Alright with the winter season fast approaching and the carnal urge to stay indoors coming fast upon us, now is the time to reaclamate yourself with your instrument and your computer or standalone recorder.
So in this three part issue, we will discuss a basic home recording setup as well as some ways to put it into practice.
PT.1 The Recording Device - The Computer
The main preference for studio's is a computer, because of it's extremely powerful and expansive nature. Any computer purchased since around 2001 and onward is likely suitable for setting up a basic recording studio. The main issues to look at when selecting a computer are
a)Processor
b)Ram ( Program Memory)
c)Hard Drive (Physical Memory)
d)Connectivity
USB 1.0 / 2.0 / Firewire 400 / 800 /
a)The processor is important because it handles the work. Its like that little team of workers that when working together and efficiently can get the job done fast and clean, or when overworked they will slow down and do poor work. Most processors available in newer computers within the last two years are either Duo Core or Quad Core. The way to look at it is as follows: Up until recently most computers had one processor with one core in it, and that core spent its time executing all your tasks that you wanted to run on the computer. The processors that are out now are still one processor, but they can have multiple cores. These cores share the tasks that you want to operate and thus share the load, operating faster. This is useful for recording when you want to record multiple takes at the same time, and then later also edit volume and effects. It gives your computer more available power to process the tasks you want it to.
b)RAM is a little easier to explain, its the memory that programs use to execute parts of themselves, Its a random access memory that programs can use to overflow and give themselves space to do their actions, and hold items that in operation but not saved to a physical location. So the more RAM you have the faster your computer will start up potentially and also the faster and with less errors your will be able to record. Typically a home computer will have 1GB to 4GB of Ram. With RAM its the more the merrier.
c)Hard Drive's have become cheaper and cheaper as time goes on. Well known brands are Seagate and Western Digital. Hard Drives can come in internal or external. The internal hard drives are of course stored inside your computer, external, well you get the picture, they are store outside of the computer, usually mobile in nature. For audio purposes its important to have a hard drive that is 7200 RPM or higher, and preferably is an ATA not IDE drive. The lettering refers to its connection to your motherboard. Audio applications seem to benefit from the ATA connectiviy. If you are planning to save your songs, it helps to have space. The reason being each track you record will likely save in WAV or AIFF file format which take up space. In terms of size, a 3 minute WAV or AIFF will likely be the same size as a full album of 12 MP3's. So if you are recording an album you will likely fill up space fast. In this case it helps to have either one smaller hard drive for running your plugins/effects and Operating system and then another just for stored audio files. Or to have one hard drive and have it partitioned to allow for easier finding and access. For the basic home studio any hard drive or drives around 120 GB and higher will be of use.
d)Connectivity
USB 1.0 : Is an out of date form of USB. It still operates the same and looks the same, just way slower.
USB 2.0 : Is the current form of USB and looks the same as USB 1.0. Most computers in the last 5 years use USB 2.0. USB 2.0 is as fast as other connections, but is more useful in one way communication as it sends its information in bursts instead of in a more evenflow two way communication. Most beginning audio interfaces/breakout boxes for recording will be USB 2.0 as most will be just recording one track at a time. The are also commonplace on midi controllers for synthesizer sounds or piano and drum sounds.
FIREWIRE 400 : Is a 4 or 6 pin connector developed by apple. It is typically a more stable connection for audio and video applications. In comparison to USB 2.0 it operates accordingly.
While USB 2.0 nominally runs faster than FireWire 400, typical USB PC-connections rarely exceed sustained transfers of about half of its potential. This is likely due to USB's reliance on your computers processor to manage low-level USB activities, whereas FireWire delegates the same tasks to the interface hardware. For example, the FireWire host interface supports memory-mapped devices, which allows high-level protocols to run without loading the host CPU with interrupts and buffer-copy operations.
FIREWIRE 800: is a 9 pin connector version of firewire that is backwards compatible with firewire 400. The 9 pin version is substantially faster than Firewire 400.
In terms of use normally hard drives for audio or video are firewire 400 or 800 and multiple track interfaces as well as firewire based. Whereas single track devices and midi controllers are usually USB 2.0
In the next installment we will go through how to put all of these items into practical use.
