If you have any questions about digital home recording please feel free to use the contact form to drop us a line with your questions. I will post the answers on the blog and if it's a question that many people are asking, the topic will get it's own page here on the site.
What else do I need?
If you haven’t yet bought a computer or any recording equipment and you’re shopping for equipment here are some important things to consider. There a literally hundreds of options for everything from Software to hardware interfaces to microphones and then there's room treatments. It's wise to get an overall picture of what you need and what you have to spend. Like with many things in life balance is the key. It does you no good to have a $4000 large diaphragm condenser microphone if there's only enough money left over for 4Track cassette machine to record it on!
Balanced Or Unbalanced
Try to use balanced connections wherever possible. This type of connection usually requires a 3 pin microphone type cable or in some cased a Tip/ring/sleeve type quarter inch plug that looks like the quarter inch jack on your headphones. A balanced connection provides a stronger signal with less noise and will give you a more professional sounding end product.
Mac or PC?
Quick and simple answer here, whatever you’re most familiar with. In the past Mac had a clear advantage because of it’s mostly proprietary hardware. These days most things are equal. The only thing Macs have over PC’s these days is that you can use one Mac for everything, surfing the web, recording and the whole 9 yards. For PC users I would strongly caution against putting your recording computer online. If it doesn’t go online you won’t have to use antivirus software which can rob your system of speed and power. In short a PC used as a recording platform should only be used as a recording platform and nothing else.
What microphones do I need?
What are you recording? If you are recording drums you need a kick drum mic, a good dynamic mic for the snare drum and a pair of condenser microphones for overheads as a general minimum. The dynamic can also be used to record guitar amplifiers and the condensers can be used to record vocals, acoustic guitars, percussion etc. This is assuming you don’t need to record the drums and the guitars and vocals at the same time! If you want to bump up the quality of your vocals the addition of a large diaphragm condenser mic is a great idea.
What recording hardware should I buy?
Recording hardware manufacturers like to go on and on about their converters. Digital to analog (DACs) and analog to digital converters (ADCs) are important, however most of the interfaces currently on the market have high quality DACs and ADCs. Avoid getting into converter comparisons and focus on two things. First does it have enough and the right type of inputs or outputs to suit your needs? Second you are looking for rock solid drivers. The drivers are as important if not more important to the overall sound as the converters. If you are recording an acoustic drum kit you will need to use an interface which has enough built in microphone preamps. There are quite a few products that feature 8 preamps which is more than enough to record your average drum kit. If you are simply adding your voice or guitar to tracks that are made with software synths or loops you only really need two microphone preamps and so a smaller simpler interface may be all that is required.
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