Do you still have sound coming into your home studio you know like a TV from another room or maybe you can hear water running from the dishwasher or anything else. There are three areas that get overlooked when building a room for sound work first is electrical wall plates and switch plates. Like most rooms there are multiple plates and each is capable of letting in sound or noises. Since the boxes are already in the wall (and if you can't take them out) you will need to caulk around the opening between the wall and the box hopefully it's not to wide. If it is you can use acoustical putty and fill in the edge around the box and it is fire rated also you can use the spray foam that you use around outer doors and windows. Then find some thin foam cut it to fit between the plate and wall cut out your plugs or your switches and screw holes as close as you can then screw the plate back on. Next doors and windows now here we want to create a small vacuum when you shut the door or window so for the door we need a threshold with a rubber seal on the top so when you shut it compresses the rubber seal. On the door itself down at the bottom screw in a door strip with the rubber edge on it and make the edge barely touch the floor you don't want to see any light coming through under the door. Now around the door in the door stop you should have some kind of seal that will not stick to the door itself I recommend Q-Lon or Zero International they both make kits that work well for this situation. With windows there are usually the slider type and depending on how old they are depends on the glazing I recommend two or three pains make sure the caulking around both sides of the window is not old and worn from weatherization if it is remove it and re caulk. The third place is your H VAC system and depending on the money and resources you have depends on your fix. My studio is in the basement of our house it stays about 60 degrees which is great in the hot summer months everything is turned off so no noise. But in the winter months the heating system is turned on and (I always seem to record more in the winter) so what I do is I use a small space heater in the room your recording in. And I will turn the main system off while the session is going on then I turn it back on when I'm done. Turn the small heater off in between tracks. Unless you have cash to burn you could install a mini-split system where the main unit is outside and the air movement part is inside the room including wall /ceiling ducts and they are very quite. For more on recording tips go to http://www.musicanddjinstructionalmedia.com/homerecording.html
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Dub Turbo - Your Answer to Making Beats Online
If you are interested in making beats online and I am sure you are if you are at this blog, then you have probably already heard of Dub Turbo by now.
It is causing quite a stir because it is the first DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) to be released with every feature that a fully functioning recording studio has and at a mere fraction of the price.
Although I wanted to write up a blog post and tell you all what the best thing about Dub Turbo was for me!
So what is it?
The quality!
If you have a look about online you can see other programs such as Fruity Loops or Cubase to name a few and these are all very good, but when you start using them you quickly find that if you are a beginner at making rap beats then you will find it a struggle.
Yes the quality of the beats are good, but as I say when you are starting out it can be difficult to make any really good sounds until you do some swatting up on music production. Not to mention the price of these programs and that is just the software then you'll have to buy the equipment to go with it OUCH.
So this is where Dub Turbo comes in!
It gives you a fully functioning recording studio and all the features, keyboard, drum kit, wave editor and you can even burn your new creations onto CD!
Although the thing that impressed me was the speed and ease in which you could get your music created and out there with it sounding AWESOME!
All the sound samples that it uses were recorded in a REAL recording studio and that is what will give your beats that “EDGE”.
The other cool thing is that although it has all of those features it is not very complex at all!
You can get up and running and get an AWESOME beat out there in just 10 minutes!
Check out Dub Turbo today and start making some classy beats with ease!!!!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
New Engineer, New Singer and What You Need to Know.
So lets say your studio is up and running now and clients are wanting you to record them. So you record their tracks and now it's time for the vocal tracks and your singer is new and so are you. Don't panic make sure you have a nice quite and fairly dead corner in your studio if you don't maybe you could use a device like a Voxgaurd from Prime-acoustic or another possible solution is stand- mounted mini-booth from sE Electronics Reflexion Filter or the Flexibooth again by Prime-acoustic. Although not convenient , they do a good job of removing unwanted room noise unless you have a vocal booth then one of these will work well. I'm not one of those engineers who thinks you should fix it in the mix with a bunch of plug-ins I approach it by finding and removing the noise source if possible. Now pull out your large diaphragm condenser microphone and plug it into the preamp of your system oh and don't forget turn on your phantom power. OK you will need a pop screen to stop the P’s and sss's when the singer starts getting their groove on and your trying to capture a killer performance. And remember if the sound should rumble on you use your high pass filter on your mic or your preamp at about 70 Hz.
