Home Recording - A Basic Set Up Guide

In order to create music one requires talent, skill, the correct combination of software and hardware and sometimes even an adequate education. A good ear is also a necessity but takes time to develop. Though, setting up a quality recording studio itself takes up far less time than developing the earlier mentioned skills. Make informed decisions while selecting your equipment and software and you might very well be able to compose quality arrangements without years of training or education.

Everything in the home recording studio revolves around an up-to-date computer and a high-end digital audio workstation. Your computer should have at least 2GB of RAM and 2GHz processor speed in order to process audio in a smooth way. Processing audio takes a lot of resources so computers with higher specs are preferred. In addition, you will always want an up-to-date operating system to be sure your hardware and software is supported.

The digital audio workstation is software to record, mix, edit and master your audio files and should have multiple key features enabled which to look for while considering your purchase. These features include the compatibility of virtual instruments (VST's), maximum number of available tracks, mastering tools and compatibility with your audio hardware and computer. Expect to use a lot of tracks for a single piece of music since you also need to reserve some dedicated tracks for effects besides the tracks for the audio itself.

Recently there has been an uprising of workstations aimed specifically at making beats. Basically these should have the same key features of a full-fledged digital workstation but since they are developed to only make beats and work with sound samples, they are a lot more light weight. This kind of beat maker is generally an inexpensive tool and there is even such a thing as a free beat maker. If you are not planning to record any instruments, then this might be the tool to go with.

To be able to record any instruments, you will also need a suitable sound card, or audio interface. This piece of hardware is necessary to convert the instruments' audio signals in to digital signals that your computer is able to work with. Sadly enough, most on-board or readily installed sound cards are not up to the job so you'll need to buy one specifically designed for audio production.

Determine if you are going to record a band or will be working solo, recording each instrument one at a time by yourself. In order to make solo recordings, an audio interface with two inputs should be enough but I've found having eight inputs available to be less of a hassle. In this case you can leave your separate instruments plugged in at all times and not waste time switching plugs or instruments. The audio interfaces with more inputs are generally also more expensive. If you are on a tight budget, you can always install a mixing panel within the setup.

If you plan on recording vocals or acoustic instruments, you'll need a quality microphone. Basically all studio microphones produced for this task are condenser microphones and these can be quite expensive. However, these days you can find adequate condenser microphones for studio use for as little as $100.

To monitor your recordings, you can use studio monitors or studio headphones. You should always use monitor equipment made specifically for this job to get the best results. You'll discover that this equipment can be quite costly as well but creating a well balanced mix with the use of budget-priced equipment is very well possible.

Having quality equipment will leave you with a more user-friendly experience and ultimately high quality music. You shouldn't waste time tweaking and messing with inadequate hardware and software since recording, editing and mastering processes already takes a lot of time themselves.

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Buying a Used Guitar Guide

One of the best reasons for choosing to buy a used guitar is that you will get a better deal and more guitar for your money. Getting better bang for your bucks is one of the primary reasons that guitar players choose to purchase a used electric, acoustic or bass guitar. Popular online auctions have made it much easier to source a wide range of used musical instruments. Before the internet your only option for finding a second hand bargain have would be en to try your local guitar store, buy one from a friend, colleague or member of your family, or a second hand shop.

So we have established that finding a bargain is now much easier than it used to be. Now we shall consider the reasons why, besides money saving, a guitarist might choose to buy used instead of new. Well, there is the fact that lots of buyers like to purchase vintage instruments that might be rare or just sound better because of the aged parts and wood. You tend to find that famous music artists like to build up a collection of very rare guitars. They like to have a piece of history. Their loved ones also like to buy them vintage instruments because no two old guitars tend to be the same. This makes the gift all the more special.

So what makes a guitar feel and sound good in the first place? There are numerous factors that make a musical instrument worth playing including the wood used, the hardware (including tuning pegs, bridge, but, frets, pickups, wiring and sockets). The reliability of an instrument can also be vastly improved if good, solid wiring and joints are used. This is of particular concern for the gigging musician. You should always have backup equipment when you are playing live in front of an audience but ensuring that each of your instruments are in tip top condition and using the very best parts that you can afford makes your guitars as reliable as possible.