-If you have any questions feel free to contact me at kyle@fadersmusic.com
So in this three part issue, we will discuss a basic home recording setup as well as some ways to put it into practice.
PT.1 The Recording Device - The Computer
The main preference for studio's is a computer, because of it's extremely powerful and expansive nature. Any computer purchased since around 2001 and onward is likely suitable for setting up a basic recording studio. The main issues to look at when selecting a computer are
a)Processor
b)Ram ( Program Memory)
c)Hard Drive (Physical Memory)
d)Connectivity
USB 1.0 / 2.0 / Firewire 400 / 800 /
a)The processor is important because it handles the work. Its like that little team of workers that when working together and efficiently can get the job done fast and clean, or when overworked they will slow down and do poor work. Most processors available in newer computers within the last two years are either Duo Core or Quad Core. The way to look at it is as follows: Up until recently most computers had one processor with one core in it, and that core spent its time executing all your tasks that you wanted to run on the computer. The processors that are out now are still one processor, but they can have multiple cores. These cores share the tasks that you want to operate and thus share the load, operating faster. This is useful for recording when you want to record multiple takes at the same time, and then later also edit volume and effects. It gives your computer more available power to process the tasks you want it to.
b)RAM is a little easier to explain, its the memory that programs use to execute parts of themselves, Its a random access memory that programs can use to overflow and give themselves space to do their actions, and hold items that in operation but not saved to a physical location. So the more RAM you have the faster your computer will start up potentially and also the faster and with less errors your will be able to record. Typically a home computer will have 1GB to 4GB of Ram. With RAM its the more the merrier.
c)Hard Drive's have become cheaper and cheaper as time goes on. Well known brands are Seagate and Western Digital. Hard Drives can come in internal or external. The internal hard drives are of course stored inside your computer, external, well you get the picture, they are store outside of the computer, usually mobile in nature. For audio purposes its important to have a hard drive that is 7200 RPM or higher, and preferably is an ATA not IDE drive. The lettering refers to its connection to your motherboard. Audio applications seem to benefit from the ATA connectiviy. If you are planning to save your songs, it helps to have space. The reason being each track you record will likely save in WAV or AIFF file format which take up space. In terms of size, a 3 minute WAV or AIFF will likely be the same size as a full album of 12 MP3's. So if you are recording an album you will likely fill up space fast. In this case it helps to have either one smaller hard drive for running your plugins/effects and Operating system and then another just for stored audio files. Or to have one hard drive and have it partitioned to allow for easier finding and access. For the basic home studio any hard drive or drives around 120 GB and higher will be of use.
d)Connectivity
USB 1.0 : Is an out of date form of USB. It still operates the same and looks the same, just way slower.
USB 2.0 : Is the current form of USB and looks the same as USB 1.0. Most computers in the last 5 years use USB 2.0. USB 2.0 is as fast as other connections, but is more useful in one way communication as it sends its information in bursts instead of in a more evenflow two way communication. Most beginning audio interfaces/breakout boxes for recording will be USB 2.0 as most will be just recording one track at a time. The are also commonplace on midi controllers for synthesizer sounds or piano and drum sounds.
FIREWIRE 400 : Is a 4 or 6 pin connector developed by apple. It is typically a more stable connection for audio and video applications. In comparison to USB 2.0 it operates accordingly.
While USB 2.0 nominally runs faster than FireWire 400, typical USB PC-connections rarely exceed sustained transfers of about half of its potential. This is likely due to USB's reliance on your computers processor to manage low-level USB activities, whereas FireWire delegates the same tasks to the interface hardware. For example, the FireWire host interface supports memory-mapped devices, which allows high-level protocols to run without loading the host CPU with interrupts and buffer-copy operations.
FIREWIRE 800: is a 9 pin connector version of firewire that is backwards compatible with firewire 400. The 9 pin version is substantially faster than Firewire 400.
In terms of use normally hard drives for audio or video are firewire 400 or 800 and multiple track interfaces as well as firewire based. Whereas single track devices and midi controllers are usually USB 2.0
In the next installment we will go through how to put all of these items into practical use.
-If you have any questions feel free to contact me at kyle@fadersmusic.com
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