Keep it simple and make the singer as comfortable as possible recording is complicated, but it shouldn't be for the singer their job is to sing the very best they can and not have to worry about all the technology around them that's your job. There are some producers who are demanding at times and get good results but this approach with a newbie will probably end in a disaster. Your are responsible for capturing the best version of the song your are recording if inexperience threatens the life of the song then you have to find natural and creative ways to overcome this situation. Singing with a pair of headphones can be a challenge to the newbie singer most if not all have only sang live so you will have to experiment with the headphone cups. Generally most singers take one cup and move behind their ear but leave it on their head so the sound from the cup will not bleed into the microphone then they can hear their pitch better. Some singers can not use headphones and there are ways around this by having the singer sing in front of the main monitors facing them and isolating the microphone then record another pass but do not sing this time invert the phase on this track and bounce it with the track that has the vocals on it and that should eliminate all the bleed. Also try to have no-latency hardware monitoring singers new and experienced are sensitive to any slight delay it could really ruin a good vibe. Now singers have to be encouraged and have to stay focused on the subject matter and the groove of the song. You might have to do a little coaching and keep your thoughts to yourself while you're recording complete end to end vocal takes. You can fix trouble spots after you capture the track.
Remember a newbie singer is very nervous as it is so your only going to get a few usable passes to edit together into one usable track at the end of the session. If you can get a punch-in or two that might help fix some areas that need some surgical attention. I find that if you put a little compression on the input source about 1.5db, attack and release 4.1 or lower will make the vocal sound bigger and sit nicely in the track. Also keep in mind if the track doesn't sound that good with this minimal work you might want to change your mic for a different brand or type. I have over the years built a pretty decent mic closet so I have a lot of mics to choose from and even the smallest of studios should have at lease two good mics in their arsenal I suggest one of them be tube and the other a large diaphragm condenser with a high-pass switch and an Shure SM58 will work well on rock vocals. Remember singers are looking for your production skills and coaching. Give them honest feedback , inspiration and enthusiastic support for your vocalist and they will start to recommend you to other singers and return themselves. There is merit in re-thinking how we approach the most important element of the song. That is to just keep it simple.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Home Recording for Beginners
Hello Kelcrow here, I started home recording in 1988 and when I'm not talking about home recording I'm a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer. So you can see why I get so excited talking about this subject. To start off with I've made a lot of mistakes when it comes to building a home studio. And the reason for this article is so you don't make the same mistakes I've made because it cost a lot of money when you make these kind of mistakes. Now if your just starting out most musicians use one room and that is OK but you need to try to choose a room as rectangular has possible because it is easier to control standing waves (that's a whole other article) than a square room is. Then once you have your room picked out or you build one like I did down the basement of our house. Then the next thing is sound reinforcement this is where the standing waves come in and your desire to tame them as best you can.
I found a really cheap way to do this is using those mattes that interlock like a puzzle work really well and you can find them at Walmart, Home Depot, or Target and their cheap compared to the foam. Now after you set up your desk and monitors at ether end of the room or you may want to use one of the long walls to set up your desk and monitors I've seen a lot of engineering rooms done this way sometimes it's just better with standing waves because the shorter distance. Then you'll what to attach those mattes to the wall with ether spray adhesive or some kind of mounting system. Now you have to figure out just where to put the mattes on the walls. First of all you'll need to surround the monitors that means you'll want two rows of mattes or foam behind the monitors. Now the monitors have to be three feet apart at the center of the cones so that means the two rows behind the monitors should be four feet apart on the wall. By the way a row can be 2' X 4' or 4' X 4' depending on your situation. And remember keep the monitors right at ear level when your sitting down at your desk. Then your going to start the wrap to the side walls you'll need both corners done across the corner of the two walls to create the wrap around now what you'll want to do is take a mirror with it facing your desk walk down the side walls until you see the monitors in the mirror that is where you'll want to start your next set of rows then go another two feet and put the last rows of your wrap around. There you are completely surrounding the monitors. And for the rest of the room you will need to walk around and clap your hands and when you hear an echo or a fludder (quieter than an echo) you'll want to put some foam or mattes there as well but don't get carried away you can over do it and that will hurt the sound of your room as well.