I had a bit of an issue recently with a and new guitar that I bought many years ago. It's a cheap one and I bought a replacement pickup for it to improve the sound which it did. But as some of the frets became quite warn near the twelve and fifteen frets (wear I'd been bending whilst playing lead guitar quite a lot) I did not have the frets repaired because my perception of the overall value of the guitar is not worth the repair. But my used guitars will get a fret dress when they need one because I bought them second hand and got a much better guitar for the price I paid. So the moral of the story is to buy a more expensive instrument used so that when it comes to replacing parts, upgrading and general maintenance, you will feel much better than repairing a cheap instrument.

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Guitar Lessons Guide

This article aims to provide a guitar lessons guide. After you've read this article you'll be able to plan what you need to do you get good at the guitar. I only started to learn the guitar when I was about eighteen years told and I often wish that I had started learning to play the musical instrument much earlier. But I have now become a pretty good guitarist. I play the guitar live in front of audiences at various venues. So how did I get good?

I believe that I'm a natural musician because when I went to college to study music my tutor played various notes in the piano and asked me to match the pitch with my voice. I managed to match each note perfectly and my tutor confirmed this saying that I was one of the best students he had ever seen do that. This means that I have what is known as a good ear for music.

So natural talent helps but so does a persistent attitude as well as a genuine interest in learning to play the guitar and be very motivated. I think that most learner guitarists start by learning a few basic chords but I started with riffs. That is probably why I am now more of a lead player than a rhythm player. But my rhythm is very good too.

To get good at playing music you should keep yourself motivated by learning songs that you actually genuinely like rather than sticking with what your music tutor wants to teach you. You can learn the same techniques from music that you like and I tend to find that many tutors have their own particular tastes that rub off on their students. Having said that I don't have any formal training on the guitar. I learned to play by listening to music, watching other people play and reading guitar tablature (tab). It is also a good idea to reward your playing by buying yourself (or asking your loved ones) to buy music related or guitar related equipment for you as you reach certain milestones in your journey to become a good musician.

I also found and still do find that listening to a wide variety of music and playing (or just jamming) with a variety of musicians helps to broaden my horizons and gives me my own unique style. My musical tastes have changed somewhat over the years and so have my choices of guitar. I used to like metal but now I'm into blues. I used to like super strats with humbuckers but now I like strats with single coils.

Whether you decide to learn to play the guitar by yourself, with others or with a music tutor (or with a mixture of all of these) you should make sure you use some kind of guitar lesson guide to teach you the theory behind music. This will help you to understand music better. Once you've learned to play the guitar (not that you ever really stop learning and getting better) you might want to try other instruments to broaden your understanding of the dynamics of playing in a band.

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Guitar Effects for Beginners - A Guide to Stomp Boxes and Multi-FX (Part 1)

If you're new to the world of the electric guitar you might be curious about how all your inspirational guitar heroes manage to produce the wonderful, and sometimes weird, array of different sounds out of their instruments. Surely they don't achieve them simply by plugging straight into their amp and blasting away?

Well, there are many great guitarists whose setup is as simple as that. But in most cases there's a bit more to it. In this first part I'll go through and explain the main types of effects available.

You may not be familiar with all these terms, but I guarantee if you've been listening to any electric guitar based music from the last 40 years+ you'll have heard some if not all of them at some point.

Distortion and Overdrive

Surely the most widely known type of effect, in fact it's so ubiquitous you might not even think of it as being one. It essentially re-shapes the sound wave received from the guitar, causing it to clip or distort, resulting in a warm fuzzy sound.

You will likely already be familiar with it if you bought an amp with your guitar, as just about all have a "clean" channel (i.e. no fuzzy sound) and an overdriven channel. A "gain" control on these units will allow you to go from anything from mildly distorted, to all out metal mania!

