Home Audio Recording For Everyone
Author: Steve Leedy

I'm not really sure how old I was when I got the gift for
Christmas, but I remember thinking it was a pretty impressive
piece of electronic hardware. It was really cool looking
(technologically speaking), and I was awfully proud to own it.
It certainly made for lots of fun times.

What was this high-tech gift, you ask? Why, it was a tape
recorder! It was a monographic, reel to reel tape deck that
came with it's own plug-in microphone. I could hold that mic up
to my transistor radio's speaker and record songs onto tape. I
could also play the guitar and sing and record every second of
it. I could even hide and record conversations from
unsuspecting family members. I was in recording heaven!

Years later I owned an 8 track stereo recording deck (ok, that
was a mistake). At another point in time I had a stereo
cassette recording deck that would physically flip the tape
over when one side was finished recording or playing. Now I own
a more conventional stereo dual cassette deck, but I no longer
use it for recording or much of anything else for that matter.

All my recording is now done on my computer. The audio and midi
software available today for computer recording is quite
amazing. You can record multiple tracks, edit the recordings
and add special effects as desired. Many of the audio recording
programs come with their own native special effects such as
reverb, compression, flanger, and chorus, to name a few. Some
of the recording software can also accept third party effects
such as vocal removers, tube amp effects and many more.

Multitrack recording software allows for recording various live
instruments, vocals, etc, onto individual tracks. After
recording one track, you can play it back while recording
another. Once finished, you can mix all the individual tracks
down into one stereo track. Some recording software will import
and record both audio and MIDI, some audio only. If you have a
MIDI keyboard or other MIDI instrument, be sure to pick
software that handles both formats.

Creating a simple home audio recording studio is easy. In
addition to software, an audio and/or midi interface will allow
you to plug all kinds of audio components, microphones and
instruments into your computer for live recording, recording
from tape or even from your old vinyl lp's. You can also use a
home stereo system as an interface for audio components by
running cables to it from your computer's sound card. A laptop
with recording software and a USB interface can serve as a
totally portable recording studio. And again, if you have MIDI
instruments, be sure to get an interface that will allow
connecting them in additon to audio components and instruments.


The digital revolution has made music recording easily
available to anyone with a computer. If you enjoy music and
want to do more than just download mp3's from the Internet, get
some multitrack recording software and start your own home sound
studio.


About The Author: Steve Leedy is a computer technician and
sound hobbysist. His website, at http://www.pcmusicstuff.com,
contains information and diagrams on computer music recording.
Copyright 2005 - Steve Leedy (This article may be reproduced in
full with author information included).