While traditional studio recordings provide the luxury of multiple takes and post-production editing, capturing a live performance brings a distinct charm that’s hard to replicate. The unfiltered essence of a sound’s chemistry, the real-time interactions, and the genuine connection with the music come alive on screen, giving a taste of what it’s like to be front and center at a concert.
I don’t think there’s any doubt about. But how to do it that on a computer? Even in digital world you need “cables” to connect the audio output of your DAW to the software you use to record, whatever it is. If you are on Windows, the operating system will probably not help you and will make the use of an audio router almost essential, and you will have to have the patience to align the various software regarding Sample Rate, latency, USB buffers, etc. etc.
Furthermore, Windows has the unique ability to reset your audio preferences with each update, find out why. So if you had set your preferences manually you will find them back with the default Windows setting, which almost never coincides (for example, I record at 24 bit/48000 Hz but Windows regularly sets 16 bit, even if the sound card driver says otherwise). The worst thing is that Windows also resets the preferences regarding the so-called audio Exclusive Control, so something that used to work no longer works.
I mean, you’ve prepared your performance and all kinds of drugs are pushing into your brain and lo and behold, you press Record in your recording software and… error. “The recording device is not responding”. It’s not nice. Coitus interruptus of the worst kind.
But there is a way to solve the embarrassment: record directly from within your DAW. Fortunately, there are VST plugins to do this. Personally I use MRecorder by Melda Production, the free version.
Very simple but effective, with a series of options (some only usable with the paid version, but not essential for my use).
MRecorder interface.
It is a free plugin, downloadable with the MFreeFXBundle by Melda Production (38 free effects, not to be underestimated). And that’s the end of this problem. Put it in the main stereo mix bus on DAW mixer and live free.
Virtual Studio Technology (VST) plugins are what amateur and professional recording engineers and artists use to enhance their audio projects. A plugin is a type of software that works inside another piece of software. Instead of working on its own, you plug it into something else (in our case, the DAW).
If you’ve ever visited a recording studio, you’ve certainly noticed some racks containing objects called effects: they’re the equipment that allows the sound engineer to add details to the instruments, maybe some reverb, an echo, a compressor or a special effect. For a guitarist these are the studio equivalent of the numerous pedals at his feet, and the studio ones are much more refined, precise and expensive.
The chain of effects can actually characterize the sound of an instrument in an important way, the famous case being the sound of the solos of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. Two notes are enough and you recognize it. Or Jimi Hendrix’s Wha Wha, and many other famous examples (and we are talking about just ONE effect).
One of the most famous effects used by Gilmour is a delay called the Binson Echorec, a tape echo from days gone by.
– (left) David tweaking his Binson II unit during A Saucerful of Secrets filmed at Pompeii. (right) David pictured at Earl’s Court, London, UK in May 1973 with a Binsin II and a Binson PE.
That distinctive sound is so desired that many software houses has seen fit to create a replica of the delay in digital format, emulating not only the sound but also the look in the interface.
This delay is just an example, you can find any kind of known and unknown effects, free and paid, in every category and often it will be just how you use effects that will shape your personal sound.
Your DAW’s mixer will allow you to use them freely, even emulating rather refined techniques such as sidechain and parallel compression.
The world of effects is a complex world, just as important as that of tools. Below is a probably partial list of the available audio effects organized by categories.
Now that we have bought an audio interface, we need to think about the tape recorder, mixer, effects, anything required in a studio.
In a digital studio, the reel to reel recorder is part of the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).
The digital audio workstation (DAW) has become the music producer’s canvas, a central software platform containing all the sounds, instruments, and tools they use for recording music (and other).
DAWs are deep, complex programs with lots to learn. Choosing a DAW is one of the biggest early decisions a producer faces. But what is a digital audio workstation exactly, what can you do with them, and which one is a best fit for your own ideas and interests?
Think of a DAW as a digital representation of a physical recording studio where you can produce audio for a wide variety of mediums including film, gaming, podcasting, music, UX, and more. The whole studio process is packed into one, the creative ideas in tandem with the technical. You can record tracks, build up beats, add instruments or vocal parts, then lay out the arrangement, apply effects, and mix the finished work all within one interconnected hub.
Today, the convenience and accessibility of DAWs have made them the most popular way of making music and editing audio — used by everyone from bedroom producers and songwriters all the way up to top industry professionals.
There’s a range of DAWs available that we will explore in more detail below, each with unique features and advantages. That said, common standards of design and compatibility can be identified across the different brands. Personally i use as DAW Presonus Studio One and Reaper, but it’s just because in my opinion they have the best workflow for me, the one that facilitates my personal way of working.