Distorted or overdriven sounds were first popularised in the Sixties by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, and have been a mainstay of rock music ever since.

Modulation

This covers a range of effects, the most common perhaps being Chorus, Flanger and Phaser.

Chorus works by taking the sound signal from the guitar and splitting it, adding a very slight delay (see Delay and Reverb below), along with frequency changes to the split signal. This can give your sound an orchestral quality, as if you're suddenly multiple guitarists playing the same part! Chorus sometimes gets a bit of a bad rep, probably due to overuse in the Eighties, but it's a great effect if used carefully. One of the most famous examples of it's use is on the opening of Come as you Are by Nirvana.

Flanger effects work on a similar principle as chorus, but the effect is more accentuated. This results in a "ducking and diving" type of sound. A famous example is on the main guitar riff to Spirit of Radio by Rush.

Phaser effects again split the signal and shift the phase of one part of it. The result has similarities to what a flanger does - you can still produce that "ducking and diving" sound, but overall it's a bit more "out there". A famous example is Have a Cigar from the Pink Floyd album Wish You Were Here.

Filters

If I say "Wah-wah" to you here, and you know what I'm talking about in a guitar context straight away (and are not assuming I'm just making baby noises), then you also know what a filter effect is.

This type acts like a big tone control on your guitar sound. In the case of Wah-wah it allows you to transition from a muffly sound to a bright, clean sound through the use of a foot pedal. It's a bit like opening the door on a party - when you're standing outside, the door closed, you hear loud music, but it's all a bit muffled. As you open the door the sound becomes brighter and clearer. Party on! A famous use of Wah-wah is on Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix.

An equalizer is a filter that applies permanent changes to the sound signal from your guitar. This will "boost" or "cut" the sound frequencies, allowing you to sculpt a bright or a deeper sound, or something in-between. This can be extremely important if you want to fit in the mix with the overall sound coming from other instruments.

Dynamics

These can really be thought of as problem solvers. All they really do is affect the volume of your guitar signal. At their most basic this can be a volume pedal, allowing you to manually boost or cut the signal during a performance.

A bit more complex is a compressor, which squeezes ("compresses") the signal, boosting quiet notes and smoothing out louder ones, evening out the volume and giving a more fluid sound. It's particularly popular in Metal, when used in conjunction with heavy distortion to get all those nimble-fingered solos clean and clear. It needs to be applied carefully though, too much and you can ruin your overall tone.

A noise gate is a very useful effect that will help get rid of unwanted hiss or hum (e.g. from your guitar pickups) by setting a "gate" at your chosen volume threshold. Anything quieter than the threshold gets removed, anything above remains intact.

Delay and Reverb

You can think of a reverb effect as being like a room simulator. It emulates what happens after a sound occurs in a room, i.e. when it "reverberates" around. You can therefore use it to recreate anything from the sound of playing in a bathroom, to that of a cathedral.

A delay effect adds an echo to your sound, with most units allowing you to modify the number of echo repeats to create a very short or long effect. Like reverb, you can use it to give yourself a very "big" sound, or play along rhythmically to the echoes - U2's guitarist, The Edge, is synonymous with this playing style.

Summary

That rounds out the main type of effects, although it by no means covers everything. There are many other subtypes, but most vary or add to the types explained above. I hope though this at least gives you a good starting point.

In the next article I'll explain the difference between stomp boxes and multi effects units. I'll go through some examples and also focus on some of the more wallet-friendly ones available.

If you're just starting out in rock guitar and want to learn how to play in this style, here's a cool place with some very useful resources: Rock Guitar Power. Learn your riffs, plug in your stomp boxes and make some noise!

Iain is based in Scotland has been playing electric guitar for 20 years. In that time he has tried out a great many amps, stomp boxes and multi-effects units.

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Learning To Play The Drums - A Beginners Guide To Getting Started On The Drums

Have you always wanted to play the drums but didn't know where to begin or where to start? I'm not going to lie to you, drums are not as easy to play as others would make out. But with the right direction and a little natural rhythm you can be playing along to your favourite songs in no time at all!

