Recording

I have been using Reaper as my recording software for many years. As a guitar player, in that time I’ve used it to record guitar parts many times. Reaper is a great choice for recording guitars, but if you are new to recording it can be a little intimidating. To record guitar in Reaper, make…

There have been many times throughout my music recording life when I have needed to send or receive a musical project to work on. When doing this it is usual to send either “stems” or “multitracks”. Stems and multitracks are not the same thing, and for many musical collaborations it is essential to know the…

Modern music recording hardware and software give us many options when it comes to applying effects to our tracks. Should we record with effects applied, and trust our ability to capture a great sound? Or should we record dry i.e. without effects, giving us the option to add them later? As a general rule, it…

When recording songs in our home studios, it can be easy to get overwhelmed and paralyzed by even the simplest of decisions. For example, when faced with recording several tracks for a song, what should you record first? As a general rule, you should record rhythm tracks first in a song. This gives a solid…

I have been working in some form of home recording studio for over 20 years. When I started in the 1990s, my “studio” was just a cassette-based Tascam Portastudio (remember those!?) with a cheap microphone I bought from a local consumer electronics store. Today, my studio is based around a dedicated PC and an audio…

I have been recording vocals in my home studio for over twenty years. In that time I have made pretty much every mistake it is possible to make. One of those very common mistakes I made was to try and record everything as loud as possible. This is the number one reason for distortion in…

Since the invention of multi-track recording in the middle of the 20th century, tracks have been its fundamental basic component. Whether you are using DAW software on a home computer, you’re in a pro recording studio or you’re using some other digital recording device, an understanding of tracks is essential in creating your music. In…

With the technology, software and equipment available to us today relatively inexpensively, it is entirely possible to make professional recordings in your own home. It isn’t just a case of throwing up a microphone and pressing record though! Your home has not been specially designed for audio recording like a home studio has. This means…

In my home studio, I have never recorded a vocal in just one take. Even if you are recording a great singer and the first take you record sounds pretty much perfect, things can still go wrong with that “perfect” take. These issues may not be apparent at the recording stage, so recording vocals in…