How to Record a Song at Home

Ok, so now that you have a song written you’re going to want to record it so you can show it off a little. Not many of us have the resources to be able to record at a professional studio all the time, or have a studio in the home, so we will share with you a simple way to make your own “studio” in an affordable way. You will need the following items to be able to record a song.

a) Multi-track audio recording software such as ACID, Cakewalk etc. We like to use ACID because its relatively simple. You can get trial versions online or a copy from your friends who have it.

b) Any musical instruments you would like to incorporate into your song, guitar, keyboard, drums, banjo, didgeridoo…you get the point.

c) If your computer has a built in microphone you can just use that depending on how good it is, if not then get a microphone. Still, even if your computer has a built in microphone we recommend you get an external one as well. It will come in handy if you want to record any acoustic instruments that don’t plug in directly into the computer.

d) If you want to use a keyboard, electric guitar, electric bass, then you will have to buy a power converter with one side that you can plug your guitar in, and the other side that you can plug into the computer headphone jack. This is called a 1/4″ Jack to 1/8″ Plug. We like to use a dual adapter because our headphones have a 1/4″ output jack and we want to be able to hear the instrument thats plugged into the computer while we’re playing it. The jack should look something like this, and will run about $5.00.

e) Finally, you will also need some headphones. The best ones are the sound canceling. We know that you’re not working in a sound proof environment, so use any chance you get to minimize erroneous noise. They should look something like this:
The first thing you want to record is a drum track, whether you get it from actual drums, keyboard, or online, this will be the track that sets the tempo. If you don’t want drums in your song then use a metronome – this is a tempo setting tool that comes with recording software, keyboard, or an online metronome. You can set what tempo you want and it makes clicking sounds based on that tempo.

After you record the drums, you plug in your headphones and record the remaining guitar, keyboard, and vocal tracks as you listen to the drum track and follow the tempo. Remember to do each of these separately including the different vocals tracks. You will have to play around with your recording software to enhance the recordings you make, take out white noise, add echo, etc. But unless you are working with professional software this shouldn’t be too difficult.

We hope that this entry is helpful in getting you started with the recording process. Yes, there might be better ways out there to record, but we have found this to be the most cost and time effective method. We will go into greater detail in later posts about every step of recording a song.

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