So what's first? Well, some might say that getting a drum kit is pretty important but this just isn't the case. I learnt to play drums on the side of chairs and on cushions before my Dad bought me my first drum kit. Also, you might not be able to afford a drum kit to start off with so what else can you do? Well, you could...

1. Try to become friends or get to know a drummer local to you. Do you have a friend that already plays the drums? It's always good to learn some stuff from somebody you already know and most musicians are more than happy to show a beginner a trick or two. Just ask!

2. If you're lucky enough to still be going to school then does your local school own a drum kit? If so then ask if you can have a play on it sometime, either in break time or after school. This could be a great chance for you to either practice some ideas if you don't have a drum kit at home or just to try out the drums for the first time. Also gives you a chance to experience the full volume of a real drum kit for the first time... BANGBANG!!

Of course, nothing beats (no pun intended) owning your own drum set but don't feel like you can't learn without one. Drums are different to other instruments in that you can learn to play by tapping on any surface. Sure, it's not the same and you will soon reach a wall in your playing but at least you get a chance to learn before making any financial commitment on a drum kit.

Once you've either got a drum kit or are satisfied with your practice equipment/chair situation then the next step has to be...

3. Play along to Music (CD/MP3's). Start with simple songs and just dive in. I'm completely self taught (originally) and just started off by listening carefully to my favourite songs and trying to copy the drum beats. Looking back I made loads or mistakes but I learned from every single one. Each time I made a mistake I would remember it for next time and slowly over time I improved and (to my surprise) became very good, considering I didn't have a teacher for the first 6 years of my playing! Just be brave and start playing, you'll be surprised how quickly you pick things up!

4. Get free drum lessons from online websites and YouTube. There are so many online sources of free education available out there that it would be silly not to take advantage of it.

5. Learn to play at least a few common beginner drum beats and learn to play them in your sleep! You will find that most songs contain just a few basic beats that drummers then chop and change (add and remove notes) to suit the song. One of the most common and basic drum beats can be seen and heard from the Beginner Video Drum Lesson link above (listed as Part 1 - Eighth Note Hi-Hat) This basic drum beat can be heard on countless recordings and is well worth learning... in fact, it's unavoidable if you want to play drums.

You now have a few options open to you depending on where you want to take your drumming.

6. You might like to learn how to read some basic notation. I talk about the benefits of this in one of my articles under the Free Drum Lessons/Article section of my website. This article explains all of the positives and negatives for learning to read music. I'm obviously biased but with good reason, I think learning to read and write music notation is one of the best things you can do for your playing. It's also no coincidence to find out that most other readers also think the same.

7. Get yourself a GOOD drum teacher! Yep, there's no denying that a drum teacher is going to have a huge affect on your playing. Finding a good drum teacher (and it's worth shopping around) will not only make you a better drummer but will improve you quicker and help you to avoid the little pitfalls and dead ends that most self taught drummers (including myself) suffered within those first few years of playing.

Also, it's worth mentioning that a teacher might not always know best. I try to be as humble as possible with my students as we all make mistakes. Sometimes what I think is best for the pupil might not be. I trust that my pupil will speak up when they feel that perhaps a better direction might be more suitable for them. Let your teacher know exactly what you want to learn. If you want to learn just Jazz then say so, it's your money!

This has been just a quick and brief introduction to getting started on the drums and you can find further drum articles relating to this subject on my website. Just take a look around the site and have fun learning!

Please feel free to email me if you wish to ask me any questions at all. I'll be happy to help you in any way I can.

Happy drumming to you!

Rob (Drummer and Self Confessed Drum-Nut)

Robert Litten is a Drummer and Teacher of 20 years experience who now spends his time building and running the webs premier online Video Drum Lesson & Sheet Music website http://www.drumstheword.com/.

Drums The Word - 100's of Free Video Drum Lessons, from Beginners to Advanced. Easily learn how to play drums to your favourite songs!

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