Options that can really
help you make better sounding recordings are:
- A mixing
board. This will allow
you to record from or play back more than one
analog sound source at a time. You can adjust the
volume levels (in other words, "mix") and
use tone controls ("equalization" or
"EQ") to change the timbre of your
various MIDI, microphone, and line-level sound
sources in real time. It is possible to do all of
this in your computer, but it is usually
difficult to control all of your devices using your computer's
mouse, and it requires a powerful computer with
lots of RAM and lots of analog inputs. The most
popular small studio mixers are made by Mackie
Designs, Behringer,
Spirit by Soundcraft, Yamaha,
Tascam and Allen &
Heath.
- The new digital
mixers are taking over
studios everywhere. First came the Yamaha
ProMix 1, then the Yamaha
02R, now there are the Yamaha
01V, Panasonic WR-DA7,
Fostex VM-200 and Tascam
TM-D1000, with new models
appearing all the time. A digital mixer
allows you to record from microphones and
other analog sources straight into the
digital domain, where DSP effects can be
applied and the waveforms can be stored
digitally in "virtual tracks"
on the hard disk recorder or DAW, or as
digital tracks on an ADAT or
other MDM (modular digital multitrack).
All tracks can be mixed
down while still in the digital domain,
with fully automated faders and all mix
settings stored in memory for instant
recall. Then you can master to DAT, CDR,
Magneto-Optical disk, or whatever. All
digital 'til the end listener plays back
the final product! Kewl!
- A
CD-Recordable drive
(otherwise known as a CD burner).
DAT is still hanging on as an
industry standard stereo music production storage medium,
but most people are switching over to CD-Recordable.
These allow you to record Red Book-spec Compact
Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) onto CD-Recordable (CD-R)
discs, so that others can hear your music in all
its undiluted glory on their own home or portable
CD players. CD-R recorders are available in
SCSI versions for Mac or SCSI-equipped PC's,
ATAPI (IDE) versions for Pentium II or later PC's or
in USB and FireWire versions for the latest and greatest
PCs and Macs (including the Apple iMac and iBook).
SCSI burners are considered to be less
problematic, though IDE, USB or FireWire CD burners
should work fine as long as the host computer
is faster than 500MHz (I still prefer SCSI).
Look for 6X or 8X speed CD-R writing; this will speed
things up considerably (though you will be limited to 4X speeds
in older computers or when using a USB CD burner).
CD burners from Yamaha
and Plextor are generally
thought to be the most reliable and best-sounding,
Alesis, Tascam and
Philips make stand-alone CD burners that
you use like a tape recorder.
- A really good monitoring
system. Basically this
is a tonally accurate stereo system, especially
designed for revealing the details and/or flaws
in a recording. This is a critical part of
any home studio setup. A good monitoring system
will likely cost more than you expect, but you're
"flying blind" without one.
- Most home studio
setups will use small speakers that are
meant to be listened to from no more than
about four or five feet away. The idea is
to form an equilateral triangle between
the listener's head and the two speakers
(e.g. the listener sits four feet away
from either speaker, and the speakers are
situated four feet apart from each other).
Speakers used in this manner are known as
near-field
monitors or simply "near-fields".
Since most home studio setups have less
than ideal acoustics, near-field monitors
are a good way to keep sub-par room
acoustics from interfering too much with
the listener's ability to hear the
playback accurately.
- When shopping for
studio monitors for a computer-based home
studio, remember to look for shielded ones. Magnetic
shielding allows the placement of
speakers closer to the computer's display,
so that you can listen to and work on
your audio data from the same position.
Many newer monitors are also self-powered,
with the necessary amplifiers built into
the speaker cabinets. An example of a
self-powered, shielded monitor is the Mackie
HR824. The Yamaha NS-10
is neither shielded nor self-powered.
Other popular monitors are the Alesis
M-1, JBL LSR-25P
and Genelec 2029A,
as well as others from Audix,
KRK, PMC, Hafler,
Tannoy, Dynaudio, Legacy Audio, Spendor,
NHT Pro, Dunlavy, Meyer,
etc. Expect to pay at least US$500 for a
decent pair of studio monitors; more for
really good self-powered speakers.
- Consider a good pair
of "pro quality" headphones. Headphones cost
a lot less than a good pair of near-field
monitor speakers and an amplifier, but can give you
a better idea of the small details in a recording.
Listening in headphones is quite
different from listening to speakers in a
room. Mixing in headphones is therefore
different from mixing on speakers, but it
can be done well. The most popular
'phones are the Sony MDR-7506's,
but other recommended models include the Grado
Labs SR-60, SR-225
and SR-325, the Beyerdynamic
DT-770 Pro, as well as the Sennheiser
HD-580 and HD-600. Headphones are
also useful when you are overdubbing or punching in
acoustic parts and you don't want the sound from your
monitor speakers bleeding into the recording. Closed-ear
'phones like the Sony MDR-7506 or the Beyerdynamic
DT-770 are best for this type of situation.
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- A
digital audio I/O interface.
This allows you to send digital audio to or from the digital
input or output of a DAT, CD player, or
Digital to Analog Converter ("DAC")
directly in or out of your computer (or CD burner).
