I've been playing guitar and singing for a few years now, and I would love to be able to record my own music. What sort of equipment or tools would I need?
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I've been playing guitar and singing for a few years now, and I would love to be able to record my own music. What sort of equipment or tools would I need?
Firstly, I would recommend buying an USB Audio Interface (the M-Audio Fast Track Pro is a great starter) and a cheap mic. If you have the cash, I'd greatly recommend buying two mics. A condenser mic for vocals, and a dynamic mic for recording your guitar. With those things you'll be able to record your guitar and vocals, and along with a Digital Audio Workstation like Cubase, you'll already have all you need to record some basic songs.
Then, in time, you can purchase a midi keyboard to broaden your musical possibilities.
If you want, I can send you some samples of what I've achieved using only the things I described above.
Cubase is not required, any recording software will do. If I just want to record quick melodies or tunes I come up with I usually just use audacity. I know a pretty good band which actually used audacity to record all there first songs.
I said "like Cubase". I was just giving an example of what I think is the best DAW for me. I've tried Audacity but it just doesn't do the trick, again, for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchraptor
At the moment, I'm using nothing but a crappy little USB headset mic and audacity. The mic isn't great, but it was free. As for the USB Audio interface stuff, what sort of price (USD please) would I be looking at?
That would be cool!Quote:
Originally Posted by Leanbb
I started off with a headset mic and Audacity as well! It's amazing what you can accomplish with just those 2 things and some music production knowledge...Quote:
Originally Posted by Indeed
The M-Audio Fast Track Pro (a great first audio interface) costs around 150 bucks. Maybe you can get it used for 90 or something like that. It's a really great starter Interface. It has 2 inputs (whether for guitars or mics or anything with a mono signal) 2 outputs, a MIDI input, phantom power, everything you need.
These are some demos I recorded at home. They are o-kay but believe me, you can do much better: https://soundcloud.com/leanbb
If you have any further questions I'd love to help out any way I can.
If you want some cheap software an Audacity isn't doing it for you, check out Reaper. It might not be the most user-friendly, but it's fairly powerful and much cheaper than most DAWs. Last I checked it was around $40. I'm getting into home recording myself, and having used the free trial, I plan on buying Reaper soon.
Everyone has their own personal DAW preference though. If it works for you, it works for you.
The most important question, Indeed, is what kind of computer do you have?