You would love to start recording some music?

Day 10 (Day 9).

You would love to start recording music, but you don't know where to start and what equipment you need?

The first question is what instrument do you plan to use to record music: a guitar, a keyboard, an accordion, etc..? With several instruments? Alone or in a group?

In all cases we assume that your recording studio will be your PC or MAC. That is to say that you will record your productions on this machine. You will start with very little equipment by installing what is commonly called a "Home Studio". A mini Home Studio of course, but a Home Studio nonetheless. You will be amazed at what you can produce with very little equipment and a very affordable starting budget.

It will be difficult to cover this vast subject in a single article, so let's assume that you want to produce electronic music. We will deal with the various other topics in other articles to come. Also, we will develop this first article in more detail later. Let's lay the foundations.

For electronic music

Basically you will need a PC or a Mac, a recording software (DAW), sound banks and effects to process the sound, (for sound banks and effects, some software offer a number of these in the included library), and a simple MIDI master keyboard.

Let's start by installing a software to record music. For free if possible at first! You will see later if you want to go much further in this adventure and in your musical productions. At that point, you will probably need to buy a license of a more professional software. There is a large choice and at different budgets. But to start, among the free software, on the Mac you will find "Garage Band" (little brother of Logic Pro), very well known and with an easy handling, which is an excellent first choice to start. Moreover, it is provided with each MAC, and has quality sound banks. So you will be ready to produce your music quickly. On PC, among the freeware, you will find Tracktion "Waveform Free", a free DAW (also available on Linux and MAC) to start producing quality music without any limitations. Easy to use and very complete.

Note: there is a plethora of recording software for all operating systems, including Mac IOS and Android. I propose you only two of them, judicious for first steps, but free to you to go on internet to consult specialized articles on the subject. Personally I use Samplitude Pro X, Samplitude Music Studio for light and portable projects, and much more rarely EnergyXT. One of the best for Electronic Music is Fruity Loop.

This is one of the first electronic track I recorded, all with free software plugins, a PC and a midi master keyboard. It's a scifi space opera track called: "Ancient World".

Let's choose a keyboard!

Whether you know the basics of music or not, you need a keyboard. It's better! Note that there are two kinds of keyboards: those that can produce sounds because they have a whole collection of them internally. They are real synths! And those that do not have sounds, they are Master MIDI controllers that can drive hardware synths modules, software synths (standalone or plugins), or sound banks installed on your machine (standalone or plugins too), through the MIDI protocol. All keyboards with sounds integrated can be also used as a Midi Keyboard now (with a MIDI USB/MIDI in/Out interface). You have this possibility. If you have a low budget Yamaha Arranger Synth, or anything like it, you can use it as a Master MIDI Keyboard too to start playing with sound. I recommend to buy a dedicated Master MIDI Keyboard because you just have to plug it on you PC or MAC with the supplied USB cable, which also serves as a power supply. And you ready to use it on your DAW via MIDI protocol by USB. You will find some small, light and transportable.

Check out Amazon; you will find some good MIDI keyboards starting at $40. I recommend M-Audio ones, AKAI or Novation. But MidiPlus are affordable at very low budget and will do the job the same. You will choose one according to your budget, but also your motivation. No need to invest money in an expensive device if you are not sure you really want to pursue this adventure after your first steps. I recommend a keyboard with good quality and price.

You now have a machine with recording software installed, a MIDI keyboard connected?

Now let's look at a very important thing to do before you start recording or playing, and that is to set up the sound routing through your software and machine. Many beginners run into problems at this stage because there are some very important settings to make in your software. First of all you have to make sure that it recognizes your keyboard as a "MIDI in" instrument in the MIDI options, and of course activate/select this function on the recognized device if it is not the default. All recent MIDI keyboards are recognized, it is now a standard. On PC, I highly recommend to install the ASIO4ALL drivers to manage and reduce latency during recording. You will have to select ASIO4ALL in the Audio In and Out options of your recording software.

You're ready to rock!

To go further..

Ideally, you should use an external sound card dedicated to music, but it is not essential at this stage. Ok, see you soon for more! :0)

Keep in touch for the next article on the subject: creating a project! Using a plugin instrument, or a sound bank.

I hope these publications can help some of you here on ReadCash. In any case, don't hesitate to ask your own questions. I will be very happy to try to answer them! I see some musicians here on ReadCash posting their works, It's great!

Another artist I really like, Paranoia - 2A-19. Soft techno, minimalism! Great!

Thanks for reading me & support my musical journey! :0)

Have a fantastic week!

Spotify me here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0FarK4tJsP9D043gqpMCzN

For Apple users, it's here: https://music.apple.com/fr/artist/solar-phasing/1414238216

& More on Soundcloud or Audius.

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