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THE GUITAR PLAYERS COMMUNITY

Basic Home Recording Setup

This article was inspired by Emily (Em)  and the fact that a lot of people are writing good material, but just not recording them. Many of you will have a computer, but little or no studio type software or hardware.

But don’t worry - this article will show you how to make the most of your home computer for recording. It is mainly the basics of setting up your gear - but we will cover a little basic recording towards the end.

First of all, This article is aimed at the very beginner level. If you are more serious about recording, then look out for my follow up article on how to setup your first home recording setup. This article also requires a certain bare minimum. You will need a means to connect your guitar to the computer. This can be through a number of means.

Computer Setup

The most basic would be a line in cable connecting your amplifier out / earphone jack to the line in port (usually blue) on the computer. This is really crude but it works. You can also connect a microphone up to the microphone jack on the computer (usually pink) - this is slightly better - providing your microphone is a reasonable quality. Cheap PC microphones tend to be for voice chat over the internet or whatever - and so their frequency response suffers and the recording quality suffers.

The final method involves using an audio interface that you plug a guitar or amp into and then this connects to your PC via USB or Firewire. More on this below.

Once you have decided on a means to get your audio into the computer, lets now look towards the guitar and amplifier end. It’s really useful to have a good selection of quality cables to use for connecting up your equipment. A lot of audio hardware for the computer may come with some bog standard wire pair cable with a 3.5mm jack fitted at the end

Whilst this is fine for line input from an mp3 player / cd player to your computer, it’s not going to be much use for home recording. Guitars use a mono (single channel) output via a mono guitar lead such as the one below.

To get this into your computer, you will need to either use an audio interface (more on that later) or purchase a 6.5mm to 3.5mm adapter - again, shown below.

You simple plug the guitar lead into this, and then into your line in on the computer. This now leads us to 2 choices. You can either plug the other end into the guitar itself and let your recording software perform the effects, or go via your amp / effects units. The second option is more desirable at this level or recording as free / cheap software packages may not be able to cope with real time monitoring or provide you with a good variety of sounds to play with. I will discuss this in more detail a little later when we talk about software. For now, just plug the guitar into your effects units and then into the amplifier (or just direct to the amplifier if you have no effects boxes / pedals)

As mentioned earlier - you will need to use the amplifiers line out or headphone out socket because this will be the correct output level to insert into your computer.

The next bit of kit that is really useful is a good set of proper headphones. These will allow you to listen to backing or rhythm tracks you have recorded, or maybe the drums / bass that you have. You can then hear your chosen tracks in your ear to keep time with your playing. These may not be essential at this stage, but are well worth investing in. I will give some links at the end of the article.

So a quick check - you should have your guitar plugged into your amp (via any effects units). The amp should be connected via a standard guitar lead in the line out / headphone out to your computer’s line in port using the 6.5mm to 3.5mm adapter. We will now go ahead and test the connection.

Firstly, turn your amplifier on, at a low level and turn the guitar volume up. You will now need to turn on your computer speakers, or plug in your headphones so that you can check the sound is working.

This next series of steps is basically how I check inputs on my WinXP system. I’m sorry to all your Mac users because I have never used a Mac and have no idea where or how to check this. You just want to look in your sound control / properties and check that the inputs are enabled, not muted, and that the levels are turned up. For those running Linux, again, I have only started the very basics under Ubuntu 5.10 but there is some great home recording support on the Ubuntu forums. They’re nice people.

For all you Windows people, you will need to call up the sound mixer - and most of the time, you will find this in the system tray (bottom right of the screen by the clock) Look for a little grey / silver speaker icon like this:

You can also find it (Windows XP) under Start > All Programs > Accessories > Entertainment > VolumeControl.

If you can’t see it - click start, then go to run and type / copy in the following: C:WINDOWSsystem32sndvol32.exe You should see something like this:

This is a control that allows you to enable or mute, and also control the level of each audio input / output on your computer. You should see a master volume, a line in, and a microphone control - as well as a few others. If you cannot see those controls - you may need to open the properties menu and enable them. Click the options menu, and then click properties.

