HR Basics

Warning: Investing in Home Recording Gear could cause the following:
A severe loss in money including potential overdrafts; insomnia; weight-gain; addiction to level-tweaking; loss of hearing; hot pocket cravings; chemical depdencies on soda and doritos; "just-one-more-upgrade" syndrom; and in some extreme cases, widows have been made.

Well, I wish I could say I was joking...It's humerous, but no joke. It's hard to explain just how gratifying it is to be your own music producer. To know that you can create music from scratch, start to finish, off your own efforts is thrilling. The expansive knowledge that comes with the process of recording is an exponentially developing learning curve.

If you are interested in dabbling in home recording (see warning above), you're in for a great ride. In this week's postings you'll find resources to acquire the basic essentials necessary for recording.

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Hardware

First on the to-do list is to get a capable machine to run your system on. For all you Mac lovers out there (myself included), the Mac Pro is of course the ideal.

For those looking to not go over the top, there are several options. You could buy a cheap model Dell PC made to order, or check out your local Best Buy's offers. However, most of the new PC's being sold are stocked with Windows Vista. Cough cough. I would personally stear clear of Vista for a while. Programming companies are playing catchup to upgrade their XP software, and I'm willing to bet they're reluctant to do so if they feel the same way I do about Vista. XP works great as a PC-based OS.

You don't have to buy a new machine and "down-grade" it to get XP though. Some PC's are are stocked with XP, while others still offer it as an option (made to order online).

However, if you want to have the perfect balance between budget and hardware capability, I recommend building your own PC. I will email you details of what I've built if you are interested, but a detailed look at how to choose the right hardware for your computer can be found at this great site. Just make sure you have plenty of high speed USB ports along with at least a gig of ram and a massive harddrive, especially if you plan on making this machine production-heavy.

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Software

Many of you mac owners have fiddled with Garage Band, Mac's integrated multitracking interface. Recently, I've been pretty impressed with the programming developments GB has made. Far from being basic, GB has evolved into a great piece of recording software. In my opinion, the greatest feature of GB is its orientation towards beginners. The software focuses much of its efforts on educating the user. The plugin capability has also improved greatly.
Of course, Protools is generally considered the industry standard for professionals (and those with lots of money)

If you're running on a Windows based PC, there are several options. My favorite budget recording option is Cakewalk for many reasons. Cakewalk couples power and option with user-friendliness. It is designed with function in mind at all levels. For those on a budget, I recommend a version of Cakewalk for your PC-based home studio.

Other options include Cubase, a wicked-awesome multitracking solution that is comparable to protools (in capability and price).

Later this week, I'll continue to list what I believe to be essentials needed to start recording and producing at home. Still to come: Audio interfaces, mixing options, mics, and other gear we are oh so passionate about.