Jeff Strong - Home Recording for Dummies: 6th Edition

Home Recording For Dummies, 6th Edition

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Copyright 2021 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945324

ISBN 978-1-119-71110-0 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-71163-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-71164-3 (ebk)

1. Chapter 17

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 3
3. Chapter 4
4. Chapter 5
5. Chapter 6
6. Chapter 7
7. Chapter 8
8. Chapter 9
9. Chapter 11
10. Chapter 12
11. Chapter 13
12. Chapter 14
13. Chapter 15
14. Chapter 16
15. Chapter 17
16. Chapter 18
17. Chapter 19
18. Chapter 20
19. Chapter 21
20. Chapter 23

If youre like most musicians, youve been noodling around on your instrument for a while and youve finally decided to take the plunge and get serious about recording your ideas. You may just want to throw a few ideas down onto tape (or hard drive) or capture those magical moments you have with your band. Or you may want to compose, record, produce, and release the next great platinum album. Either way, youll find that having a home studio can give you hours of satisfaction.

Well, youve chosen a great time to get involved in audio recording. Not long ago, you needed to go to a commercial recording studio and spend thousands of dollars if you wanted to make a decent-sounding recording. Now you can set up a first-class recording studio in your garage or spare bedroom and create music that can sound as good as that coming out of top-notch studios (that is, if you know how to use the gear).

Home Recording For Dummies, 6th Edition, is a great place to start exploring the gear and techniques you need to create great recordings (if I do say so myself). This book introduces you to home recording and helps you to get your creative ideas out into the world.

Home Recording For Dummies not only introduces you to the technology of home recording but also presents basic multitrack recording techniques. In the pages that follow, you find out about the many types of digital recording systems available, including computer-based systems, all-in-one recorder/mixer systems (called studio-in-a-box systems), and phone and tablet recording.

You get acquainted with the basic skills you need to make high-quality recordings. These skills can save you countless hours of experimenting and searching through owners manuals. In this book, you discover

• The ins and outs of using the various pieces of equipment in your studio
• Tried-and-true engineering techniques, such as microphone choice and placement
• The concepts of multitracking, mixing, and mastering
• How to turn all your music into complete songs
• How to assemble and release an album

Home Recording For Dummies puts you on the fast track toward creating great-sounding recordings because it concentrates on showing you skills that you can use right away and doesnt bother you with tons of technical jargon or useless facts.

Throughout the book, you see sidebars (text in gray boxes) and text marked with the Technical Stuff icon. Both of these are skippable they provide interesting information, but its not essential to your understanding of the subject at hand.

Finally, within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If youre reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as its noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesnt exist. If youre reading this as an e-book, youve got it easy just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

I have to admit that when I wrote this book, I made a couple of assumptions about you, the reader. First, I assume youre interested in recording your music (or someone elses) in your home and not interested in reading about underwater basket-weaving (a fascinating subject, Im sure, but not appropriate for a book entitled