So You Want to
Record an Album ?
How to get started and get the best
result for your dollars
Computer Recording
Midi Sequencing
- Sequencing software is one of the great
boons to the recording process. With the computer it is possible to
record the performance MIDI information. This means that the
computer file contains every nuance of a performance, all of the
subtleties that make it personal or creative and then turn around
and repeat that performance identically.
The computer becomes a multitrack recorder
allowing the musician/producer to create much more of the music at a
lower cost than in a full studio.
- Once the music has been recorded into the
computer, individual notes can be altered or whole sections of songs
can be re-arranged.
- The actual sounds that are produced
depends on the "module" that is playing these files. If there is
only a PC Sound Card available the midi files can still be written
on the computer and when the file is taken to the studio other Midi
Modules can be auditioned until the exact sound required is found
but the original file is still used. This is similar to writing a
letter on a Word Processor with only a dot matrix printer available
at the time. If the file is then taken somewhere where there is a
laser printer the final printed result is much improved over the dot
matrix version but the real work of writing the letter was done
previously .
With the addition of SMPTE time code, the
computer can be locked to the multitrack recorder adding virtual tracks.
If timecode is recorded on the first track at the beginning of the
studio sessions then you can run the all of the synth, samples and drum
machines live while the multitrack is running. If the sequencing
software supports, say 64 tracks, then locked to a 24 track with
timecode on one track you would have 23 tape tracks and 64 virtual
tracks giving a total of 87 tracks. These days
it has become more common to use hard disk recording instead of tape. This
is because of the high cost of tape and the sound of the converters have
improved immensely over the years.
Hard Disk Recording
- Hard Disk Recording Systems are
widely used now and with the use of plugins have
become a huge
addition to the Studios editing and recording tools. They convert
audio to digital data and use computer hard drives to store the
audio data.
- There are two types of Hard Disk Recorder
– one type is a basic recorder with a few very basic editing
functions such as copy and paste and is like a
hard disk version of an adat and the other type is a fully
comprehensive editor which as well as very detailed copying and
pasting can alter pitch & EQ, create fade ins/outs and lengthen or
shorten notes as required.
- This second type has now been split into
two varieties:
- (i) the professional DAW (digital
audio workstation) such as Soundscape SS32, Sonic Solutions
and pro tools which are stand alone boxes containing the A/D,
D/A, Processors and Hard drives which are then controlled by an
external computer and,
- (ii) Native sophisticated sound cards which plug into
the computer and use the computers processor and hard drive.
-
- The Professional versions usually have
better quality A/D, D/A converters and lower noise levels than the
sound card versions. This is because the manufacturers have more
space to fit the latest converters and normally provide separate
power supplies for the audio and digital signals which reduces
noise. Also the hard drives are normally formatted to a proprietary
structure which is suited to audio recording.
- The Sound Card versions can provide a good
"cheap" home based recording setup although for a good card it can
still cost upwards of NZ$1000 not including the computer which
should be a fairly fast Pentium 4 (or equivalent MAC) to provide
32
tracks or so. These cards generally don't have mic preamps built
into them so they have just line level inputs and outputs although
the cheaper cards such as Creative Labs AWE64 do have mic preamps
they are of a "Multimedia" quality only (speech of adequate quality
for presentations) The best option when using these cards is to also
use a small good quality mixer which will incorporate mic amps as
well as EQ. and the ability to add external effects at a later
stage.
Creading tracks at home and then
bringing them into the studio to mix down is now a viable option
because you can export the files as wave files that can
be imported to any professional system. The
area that can let that process down is using inferior analog to digital
converters. The files should be recorded at a resolution of at least 44.1k
and 24 bit. Most systems today can do 96k 24 bit. The higher the resolution
the more the space required on the hard drive. This used to be a problem but
now with cheap large hard drives available it is no longer an issue.
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