You will see a window like the following. Make sure that you see, and have enabled the microphone and the line in controls.

You can also view just the recording or inputs (as opposed to the default input / output view) by clicking the radio button for "Adjust volume for" Recording. Again, make sure you see and enable the line in and microphone controls.

Finally, you should be able to play the guitar and hear an output through your computer. At this point, you may notice that the sound from the computer is slightly behind the sound from the guitar and amplifier. This is known as latency and occurs because of the soundcard having to process your input and then play it out through the speakers. This will only be a fraction of a second but we will discuss this later.

We now need to talk a little about microphones. The line in will probably be the safest way to record, but you may have access to a microphone, and maybe this is a good idea to try - I’m not sure. Most of you may have access to one of those standard computer microphones:

These are basically dreadful, horrible things. Having said that, with a better microphone setup, you can work with more sounds from your amplifier rather than the basic line out. For a fairly small amount of money, you can get hold of a better microphone to take you above the computer microphone and more towards the recording area. It’s useful to get a microphone stand, and you will also need a cable to go with it. The cheaper microphones will have a cable built in, but try and aim a little higher quality - you will need an XLR microphone cable and you can buy these from most music stores, or online at the link given below. The normal method is to run an XLR into the microphone, and then the other end of the cable features the same XLR connection and this will plug into your audio interface or soundcard.

Again, for the basic PC setup, you may need to gat an XLR to 6.5mm jack and then use the 6.5 to 3.5mm adapter to go to your computer.

You can buy these pre-made from the Thomann store (see links at the end of this article) but it’s also easy (and cheaper) to make your own. Look out for a quick article on this later. We will naively ignore microphone pre-amplification and just rely on the soundcard to do that. Connect the microphone up to your computer in the same way as for the line in. Run the same test as above, and setup the microphone input levels.

This now brings me briefly to microphone positioning. A guitar amplifier speaker will sound different depending on where you position yourself in relation to it. For the same reason, the microphone will pickup different sound qualities depending on how close the microphone is to the amplifier, and the angle / direction you set it up at. Ideally, you need to play around with this, but you need to aim to keep the microphone far enough away to prevent getting bad distortion. Also remember that computer microphones will suffer with loud volumes from an amp, you you may need to move it far away from the amp, or just keep the levels low. For a better quality microphone, this is less of an issue.

In general, pointing the microphone directly into the speaker will give the most powerful sound because this is where the bulk of the sound is emitted from. As you move the microphone about and aim it around the speaker cone in different configurations, you should notice a change in sound. I’m not going to go into detail here, as this is an article in itself.

This has covered the two basic input methods. We can now look at a couple more. Again, I won’t go into a load of detail here because this will over complicate this "introductory" article. As I mentioned earlier, you can also connect your guitar / amp through a box before connecting that to a computer. This "box" can be either a mixer / audio interface, a DI or Direct Input box, or a USB / Firewire effects processor. These devices will stabilise and condition / modify the sound from your guitar before sending this to your computer.

Audio Interfaces

They connect to your PC via a USB or Firewire cable, by a simple audio stereo input, a digital optical connection, or sometimes via a special cable from the box to a card inside your computer. You then either plug your guitar directly into them, use the amplifier line out, or use a microphone input to the box. Each way would still enable you to use effects pedals. Here are a couple of examples.

The POD XT is a popular choice and the Behringer BCA2000 is my current audio interface. The Line 6 Pod XT will allow you to plug the guitar in directly, and it features many amplifier and effects models so you have a diverse set of sounds. The Behringer unit that I use, is simple an interface between my equipment inputs (microphones, guitars / amplifiers) and my computer. Both units are reasonably priced and again can be found on the Thomann website (link below)

My best advice is to make a list of what equipment you have, some basics about your computer, and what you would like to be able to record (vocals, guitar, a drummer, a bass player - all at once? One by one etc) and then come onto the forums on the site, or go to your local music store and get them to suggest some ideas. But stick to a price because they will normally see you as a customer more than a newcomer to the home recording scene.

