Colin Fairbairn

The world of digital audio can be extremely intimidating, and unfortunately for the novice, there’s very little out right now to explain the basics of making music on your computer.

Rest assured it’s not as hard as you might think. Chances are if you’re reading this right now you already have a computer that’s good enough to start making music on. Lucky for you there’s a plethora of inexpensive and even free software that can do some amazing things.

Sound cards:
The heart of making music on your computer is your sound card. Most computers made in the last couple of years come with a decent sound card capable of recording audio fairly well. There are, however, a couple of different things to consider when shopping for a new sound card.

If all you need is to use one microphone at a time or if you are just trying to transfer audio over from your turntable or cassettes, the sound card you already have is probably fine.

If you are ready to do some more serious stuff, it’s time to consider getting a 24/96 card. These cards have much higher quality analog-to-digital (A/D) converters. The A/D converter is the chip on the card that takes the analog electrical signals coming into the card and converts them into digital data. CDs currently play back at 16/48, so as you may have guessed, these cards are capable of recording audio at higher than CD quality.

If you are going to be recording more than one instrument at once, you’ll also want a card with multiple inputs. These cards generally cost between $300 and $800 and some have more inputs then others. The big advantage to these cards is that you can take each sound or instrument that you are recording and send it to its own individual track on your computer. It can then be manipulated completely independently from the other tracks in the song.

For example, if you wanted to use a lot of reverb on your guitar but only a little on your voice, you could apply the different effects to the individual tracks with no problems. Keep in mind that if you want to record multiple tracks at once, you’ll need a fairly fast computer (more on that later).

MIDI:
MIDI stands for musical instrument digital interface and is the language that electronic instruments use to interface with each other and your computer. A MIDI controller is a keyboard that connects to your computer or other MIDI instruments. Most modern keyboards are MIDI ready and most sound cards’ game ports are also MIDI ports.

A MIDI-to-game port cable costs around $10 if your keyboard didn’t already come with one. When you play back or record MIDI data, you’re really sending a set of instructions to the instrument telling it what note to play, how long to play it, how hard, and so on. For more in-depth information about MIDI, visit Harmony-Central.

Multi-track recording software:
Back in the early days of MIDI when most musicians were still working on Atari computers, sequencers were just simple programs that recorded MIDI data. Now, sequencers allow your computer to be transformed into a powerful multi-track recorder.

A sequencer is basically a software application designed to record, edit, and play back MIDI data. However, modern sequencers can now also be capable of recording audio. This means that you can create a MIDI drum track, record yourself playing your guitar over the drum track, and then later go back and record a vocal. Most sequencers also include effects such as reverb and delays via plug-ins.

Plug-ins are small programs that run inside your sequencing software and are not only for effects, but for virtual instruments as well. The two most common types of plug-ins are DirectX and VST. Make sure the sequencing software that you’re considering is compatible with these two standards (ProTools is not!). VST plug-ins can fairly accurately model classic instruments that would otherwise be out of reach of most people. Some good inexpensive programs are Cubasis InWired (free); ProTools Free (free); n-Track Studio (free to try, $42 to buy); and Cool (free to try, $69 to buy).

Conclusion:
While all of this may sound expensive, it’s actually not. A PC or Mac with a 200-MHz processor and 64MB of RAM will generally run most entry level sequencing software, although this is the bare minimum for audio. If all you’re going to be working with are MIDI instruments, then the above specs should be plenty. Don’t rush out and buy an expensive sound card right away. Work with the one you have until you are comfortable with your software and start to get a feel for what you want to do. For more information, see the Home Studio FAQ put together by AudioFile.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 4:08 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.