Interest in Recording

amother

Sun, May 26 2024, 7:59 pm

I am interested in purchasing (or renting?) machinery to do home based music recording. For beginners. For myself and my daughters. Does anyone know what this involves? Anyone on here with experience with this? What needs to be purchased, and from where? and roughly how much would this cost me? I'm clueless and would love some advice.

Thank you!

amother

Nemesia

Sun, May 26 2024, 8:28 pm

I actually went to school for this!

The basics:
- an audio interface (the thing that connects recording devices to computer)
- basic software (there are some decent free ones out there, forgot which ones I used but I can look into it and get back to you)
- at least one microphone

You and your daughters could really enjoy this!

Last edited by amother on Sun, May 26 2024, 8:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Nemesia

Sun, May 26 2024, 8:28 pm

wrote:

amother

Nemesia

Sun, May 26 2024, 8:34 pm

This is the website my shool used to purchase supplies, and this is their page of audio interfaces from the company I personally used: https://www.sweetwater.com/c68.....faces

Microphone suggestion if you are using for voices and guitar, which is my guess: https://www.sweetwater.com/sto.....witch

amother

Nemesia

Sun, May 26 2024, 8:36 pm

I think Pro Tools and Logic Pro have free versions, I used them years ago. FL Studio is way more simple but if you wanna do anything fancy it's more work. All three work very differently; I recommend watching a tutorial for each and deciding which seems more intuitive for you personally.

amother

Mon, May 27 2024, 12:05 am

amother Nemesia wrote:

Thank you so much for this response.
The sweetwater website has more then one choice.....
How would I know where to begin?
Can I figure this out myself without taking a course like you did? I'm not so techy....
does it matter what kind of computer I have?
Is there any easier way to do this?

once again tysm!

amother

DarkCyan

Mon, May 27 2024, 12:27 am

Yes there are easier ways to do it.

Main thing you need is a decent microphone. Just get a $50-$100 USB microphone with good reviews for vocals. If you are recording an instrument you likely will want a specific pickup or mike made for that instrument. Again I suggest getting a USB version so you can just plug it in and record.

USB microphones: (some options)
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c......html - $50
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c......html - $70

Then there are plenty of free mixing tools, depending on the computer you have. What you want is one that allows you to mix with multiple tracks. Audacity is a standard free option. It will have more features than you need and is not intuitive, but read the manual and you should be able to figure out how to get it to do what you want.

Audacity: https://www.audacityteam.org/

If you have a Mac, GarageBand (free on Mac) is excellent for basic use (very easy for beginners) and has lots of great features for advanced users. You can record straight into the application and do basic edits and enhancements. It also includes "loops," meaning pre-recorded drum riffs, guitar twangs, etc. that you can add as separate tracks so you can enrich your music.

Garageband: https://www.apple.com/mac/garageband/

Note that if you ever decide to get into this in a more professional way you will need to soundproof your recording space and upgrade your equipment, but if you're doing this for fun (at least for now) this is a great (and not very expensive) place to start.

amother

Sun, Jun 02 2024, 6:19 pm

amother DarkCyan wrote:

I'm the op. I read this right after you posted. can't tell you how much I appreciate!
as there's a lot of info, im still trying to process and look into....