The idea is to keep the audio signal from going
through more than one or two digital-to-analog (D-to-A)
or analog-to-digital (A-to-D) conversions during
the entire process of recording your music. In
digital audio processing, these conversions are
where the worst distortions can occur. It's also
a good idea to keep analog audio signals away
from the inside of the computer, as all those
clock crystals in there are generating lots of
radio-frequency ("RF") noise, e.g.
your microprocessor at 500MHz or higher,
your PCI bus at 33MHz, your AGP
video card at 66MHz, and so on. Radio Frequency Interference
("RFI") does really bad things to
analog audio circuits ("digititus"
anyone?). There are digital audio interfaces
available as PC cards you plug into your computer,
or stand-alone units that connect to the computer
through the USB or FireWire ports.
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- A digital
audio workstation ("DAW")
that includes advanced
Digital Signal Processor circuitry
(referred to as "DSP") in hardware.
The hardware DSP can do all the audio
processing without the need for use of the
computer's CPU. The DSP can then be tweaked
for best sonic results, while the CPU is
left free to work on its normal computer
operations. High quality hardware DSP costs a lot
more than software DSP, but if you're a stickler
for sound quality...
- The higher priced
Digidesign Pro Tools HD (MacOSX/WinXP),
Soundscape (Win),
Sonic Solutions (Mac),
Sadie (Win),
Creamware Pulsar II (Mac/Win) and
MicroSound (Win)
systems all have DSP's built in to their
digital audio hardware. TDM Plug-Ins
are specifically designed for use with the Pro Tools DSP's.
- The 'all in
one' DAW's like the Roland
VS-890EX and VS-2480
or the Yamaha AW4416,
AW2816 or AW16G come with DSP circuits built in,
which makes digital EQ, compression and reverb
available on your tracks. These all-in-one DAWs
also come with digital mixer capabilities, including
balanced XLR microphone inputs and automatable faders,
built in CD-Recordable drives or with a SCSI port for archiving
your sessions to external hard drives, DVD-RAM or CD-R drives.
The smaller DAWs are portable, too!
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- A DAT recorder.
Up until the advent of cheap
CD burners, the DAT (or R-DAT) was the standard medium for
transferring stereo digital recordings from studio
to studio. DAT recorders never caught on for home use, so
they have always been somewhat expensive (the popular
Panasonic SV-3700 costs $1500). Many of the small-label
jazz recordings made from 1985 to about 1996 were recorded
"live to DAT" (a.k.a. "live to 2-track digital"), so if you've
ever listened to a straight-ahead jazz CD produced by the
Blue Note label in the late 1980s to early 1990s, then you've probably
heard a recording that was either recorded or mastered to DAT. You can find used
DAT recorders for less than $500 nowadays. Many projects are
still mastered to DAT, so if you are looking to accept
others' projects for fun and profit, you might want to
keep a working DAT recorder around.
- An outboard
Analog-to-Digital-to-Analog Converter.
This is a box that converts the digital
audio data stream to analog audio so that you can
hear it through a typical stereo amp and speakers.
They can also take analog audio and convert it to
digital audio data. Because an outboard converter is a
dedicated, single purpose device, it will usually
sound better than the Digital-to-Analog
Converters ("DAC's") that come inside
CD players, DAT recorders, and consumer-grade
computer audio hardware. Having a high quality
Analog-to-Digital Converter ("ADC") can
make your "live" audio tracks sound
better. The MidiMan Flying Cow
is a good low-end stereo converter. There are external,
multichannel converters available that connect to the
ADAT Lightpipe or Tascam TDIF digital audio interfaces
of high-end professional audio cards (such as the
RME Hammerfall, Sonorus STUDI/O, Frontier Designs Dakota,
Soundscape Mixtreme, Aardvark Aark TDIF and others).
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- The Modular
Digital Multitrack recorder
("MDM") was the breakthrough device that started
the whole digital home studio revolution. The original MDMs were tape-based,
like the Alesis
ADAT LX-20, XT-20 and M-20, and the
Tascam
DA-88, DA-98HR and DA-78HR.
Tape-based MDM's are still found in small studios all over the world,
and are still a standard for making demo recordings and broadcast
audio. The Alesis ADAT models are no longer produced, but at about $400 for
a good used one, they are a great bargain for many working musicians.
(Just steer clear of the Alesis LX20 — its transport is very unreliable.
The Alesis XT20 seems to work well, but the Tascam DA-series recorders have
always been more reliable.)
The Tascam DA-78HR can record
108 minutes of 8 track, 24-bit audio on a single
Hi-8 120 tape, while the ADAT XT20 maxes out at 40
minutes of 8 track, 20-bit audio on a standard ST-120
S-VHS tape, or 62 minutes on a special ST-180
tape.
- There is a whole
market growing up around multi-channel
Digital Audio I/O cards that route the 8,
16 or 24 channels of digital
audio data between a personal computer
and one, two or even three MDM's. Examples
of this kind of card are the Frontier
Design Group Dakota
PCI, Sonorus
StudI/O,
RME Hammerfall DSP, Mark
of the Unicorn 2408,
Soundscape Mixtreme
and Alesis ADAT
Edit. The Alesis ADAT Lightpipe
interface is much more widely supported
than the Tascam T-DIF interface, but that is likely to
change now that Alesis is being reorganized.
- The new
generation of hard-disk based MDM has
arrived, with the Alesis ADAT HD24,
Tascam MX2424 and the Mackie MDR24/96.
These new hard disk recorders act like tape machines,
but you can skip from point to point without the
wait from the rewinding/fast-forwarding necessary with
tape. Hard disk recorders can record 24 simultaneous
tracks (as opposed to only 8 on the tape machines)
and allow much longer recording times on a single disk.
Plus, they're less expensive than the older tape
machines were. Digital tape is dead!
- For more info on digital
audio interfaces and other soundcards, check out
the soundcards
page.
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