The next step is to choose and install a piece of software to record your audio with. Personally I use Cubase SX that I was given by a friend that reviewed music software. This is a professional recording application and apart from the price, it’s way over the top if you’re just tinkering with home recording. There are several free or cheap packages out there, and we will talk about a couple briefly.

nTrack Studio

"n-Track Studio 4 is an Audio & MIDI Digital Multitrack Recorder that transforms your PC into a powerful audio recording studio. You can record, playback, overdub your audio tracks exploiting the flexibility and power of today’s PCs for applying effects, real-time input processing, automated aux channels sends and returns, destructive and non-destructive wave editing. The program supports 24bit-192 kHz recording, multiple channels soundcards, live input processing, CD burning, mp3 encoding and much more."

The software version 4.x costs just $49 (about £28) for the standard 16bit version. This enables ALL the features of the software apart from 24bit support for compatible soundcards. The full 24bit version is $75 (about £44) and in my mind is very cheap for such a good feature packed bit of software. Especially so when you think that Cubase SX 3 is $799 (about £470)!

Find out more, download, and register (purchase) n-Track studio here: http://www.fasoft.com

Audacity

"Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems."

Audacity is an open source application so it’s totally free to use. The programmers put a lot of work into this and so donations are always worthwhile to help them continue the software. You can record and edit 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit (floating point) samples.at 96 KHz.

A quick list of features:

Record live audio. Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs. Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files. Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together. Change the speed or pitch of a recording.

Download the software, and find out more here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Kristal

"Kristal Audio Engine is a powerful multi-track recorder, audio sequencer and mixer - ideal for anyone wanting to get started with recording, mixing and mastering digital audio. It is designed as a modular system. The main application provides a mixing console, while the audio sequencer, live audio input and so on are loaded as separate Plug-Ins."

Not open source this time, but still another great free piece of software. This can handle up to 16 audio tracks at 32 Bit recording at a 44.1 to 192 kHz sample rate. You can then down mix to 16/24/32 bit audio files.

Find out more details, and download the software here: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal

This is an odd one really - firstly, as you get to know more about recording, you will come to know that Pro Tools and the associated hardware is probably the industry standard in the top recording studios. It also comes at a top price tag - the Pro Tools HD Hardware starts off at $8,000 (about£4700!) and reaches a cool $14,000 (£8,200) for the HD 3 system.

The download we are talking about here is a free version of the Pro Tools LE software - a cut down version of the real deal. The annoying part is that the software runs on Windows 98/ME only and Mac OS9 only. I added it here because some of you may fit the requirements, and the Pro Tools software is powerful to say the least.

Find out more: http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree

This is only meant as a brief overview of the packages available. There are many more out there - some better, some worse - but these will be a good starting point. If you do find a piece of software that was easy to use and packed with features - then please contact the site and we will update this article. I also hope to cover these in more depth as a review / article at some point.

Recording

So, lets carry on - I will assume that if you are this far - you have installed your chosen software, and the audio test at the beginning worked and you got a signal. The next stage is to open up your chosen software, and prepare a track to record. Because there are so many different applications out there, I will to a certain extent - generalise on the recording process. You would be best to go through the software help guide for a far more detailed guide. I will however go through some basic steps.

Firstly, open your chosen software and begin by selecting a new project. Most programs will allow you to open and save projects. These are basically the layouts that contain your audio tracks and settings.

Next, you should setup the inputs for your soundcard. If you remember back on the sound panel, the default device will be listed. See below in the bottom left of the window.