But all DAWs have points in common, find the one that best suits your personal preferences. If someone tells you “this sounds better than that,” doubt it. A DAW doesn’t have to “sound better” but allow you to manage the way you work most effectively without hindering your creativity.
We’re talking bits, they can’t sound better in one DAW than another. If they feel like they do, there’s something wrong with either your setup or DAW. There are lots of both free and paid ones. Find yours and learn to use it well, even reading the fucking manual. The DAW is the most important tool in your creative arsenal.
What can you do with a DAW?
1. Record, play and edit audiotracks
Digital audio workstations come with built-in viewport that allow you to record, save, edit, and playback audio. To record audio from external instruments or microphones, you need an audio interface. An audio interface takes audio signals and converts them into data that a computer can process, allowing you to record and edit audio in software based environments like a DAW.
An audio track in your DAW (in this case in Studio One, but is the same in any DAW)
Once you record, all audio is saved and displayed on the timeline, where you can cut, copy, and paste audio waveforms. From the sequencer window, you can easily mute waveforms, stitch them together, and crossfade them into one another, much like you would with audio recorded on physical tape.
2. Record, play and edit MIDI virtual instrumentstracks
DAWs also allow you to play virtual instruments (VST) for composing music. Virtual instruments and effects are software programs designed to replicate the sounds of physical instruments like synthesizers, pianos, drums, guitars, violins, trumpets, and more, or create completely new digital instruments for which there is no analog reference.
Most DAWs come with stock libraries of sounds, but they also allow for third party plug-ins—external software that can be “plugged in” to a DAW to enhance its functionality. In general, each VST has an installer that copies the needed files in the right place, a location predefined by Steinberg, the inventor of VST technology. However, many free plugins don’t have an installer, so you’ll need to place the necessary files in the correct folder by yourself.
Also check that the VST plugin is consistent with your DAW, a 64 bit DAW wants 64 bit VSTs, or it won’t work.
As you can easily imagine, a track in which the events you play or the settings of an audio effect are recorded is not equivalent to an audio track: another very important technology comes into play: MIDI.
Yes, your DAW can record two types of events: audio, such as from a microphone or guitar plugged into your sound card input, or digital in a format called MIDI. Midi tracks don’t contain audio, but a list of events such as how you pressed the A key for 1 second and with what intensity, and a series of other performance-related events. A example in the following table:
Before MIDI Learn, there were MIDI implementation charts only. This table shows how the Korg Volca Drum responds to various MIDI messages. The Control Change section in the middle lists the MIDI CC numbers and the parameters they correspond to. If you wanted to control the pitch of oscillator 1 from an external MIDI controller, for example, you’d set one of its encoders to output MIDI CC 26.
Don’t be scared, there’s no need to handwrite these codes. Your MIDI keyboard (you have one, don’t you?) will send the DAW everything needed to write your performance, just like when you use your PC keyboard to write text.
The enormous advantage is that, just like in a word processor, it will then be very easy to correct any errors, modify the execution, align the MIDI messages in a grid, manipulate the intensity of a note, in short, everything you possibly want to modify in your MIDI track. This track will faithfully send all the necessary MIDI messages to the virtual synth VST, which will play it using the sound you have chosen (any sound included in the library of the VST) and on the dedicated MIDI channel. All this events are recorded in the piano roll, vhere you can edit each note in very simple manner.
MIDI is so popular and flexible that you can find a lot of songs on MIDI format in many sites, where you can download a song and then import the file in your DAW, where you can manipulate sounds for better results for make the better cover never seen..
Midi events in piano roll view, the area dedicated to MIDI in any DAW. Any event can be edited yout editing the notes on piano roll. Very easy!
Sounds complicated but it’s not, just imagine a midi track as if it were text in your favorite word processor, and being able to edit each note as you would in the word processor.
If these concepts are difficult for you to understand, I recommend watching this video. It’s based on Studio One, a commercial DAW, but the concepts apply to any DAW.
Your DAW is not “only” a recorder, it also has a mixer to mix your sounds as you wish and VST plugins are not only instruments, but also sound effects of all kinds that you can apply to your tracks.
Mixer console in Studio One Each slider represent a track.
All this can be managed to get your final master in the preferred audio format and resolution.
There would still be a million things to say, and we’ll do it in dedicated posts. For now it’s enough for me to think that you understand how important it is to choose the right DAW for you, don’t follow the advice of gurus but get an idea by trying to work with one software and then another. The main functions of DAWs are almost equivalent, find the one that best fits your creative workflow, it’s the only trick.
