The digital age has taken the music industry by storm, and it’s now possible for technically inclined musicians to achieve studio results in their own home using computer based recording. It’s not only musicians who are benefiting from the digital age, computers are now being used to record podcasts, radio broadcasts, music demos, and much more. The following pages detail the equipment, software, and information needed to record on your computer. More importantly we’ll show you how easy and fun it is to use your home pc or mac to make great music.
Benefits to recording at home
- Considerable cost savings vs. recording at a traditional studio
- The ability to record on a flexible schedule
- Faster editing compared to tape based analog systems
- Did we mention the fact that much of the programs used for computer based recording are free?
- Ability to easily add music effects and other plug-ins to audio tracks
- Add samples and loops to make beats
- Easy conversion between audio formats such as wav, mp3, aac, etc…
- Infinite experimentability (no it’s not a real word, but once you start using digital plug-ins you’ll understand what we mean)
Requirement for Computer Recording
Surprisingly, the components required for recording audio to your pc are fairly basic, and great music can be made with a small investment.
Audio Computer (Digital Audio Workstation)
The recording computer which is referred to in the audio world as the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) is basically just a computer. In fact most computers made within the past few years are capable of recording digital audio. Generally speaking the faster your computer the better off you’ll be when recording. This is one area where it helps to spend a bit more of your budget. We recently wrote an article on how to build a recording computer from scratch. The tutorial contains detailed information on parts needed to build a cheap and powerful recording computer. It does a good job of explaining how every computer component (hard drive, sound card, RAM, etc…) effects recording performance. There is a heated debate in the audio world regarding MAC vs. PC’s for recording. There are good arguments on both sides and both are being used to make hit records. The authors and users of this site have considerable experience using both. [MAC/PC debat]
Recording Software
Software is what you’ll use to edit and record your music. There are a number of computer recording programs optimized to work with Mac, PC, or both. Most are designed to accommodate a variety of editing and processing styles. Each computer recording software package includes a basic set of standard features, and also specialized options specific to that platform. The best offer a wide range of features that allow maximum workflow efficiency. One of the hardest parts about building a recording computer is sifting through the ever expanding amount of available recording software. You can check out our list of the best free music recording programs here.
