[Louis]

Hi guys!


I'm making this post because I'm wanting to record a few of my tracks and edit them to make some songs, but I have very little money, a crappy mic, no music programs but a pretty nice acoustic guitar


Anyone have any tips for me recording my work?

[diademgrove]

Hi Louis,

download Audacity, its a free program and served me well when I first started. You just work out how to plug your mic into the computer and get Audacity to recognise it. You then work out how to record without distorting the signal. Basically the wav form should be within the top and bottom of the track. A bit of trial and error will work out how loud you need to record. Youtube will have hundreds of tutorials to help.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Any questions just ask.

diadem

[Louis]

 

Hi Louis,

download Audacity, its a free program and served me well when I first started. You just work out how to plug your mic into the computer and get Audacity to recognise it. You then work out how to record without distorting the signal. Basically the wav form should be within the top and bottom of the track. A bit of trial and error will work out how loud you need to record. Youtube will have hundreds of tutorials to help.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Any questions just ask.

diadem

Thank you, I'll download it when I get home:)

Do you know if it gets rid of static from the mic?

[Rhysian]

Yes, Audacity has a noise removal facility which should be able to reduce the static noise.
Good luck with your recording, I look forward to hearing some of your songs.

Rhysian

[Louis]

That's great! I'll upload some tracks shortly!

[Dutchbeat]

Hi Louis,

there is a good free trial version of a DAW program called REAPER, i can really recommend it, the options are enormous....may look complex (and it can be) but if you learn to work with that you are set to do whatever you want :-)

but, getting a better mic if you can afford it will become important, because whatever program that is where you recording starts, but we all started with little or no gear, having fun recording and making songs is the most important thing!!!

good luck

[Louis]

Thanks for the tips

[diademgrove]

That's great! I'll upload some tracks shortly!

I look forward to hearing them. Make sure you read the rules first. I think there's a limit of one a fortnight.

diadem

[Louis]

I know:) it'll probably take me a week or so to get time to record and edit anyway

Thanks for the heads up though:)

[Ramshackles]

Acoustic guitar:
you need a mic, a preamp, an audio interface and some recording software.

Or
A mic, a preamp and a hardware recorder (tape or digital)

You can buy things which combine all or any of those things. Habitat has a mic that also has the preamp and audio interface in it. Audio interfaces in general have preamps built in.

Like anything, you get what you pay for.

My preferred setup for acoustic is either a Ramshackle U87 mic or a Shure SM81, a Ramshackle Tube preamp, Allen & Heath ICE16 interface and Cubase software.

Reaper is almost an equally good software IMO, for a fraction of the price and with a fully-featured, unlimited demo...

You can pick up pretty good (for their time) multitrack recorders for peanuts on ebay aswell, if you don't want to go the software route.
I have an old tascam 788 that cost about £50 off ebay. It will do pretty much everything...even has mic preamps (although I never use them).
The Allen & heath ICE16 can also record direct to a USB stick, although it has no editing features and being a fairly new product is quite pricey.

It all depends on how much money you can put into it to get setup.