Introduction To Home Digital Music Recording

Home digital music recording has become as easy as creating text documents and composing images for personal and business use. At the some time there has been a proliferation of affordable hardware and software for digital music recording that gets user-friendlier with each passing year. This is certainly the best and easiest time to start creating home digital music recordings.

Near-professional quality audio recording software often comes bundled with personal computers, and large-capacity hard disks make storage easy. GarageB for example is usually included in Apple computers or can be downloaded from freeware or shareware sites. The software enables the user to record audio into multiple tracks so mixing and editing becomes simpler. It is not unusual to have as many as 48 tracks for each song, each track dedicated to each ping and twang of individual instruments or voice. This layering enables the editor to have more flexibility as to the quality, volume and intensity of each track as it interweaves into the final, single track.

Additional equipment that may be needed would be one or two good quality microphones and a CD or DVD recorder for transferring the finished products into demo disks. For sharing, all that is needed is an Internet connection or a USB for downloading to an MP3 or other audio player. For synthesizing music, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) allows music to be reproduced if need be if time or financial constraints preclude recording with live musicians.

The base track is often the drums, which lays down the structure of the music and allows synchronization of the other instruments and vocals, if any. Fine-tuning the track (including adding reverb and audio effect layers) can be done after all recordings are completed. The finished track is usually preserved in raw format (loss less) or compressed format (lossy). The problem with compressed format is there is some compromise as to the quality of the music in the interest of saving space and increasing portability. The raw format allows the file to be stored with all its original quality intact but it does use considerably more disk space. The most common raw format is .wav and the digital compressed audio format is MP3.

In compressing music, the best quality audio recording is one that has a high sampling rate and least compression. The standard for CDs is 44.1 kHz sampling and a compression bit rate of 128 kbps.

However, if you plan to do this professionally, it may be a good idea to get some mileage in the technical education meter. Some schools offer extended learning courses for the music and recording industry on campus geared towards technical skills development as well as business management. One is the College of Extended Learning in San Francisco State University, which offers the Music/Recording Industry academic certificate program.

Online resources such as the Audio Institute of America also offer courses that can be done over the Internet, eliminating the need for commuting. They offer courses on studio recording engineering, home recording courses, musician and producer courses and sound live engineering. The website offers hands-on training for each course for an on-the-job type of experience for use in expertise advancement.

Whether you decide to wing it and learn as you go, or enroll in some course to get some formal training, home digital music recording is a good skill to have. But if only for personal enjoyment, it is sure to earn kudos in any circle.

Audio Recording