My Recording Studio

Impressive hey! – I tidied up a bit too

Yep there it is. Where Holywell record all our demos and songs, even the ones that get played on Demon FM. Here’s the equipment list:

1 BOG STANDARD COMPUTER WITH MIXCRAFT 5 INSTALLED
1 $50 ACOUSTIC GUITAR (MY BEST NONE LIVING FRIEND)
1 SHIT HOT GIBSON SG (MY 2ND BEST NONE LIVING FRIEND)
BEHRINGER USB UC6012 GUITAR INTERFACE (OPTIONAL)
SHURE SM58 MICROPHONE
SOME JACK LEADS
A CHEAP SET OF HEADPHONES
SAMANTHA BRINGS HER KEYBOARD AROUND
A PLECTRUM
A CUP OF TEA / CAN OF BEER! (ESSENTIAL)

And here are the results…not bad eh!

Here are just a few tips that I’ve picked up

Latency:

You may or may not be familiar with the term ‘Latency’. If you’re not then it’s horrible and nobody’s friend. Here’s what it is: What sometimes happens when you record more than one track is that there is a very slight delay between what you are playing and what you think you are playing along to (what you are hearing) i.e. You may have put down a guitar track and you put your vocal over the top. When you then play back your recording you’re thinking to yourself..’JEEEEEEZ! My timing SUCKS!!’ But actually your timing has been spot on to what you were listening to..the delay comes from your computer not keeping up with you!!

Introducing another friend of mine…the Behringer USB Guitar Interface…

I recently bought this little extra that has certainly cleaned things up a bit. I put everything through this now, guitar, vocal and keyboard.

This incredibly inexpensive piece of kit does something amazing for you. It allows you to listen and play in 100% real time..so NO latency. It costs around $30 but is well worth buying if you want to just clean up your recordings a little. It works great with Mixcraft and I’m sure just as well with any other Home Studio Software.

It’s very simple to use…you just plug it into a USB port on your computer. Install a bit of software which Mixcraft then picks up when you open the program. You then plug your guitar/vocal/keyboard into the input, plug some headphones into the headphone socket and you’re up and running. It’s very simple to set up but a nice piece of kit for your home recording studio. Here’s a link to Amazon:

Behringer UCG102 Guitar-to-USB Interface (See all Computer Audio Interfaces)

Mastering:

There’s no doubt about it, the final mix of your song or ‘mastering’ is crucial. You can make a crummy recording sound half decent…or you can make an half decent recording sound crummy if you get it wrong!! You see those odd looking flaps of skin with holes in on either side of your head called ears. Well they are designed by God purely for mastering songs, so that’s what you need to use. There really is no substitute for ears, HOWEVER I did find a nice FREE little plugin called Endorphin that I think was designed by a meer mortal to help out our ears…check out more about Endorphin here >>