice of microphones, an sm58 for general recording ideas, a Rode NT1-A which is really nice at capturing mid to high frequencies but doesn't bottom out that well. i finally have a SE2200 which i use for vocals as it has a brilliant overall range of frequency response.

I have a MIDI controller Keyboard which is just a simple Korg Micro-Key, this does my just right for recording simple patch based ideas.

for monitors i use the M-Audio BX5 D2's which need TRS cables to balance them. these work brilliantly and, whilst they aren't the glamourous KRK's, are still a good basic monitoring active pair at around 140 pound.

there may be a little 'cavalier' attitude by some as to how this and that should be done when recording say an acoustic guitar but the only way you will know for sure is by practicing microphone placement. it isn't as simple as just throwing a microphone in front of the sound source and expecting it to pick up all the right frequencies that you want to make it sound a particular way. there are countless things to consider when recordings. do you want the recording to sound intimate? i.e. like someone playing in a bedroom? you will want a close mic effect and lots of absorbent material in the room thats being used as the live room etc. if you are recording an amplified guitar then you will need to understand room Nodes and the ways that sound waves propagate through a space at certain frequencies to find the best place for one of the microphones etc.

all in all there are many ways to record a vocal, guitar, bass, drums, piano etc but the only way to find the best way is through experimentation. every 'rule' that is thrown out there by people can instantly be broken by an example that completely contradicts the rule…so just experiment… and have good gear



I hope this helps

I was with you until this point. We've recorded with a music student using top of the range equiment and got better sounds using SM57s and SM58s because he didn't consider how to use them for that right sound for us.

Equipment will only help you so far. Like you say, experiment. We just did some work with a stomp box. Eventually we progressed from working on the floor with a food to placing it on a small wooden table, wrapped in a towel with masking tape over where our knuckles were hitting it.

58s and 57s are okay depending on what you are recording, if you are recording drums then fair enough as you don't really need that much clarity in higher frequencies. I would highly suggest trying a condenser for future works and then spend time learning mixing techniques so that your mixes sound better. It's a huge area of music to get into but it's learnable.