In my case it’s the NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) audio. This is basically my onboard soundcard. Normally a big no-no - but it’s half decent setup. You will need o ensure this is selected in the properties / options / device menu. Again, this will be located under one of the menus so consult the help guide for that particular software.

Next, you will need to setup your levels. This means checking how high the volume is on the amplifier and the input level for your line in. You want to prevent clipping - this is where the incoming signal is too high and the audio distorts. Most of the software packages have a live monitor and some sort of level indicator (green through orange to red)

The ideal setting is where you hit your hardest notes and it peaks at the top of the orange but doesn’t reach the red. This takes a little trial and error with adjusting the input level, and the amp output. Try and keep the input around 3/4 because any higher and the sound can clip more easily and too low means that you may need to turn your amp up a lot to get any gain in volume at the computer end.

The next step is to create your track and give it a name. You can usually right click on the program and inset a new track - again, this differs depending on the software. Each track normally has a level meter like the image above - this will also indicate that the track is ready to record as you will see a live feedback when you wit notes.

The next stage is to get a tempo set. Not many players, even the pros, will claim to be able to play at a perfect tempo. That’s why they invented drummers (even though they can’t keep time sometimes!) You can either play along to a song, a drum machine, drum track, existing bass / guitar tracks, or setup a metronome. Lets look into those briefly.

A metronome is probably best, and many of the software packages will have one built in that will allow you to setup a tempo to play to. You may be able to construct a simple drum program with the software to let you create a simple (or maybe complex if you like) drum track. You may also be able to get hold of a drum track or bass track from the internet, or have a friend that could record it for you. Personally, I use Cubase to program the drum track from drum tablature that I find in the internet. The final method is to playback the original track and play along with it. Sometimes your recording software will take over your soundcard and prevent iTunes / Media Player / Winamp etc etc from playing back audio. Again, I personally drag and drop the original track into my software and then this will playback as I record - allowing me to play in time with it.

Playing along to a song is an easy way so start because this is how most people will learn a song anyway. If you use a microphone to record instead of a line in, then you will need to use headphones so that you only record your guitar track, and not the sound of you playing along to the song! Connect your headphones to the computer so you can hear the song and then your microphone will only record the guitar you play.

From here onwards you are free to experiment. Record your guitar tracks. Play them back and listen to your technique, if your effects or amplifier settings sound right etc. Be sure to save your work each time, because it will let you track your improvement, as well as let you send us the recordings for the website. The above image shows how I layered by tracks when I recorded my cover of Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

I hope this has been useful, and you are now inspired to start recording. The more you practice and submit your material to the site, the more we can help you out to improve both in technique and with your equipment. This article has purposely left out a lot of information about home studios and recording - simple because if I was to discuss each little point - you would have lost interest, and I would have lost all of the beginners. This is purely an introduction, but I do hope to follow and back it up with some more detailed articles on specific things.

My Setup

I will take a minute to list my home setup. It’s nothing fancy, and it performs more then well enough for my requirements. I run an AMD Athlon XP2600+ processor with 1GB OCZ PC3200 Dual DDR RAM an an ASUS A7NX8 motherboard. I have a dual screen setup (21" and 17" CRT) set to a high resolution so I can maximise my workspace. I run Cubase SX 1 and my guitar is connected via my effects into my Marshall MG100DFX which in turn runs via the line out into my Behringer BCA2000 Audio Interface. This connects via high speed USB2.0 into my computer. I have a second hard drive (160GB) for my audio and video recording as it’s best to keep this separate from windows and the program files.

I also want to run an article on how to optimise your PC for home recording - but I need to learn and read up on some more information myself!

Finally

If your system is lacking processing power or memory, then head over to http://www.overclockes.co.uk for some better gear. If you need a better soundcard, cables, headphones, microphones etc (more towards the audio side) then head over to http://www.thomann.de They are based in Germany, but ship internationally and as well as a great range of stock - the prices rock as well.

Good luck & I hope this will mean the start of you all getting some recordings onto the site!