Now that we know the historical and technical details that led to the possibility of setting up a recording studio on a computer (if you haven’t done yet, I highly recommend reading Part 1), we can focus on some aspects of digital recording. At the end of Part 1, we switched from recording on magnetic reels (tapes or cassettes) to recording on hard or floppy disks in digital domain, that means there is not anymore a continuous flow of audio events recorded on a magnetic tape, but a flow of binary data, as happens with any information recorded on a computer.
The role of audio interface
The audio interface is responsible for the translation from sound waves into digital representation of the same sonic event.
One of the main functions of an audio interface is to convert sound from physical instruments or microphones (analog) to a form that computers can process (digital). This is called analog-to-digital conversion, or ADC. It is a necessary part of the digital audio workflow.
While real-world sounds are continuous and analog (think of the sound produced by a (physical) instrument or a voice), on the other hand, computers operate in a discrete, binary world. They process information as a series of digits represented in a binary form (ie. as 0’s and 1’s).
Hence, in a digital audio workflow where computers are the main processing engine, the analog signals from instruments or voice (through microphones) need to be converted into a digital form. This is the work of ADC.
Once audio signals have been converted to a digital form using ADC, they can be processed using specialised audio software called Digital Audio Workstations (DAW).
DAWs are extremely powerful software and allow a range of mixing, processing, and production possibilities for digital sounds, and any sort of effects and magic transformations.
But, how do we hear what we are doing if the audio events are just a series of 0 and 1?
Here comes the digital-to-analog conversion, or DAC, which is the reverse process of ADC. DAC converts the binary data to analog signals and so we can hear what we are doing. The audio signal is sent to our headphones through a little integrated amplifier, or to a bigger monitoring system through an external amplifier and loudspeakers.
Almost any computer integrates a sound card, but while these sound cards are adequate for everyday use, they do not produce a quality of output that’s sufficient for many audio processing requirements. The “sound card” may simply be a “sound chip” built into the computer’s motherboard.
This is why audio interfaces play a fundamental role in a recording studio.
Audio interfaces are specialised hardware and software devices that are dedicated to ADC, DAC, and other functions.
Audio interface drivers are a very important part to consider: the fluidity of your work in the DAW will depend on their stability and solidity, and each different interface has its own drivers.
In general, each interface will allow you to select inputs and outputs and the relative volume, but some also offer useful tools such as the audio router shown in the following image: drawing virtual cables on the interface allows the connection or disconnection of any input and output as desired.
Being specialised, audio interfaces generally produce much better output than computer sound cards and are included in any digital audio workflow where sound quality is important.
Other than being specialised for ADC and DAC processing, audio interfaces offer a range of other facilities, such as:
They can have multiple inputs through various connection types (eg. XLR, TRS, and RCA connections) for recording voices or analog audio instruments (for example, a bass guitar)
For this work, they often include high quality pre-amps for microphone or low-level signal boosting
They can have a choice of outputs for better sound monitoring during the production process
They can help to reduce latency in the audio production workflow
They generally produce an overall higher quality of sound relative to computer sound cards
Despite this, audio interfaces (or ADC in general) may not be necessary if a production process does not include any physical instruments or voice (eg. when using only virtual instruments – also called VST): in such cases, there’s no need to convert sound from an analog to a digital form, and obviously there’s no need for ADC.
I think it’s now easy to imagine how a quality sound card will directly influence the quality of your productions; you can have the best computer in the world, ultra expensive microphones and instruments, but if the sound card does not have first quality converters the result of your work will necessarily be poor.
But how are the input signals converted by the ADC and the output signals rebuilt by the DAC? They need a reference to work in sync and return the audio stream needed for listening by ears…Here comes bitrate,sample rate and bit depth.
Digital audio is digital information. That information can be dense or sparse, high-quality or low. Bitrate is the term used to describe the amount of data being transferred into audio. A higher bitrate generally means better audio quality..You could have the greatest-sounding recording of all time, but if you played it with a low bitrate, it would sound worse on the other end.
Understanding bitrate is essential to recording, producing, and distributing audio. To truly comprehend bitrate, you also need to learn what makes up an audio file and what different types of audio files exist.
Just like images vary in quality and clarity, audio files differ in how large they are, how much information they contain, and what role they fill. While there are some exceptions, uncompressed files will contain the most information and therefore have the highest bitrate. Compressed lossy files generally have the least amount of information and therefore a lower bitrate.
