Recording Commercial Quality Music... 

... on your home PC!

Many people have asked me, "How do you record music on a PC?". Well, there are as many ways to do it as there are to do anything on a PC, but here is how I do it. Remember, each project will be unique, and each style of music has its own rules, but most of this information is universal.

Basic Tracking. This is where you actually record the tracks. The theory is, you record a track, then play it back while recording another. Then play those back while recording another. Cakewalk Sonar is my tool of choice for this, and just a few years ago a piece of hardware to do this same task with the same quality was well over $500,000. There are other multitrackers available, such as Logic Audio and Cubase, but the one I prefer for its pure ease of use is Cakewalk.

Another amazingly useful tool is Acid Pro. This allows you to plug loops together to create the basic outline for your song. There are many many CD's filled with loops for Acid, at reasonable prices. Usually the loops are extremely high quality recordings of real instruments played by professionals. After creating stuff in Acid, just export the wave file and import it into Cakewalk so you can continue working with it.

Preprocessing. After creating the basic tracks, you need to clean them up. Even the best sound card, mic, and mixer combination will add some noise, and you can remove almost all of it with the right tools. Sonic Foundry's Noise Reduction will examine the blank part at the beginning of your recording, assume that the hiss and stuff there is noise, and remove that same sound from the rest of the recording. There are also traditional Noise Gates, which assume that any noise below a certain volume is unwanted and removes it outright. Noise gates have traditionally been used for drum tracks (since the 1950's, actually).

Mix Processing. Now you work with the tracks together. Each song will have different requirements, and each track needs special attention. The goal here is to have each track clearly audible in the final mix with very little blurring together of sounds. The way to do this is to understand the importance of Equalization (EQ'ing). Each instrument operates within a certain frequency range (or band). Use EQ'ing to enhance the dominant band for each instrument. Also, use subtractive EQ to reduce the frequency in a given track that may interfere with another. For example, if you have enhanced the 700 Hz range on your vocals, reduce the 700 Hz range on your guitars (which will overlap). This is THE secret to making each instrument stand out in a mix. Learn it, practice it, use it.

Some tracks have too much "dynamic" - they get TOO quiet then TOO loud. For these tracks (often a bass line will be like this) you need to compress. Apply the compression to your bed tracks sparingly... too much compression takes energy away from your mix. Compression is the KEY to making SMOOTH vocals, especially unison and harmony tracks.

There are a LOT of other effects used for various things, but the most used (and overused) are delay and reverb. Delay is an echo effect, where the same sound comes back one or more times after a certain amount of time. Reverb is a smoother effect that you hear naturally everywhere you go. Talk in a squash court to hear reverb. There are also distortions, chorusing, phasing, flanging, pitched gates, amp simulators, tape simulators, and dozens of other effects that can be added to any or all tracks.

Remember the goal is clarity. Even commercial stuff that at first listen seems all muddy and distorted has clarity, or it wouldn't be a commercial release. Each instrument (or in some cases, group of instruments) can be heard clearly in a mix, and vocals are especially important.

Creating your final mix can be a matter of hours, days, weeks, even months. But the final mix is where it all comes together and sings.

Post Processing. Many people think that once you have a mix you're home free.... nothing could be farther from the truth. The final mix is not your finished product until you post-process. Post processing is that last stage where you EQ the complete mix into what I call "the commercial domain". There are some amazing Equalizers out there designed specifically for post processing, and one of the neatest toys is FreeFilter. FreeFilter will analyze your song, and a reference song, and automatically adjust the EQ setting for yours to match the reference. But don't just FreeFilter to another song and leave it! FreeFilter is ONLY a starting point, a suggestion, an idea, some input. Ultimately you will need to determine your OWN "commercial domain". You may also want to play with loudness maximizers, soft clipping, external enhancers, etc.... there are dozens of great tools to help with this process.

More resources:

Antares: vocal pitch adjuster, Mic modeler

Reason - PropellerHeads software has created the ULTIMATE music creation software!