Now I hope you have your room setup and ready but before we can move forward we have to talk about cables and their importance I' m only going to say one name MOGAMI that's the only name you need to know when comes to home recording and cables these cables are what the pros use and so should you just start out knowing this. They are pricey but that's because they have a life time warranty, they have gold plated tips and they are completely transparent so quite you won't even know their there. So why is cabling so important? It's what connects all the other components and that is important when your routing your gear you don't want excessive noise. Now if you need custom cabling I would suggest this website www.psyoniclabs.com they have great people and great prices and great service. But if your on a budget you should try to get the stock made cables and you can find those to at the above mentioned website as well. Lets move on now remember I'm just writing about the basics here. And these are very important topics of the basic studio. But we have to be careful not to go over budget here the cables are going to cost enough but are well worth it and remember only buy what you need. That brings us to another subject your DAW (Digital Work Station) I'm not going to talk to much about this because this can be vary complex. And right now you're just trying to get started so I will introduce to you another website www.musicanddjinstructionalmedia.com The Home Recording Blueprint this is a step by step guide on how to record at home with very simple steps to great sounding home recordings and you don't need a lot of equipment or a engineering degree that's the best part. I have learned this is the easiest and cheapest way to home recording on a budget and you will come out sounding great. Well I hope this article helps you realistically achieve the commonly shared dream of all aspiring recording artist and DJ s. To have a home studio of your own. Happy Recording.
I found a really cheap way to do this is using those mattes that interlock like a puzzle work really well and you can find them at Walmart, Home Depot, or Target and their cheap compared to the foam. Now after you set up your desk and monitors at ether end of the room or you may want to use one of the long walls to set up your desk and monitors I've seen a lot of engineering rooms done this way sometimes it's just better with standing waves because the shorter distance. Then you'll what to attach those mattes to the wall with ether spray adhesive or some kind of mounting system. Now you have to figure out just where to put the mattes on the walls. First of all you'll need to surround the monitors that means you'll want two rows of mattes or foam behind the monitors. Now the monitors have to be three feet apart at the center of the cones so that means the two rows behind the monitors should be four feet apart on the wall. By the way a row can be 2' X 4' or 4' X 4' depending on your situation. And remember keep the monitors right at ear level when your sitting down at your desk. Then your going to start the wrap to the side walls you'll need both corners done across the corner of the two walls to create the wrap around now what you'll want to do is take a mirror with it facing your desk walk down the side walls until you see the monitors in the mirror that is where you'll want to start your next set of rows then go another two feet and put the last rows of your wrap around. There you are completely surrounding the monitors. And for the rest of the room you will need to walk around and clap your hands and when you hear an echo or a fludder (quieter than an echo) you'll want to put some foam or mattes there as well but don't get carried away you can over do it and that will hurt the sound of your room as well.
Now I hope you have your room setup and ready but before we can move forward we have to talk about cables and their importance I' m only going to say one name MOGAMI that's the only name you need to know when comes to home recording and cables these cables are what the pros use and so should you just start out knowing this. They are pricey but that's because they have a life time warranty, they have gold plated tips and they are completely transparent so quite you won't even know their there. So why is cabling so important? It's what connects all the other components and that is important when your routing your gear you don't want excessive noise. Now if you need custom cabling I would suggest this website www.psyoniclabs.com they have great people and great prices and great service. But if your on a budget you should try to get the stock made cables and you can find those to at the above mentioned website as well. Lets move on now remember I'm just writing about the basics here. And these are very important topics of the basic studio. But we have to be careful not to go over budget here the cables are going to cost enough but are well worth it and remember only buy what you need. That brings us to another subject your DAW (Digital Work Station) I'm not going to talk to much about this because this can be vary complex. And right now you're just trying to get started so I will introduce to you another website www.musicanddjinstructionalmedia.com The Home Recording Blueprint this is a step by step guide on how to record at home with very simple steps to great sounding home recordings and you don't need a lot of equipment or a engineering degree that's the best part. I have learned this is the easiest and cheapest way to home recording on a budget and you will come out sounding great. Well I hope this article helps you realistically achieve the commonly shared dream of all aspiring recording artist and DJ s. To have a home studio of your own. Happy Recording.
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