The sample rate is the number of times in a second an audio sample is taken: the number of instances per second that recording equipment is transforming sound into data. Most digital audio has a sampling rate of 44.1kHz, which is also the sampling rate for audio CDs. This means that the audio is sampled 44,100 times per second during recording. When the audio is played, the hardware then reconstructs the sound 44,100 times per second.
Those individual samples vary in the amount of information they have. Bit depth is the number of bits in each sample, or how information-rich each of those 44,100 pieces of audio is.
A high sample rate and a higher bit depth both increase the amount of information in an audio file, and likewise increase the file size. Just like some photos have a high resolution, audio files with a high sample rate and high bit depth have more detail. Having more detail generally requires a higher bitrate.
Why these boring details? Ye,s they are a bit boring, but they will be less boring when you buy an audio interface. They are not all the same, although there are an infinite number of models and brands.
Virtually all of them offer so-called CD quality (sampling rate of 44.1kHz, bit depth 16 bit) which is a standard, others will offer higher resolutions (personally for my recordings i use a resolution of 48.000 kHz at 24 bit depth).
It is a good idea to find the best setting that your workstation can manage effectively. It is completely useless to choose the higher resolution that your audio interface makes available, if the computer can’t handle the produced files, because they are too big for the available CPU and RAM. Each track in your DAW requires hardware resources, then they run out quickly. Don’t kill your computer, it’s your friend.
In the next episode we will talk about another fundamental element of our studio, the DAW. Because without software what do we do with hardware?
It is a legitimate question, in fact a computer today can be used to create a recording studio to create even complex works which until recently would have required the use of a real studio, equipped with gigantic mixers, multitrack recorders reels and every blessing tools.
However the response to this question is long, and therefore I will divide it into different parts.
introduction
The recording studio is a fundamental part of music production process, as it directly influences the quality of your final product, let’s say the record.
These studios each have a distinctive sound, influenced by available equipment and recording environments (it’s easy to imagine that having a large room to record in will produce a sound with unique natural reverb, for example).
Over time some of these studios have become legendary, for example the Abbey Road Studios or the Sarm Studio, used by very famous bands (Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Bob Marley tell you something?).
Furthermore, each of these studios had several legendary sound engineers, able to manage and create great works such as Atom Hearth Mother or The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and many other works that have made the history of modern music.
Thus the combination of studio equipment and sound engineer was a fundamental must for any artist who wanted to try their hand at making the fundamental album of their artistic career.
The studio itself was equipped with gigantic mixers, huge multitrack reel to reel tape recorders, walls of audio and effects equipment, miles of cables. The musicians and sound engineers communicated behind a large window, which divided the musician from the actual studio.
A legendary multitrack Otari MX 80 Tape Recorder
All of this equipment had one thing in common: they cost a fortune and to be able to afford to do a studio production you had to have a fat wallet (here come the legendary producer, a guy that have the ability to find the money needed for pay the studio).
Each instrument had to be recorded on a single track in order to be able to mix it with the rest of the instruments later, but the tape recorders and magnetic tapes of that era had physical limits, so the sound engineers had to resort to particular tricks such as bounce, transferring some tracks to a single one to free space on the tape. There was no copy/paste, and in the case surgical cuts of the tape were used, which was glued to the joint with adhesive tape. To record complex arrangements (think for example of those of the historical Pink Floyd) the life of the studio was not easy at all.
Life wasn’t easy even for aspiring musicians: to spread and sell your work you needed at least a recorder, and a Revox or a Teac cost a kidney at the time. Billy Studer, the inventor, was very happy dude.
Then a miracle happened: in the early 1980s Tascam’ produced a small integrated portable studio, called Portastudio, mixer and 4-track recorder on the then common cassette tapes. Incredible.
The recording quality was certainly not that of a studio, the cassettes were certainly not equivalent in frequency response to those of an Ampex tape, but who cares! For an aspiring musician it was an epic step forward. Or at least for me it was
The home-recording wave, which allowed musicians to cheaply record and produce music at home was started,and is cited as one of the most significant innovations in music production technology.
I was the lucky owner of a Portastudio, and enjoyed it very much. However, for now we are talking about analog sound on tape recorders, but the first computers for music are arriving, which record digitally.
Atari 1040 ST come in 1985, and the game change again. Its MIDI ports and VST technology will change the way music is produced forever. But this is the next episode.
Before go at Part 2, please look the following video, he explain a lot on recording process on a computer. Next step we need to talk about weird stuff like MIDI, VSTs and DAWs, so follow the given links to start understanding what they are.
We don’t want to be amateurs who just push the button, do we?
