Rainhat – the band

Would you like to record your own music?

Do you write your own music? Would you like to record it, but you don’t know where to start? It’s really quite simple if you happen to have a computer. There are many ways to record your music, and the biggest difference between them is probably money. You can use an mp3 player to record your guitar and vocals, but the sound quality probably won’t be very good. To get a decent quality result, you will need a microphone and either a computer (PC or Mac) or a multitrack recorder.

A multitrack recorder, or an MTR, is a device that allows you to record individual tracks, usually one or two at the time and layer tracks in order to create a whole that sounds like several musicians playing together. You can edit or re-record any of the individual tracks freely, maybe add some effects, adjust the volume, etc. all after the track has already been recorded. While recording to a single track means that you have to record all the instruments at the same time and make sure the balance between them is good from the start, recording to several tracks means you can work on any one instrument track until you are happy with it and then move on to the next one. There are many different kinds of MTRs. Here’s an article about how to choose a multitrack recorder.

An MTR usually costs a bit of money, so if you already have a computer and you don’t want to spend money on an MTR, you can just use a DAW software instead. DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation, and to put it shortly, it does everything a multitrack recorder does, just in the shape of a program on your computer instead. There are many programs like this. Some are expensive, some are even free like Reaper or Kristal for PC, or Ardour if you’re using Linux. (I have not used Mac to record music myself, so I cannot say much about Mac software.)
If you want to record music with a decently good sound quality, your PC will need to have a high-end soundcard. The quality of your microphone is probably what makes the biggest difference, but if you’re just starting out or experimenting, you can use one of those cheap little microphones that come with your computer. I have done this myself, and while the result isn’t exactly CD quality, it’s not as bad as one might think. It works while you’re learning how to use the software or just trying out ideas. You can always upgrade with fancier stuff later on.

You need one final thing, and that is headphones. If you are recording more than two tracks for your song, playback becomes an important factor. Obviously, you need to be able to play in time with the other tracks, otherwise the result will be chaos. It’s better if your headphones are fairly soundproof, so that what you’re hearing through the headphones isn’t picked up by the microphone onto the track you’re recording. A little bit of sound from your headphones being picked up might not be a big deal, depending on what you want to do, but if you really want to avoid it, I find that using plug type earphones (like for example these Koss plugs) covered by hearing protectors works quite well. You’ll look like a dork, but if you’re alone in your room recording, who cares.

Recording

So, you have your microphone, your computer or your MTR, and you’re all set. Now what? First of all, tune your instrument for a good sound. I find it can be a good idea to include a reference tone or two at the beginning of one of the tracks. That way you have something to tune your other instruments after, or if you return to the same song and want to do some more recording a week later when you’re guitar is all out of tune again. You could also get a tuning fork or an electronic tuner and always tune after that instead. Whatever you prefer.

Many DAWs and MTRs have built in metronomes. This can be useful for keeping the tempo if you’re not using a drum machine, or better yet – a real drummer.
When I record my music, I use a Linux program called Hydrogen for making the drum track. Any similar program will work, there are commercial and free ones of various qualities. There are tons of free drum samples to download online, both as “one shots” and “loops”. What’s the difference? A loop is a recorded piece of a whole drum set playing, usually around one or two beats, though they can be a lot longer. A “one shot” is a recording of one individual component, like a cymbal or a snare drum. Just one “bam” and that’s it. If you don’t know much about drumming, loops can get you pretty elaborate and good-sounding solutions, but finding the exact style of drumming that fits your song can be a challenge. With one shots you can construct your own drum patterns exactly the way you want them.

I haven’t found any one great resource for drum samples yet, but with a bit of Googling, you’ll find lots of sites from which you can download stuff and build up your own library of drum sounds that sound good together.After finishing the drums, I export the track as a .wav file and import it in my DAW software.

After the drums, I usually record the guitar part first (or the piano, if you prefer). This puts the harmonic framework of the song in place and makes it easier to record the rest after that. If you’re recording electric guitar, you can either put a microphone in front of the amplifier and record that way, or if you have a soundcard with the jacks for it, you can plug your guitar directly into the soundcard. Just don’t plug a cable from your amplifier directly to your computer or your MTR. If you plug the cable into a jack that says “speaker out” or something similar on the amplifier, you will probably blow up your soundcard or MTR. You can plug a cable from the “line out” jack on your amp to the “line in” on your computer, but be careful. If you’re recording acoustic guitar, the positioning of the microphone(s) is an artform in itself. Just try looking it up with google, you’ll find loads of info on the matter.

Once I have the chord instrument down, I usually record a mockup of the vocals. I don’t care too much about sound quality or such here, it’s just to make it easier to follow the music when I record the other instruments, to easily hear where the verse, chorus, bridge, etc. is. I will re-record the vocals with better quality later. Next, I do the bass, and after that I add whatever instruments I want to have in the song. The last thing I record is a serious version of the vocals and backup vocals.

Since it’s very easy to edit and re-record stuff if you’re using a DAW or an MTR, don’t be afraid of playing around with the placement of the microphone, or of trying different things with the instruments. If you don’t like what you just recorded, just delete the track and try something else. I frequently re-record everything several times over, trying out different styles and looking for the right sound. Sometimes I do 40 takes on just the guitar. It takes around 4 minutes to record a track, but studio time in your living room is free, so the only thing you spend is time. This is something you could never do in a “real” studio, since studio time often costs a fortune, so take advantage of it.

Another good thing to keep in mind is that you don’t necessarily have to record the entire track all at once. If you find it hard to play the whole thing from beginning to end, just do it in sections instead. Record the intro, then stop. Record the first verse, then stop, etc. Then you can edit and arrange the different sections into a whole that sounds exactly the way you want it. If you’re not happy with the second verse, you can just re-record that bit instead of having to do the whole track. The only thing you need to worry about is harddrive space, but if you delete the parts you don’t like before you re-record them, that’s not a problem either.

After you have recorded all the tracks you want, you need to do a mixdown. This is when you record all the tracks onto a single track. Exactly how this is done depends entirely on what software or MTR you are using, so take a look in your manual. The mixdown is usually a .wav file and quite large, from hundreds of megabytes to several gigs, depending on the resolution and quality of the sound. This wav file can then be burned onto a CD if you like. You can also convert the wav to an mp3-file and put it up online so people can listen to it, but remember that the conversion to the mp3 format degrades the sound quality. How much it is degraded depends on the amount of kbit/s you set the quality to when you convert the file. I’d say that in order to keep the quality good and not noticeably inferior to the wav file sound quality, you should set the kbit/s to at least 224kbit/s. The more kbit/s, the bigger the file, so it’s up to you to find a setting that you’re happy with.

Good luck!