With modern music recording technology, one no longer needs to be a rock star to make a
quality album. Standard home computers can, with a few
additions, be transformed into recording studios for both amateur and professional musicians.
“It would seem silly to write songs and do nothing but play them to yourself alone in the bedroom without ever keeping a nice record of it,” Eugene
resident Andrew Barton said in an e-mail. Barton put up posters at the University’s School of Music looking for other musicians to record an album with him.
Junior music major and
guitar player Devlin Croal said guitar players seem to be
especially into recording their own music because most rock bands have two guitar players; a single guitarist can create
the illusion of having another guitar player by playing along with his or her own recording.
“A lot of people want to be able to create multiple tracks all together,” Croal said.
Don Latarski, head of guitar
studies and adjunct instructor in
the University’s music school, has his own recording studio at his home in west Eugene. He has recorded five
albums of his own guitar music
and also records projects for
outside clients, including an
educational CD that helps people
understand how things sound to the hearing impaired.
Latarski said the main unit of
music recording is a digital audio workstation, or DAW, of which there are two kinds. One is a stand-alone DAW system, which looks like a mixing board but contains a computer and a CD burner. List prices for DAW systems that handle 4 to 12 tracks of audio input range from $400 to $1200, and DAW systems that handle 16 to 24 tracks range from $1500 to $5000, according to the Musician’s Friend Web site, a music equipment retailer.
“The benefit of going with a
system like that is that all you need to supply is your microphones and, of course, your instruments,” Latarski said. “They’re very convenient and they do sound good.”
Barton said in the e-mail
that he and his girlfriend use a portable digital eight-track recording studio made by Boss to make CDs of “indie folk songs and the occasional
weird cover.”
“We have both learned over a
period of time how to use it to tweak sounds to satisfactory
results,” Barton said.
The other option, Latarski said, is to make a DAW by adding hardware to an existing computer, laptop or desktop. To do this, an interface that converts sound back and forth
between analog and digital modes is connected to the computer using a USB or Firewire cable. The list prices of these interfaces range from $250 to $2,000, according to
the Musician’s Friend Web site.
Microphones, required for sound
input on all types of recording equipment, start around $60 and go up to $1,000.
Croal said he is in the process of setting up a home recording studio. His equipment currently includes MXL condenser microphones, a
G4 Dual 1.24 gigahertz computer and an M-Audio Firewire 1814
to transmit the audio from the
microphones into the computer. Once the audio recording is in the computer, Croal said, it can be saved as an MP3 sound file.
“A lot of people do that with MP3.com, put their stuff out there and claim to be a band trying to get discovered,” he said.
Generally, the computer method also requires software for editing recorded music.
“The software allows you to do all the editing and the splicing,” Latarski said. “It also allows you to apply all your special effects, which would be equalization, reverb, compression, and pitch shifting.”
However, Latarski cautioned that equipment is not enough to make a quality CD.
“Without that training or a lot of experimentation, it’s really hard to make a good product,” Latarski said. “It’s like another musical
instrument. You really need to
practice with the technology.”
Latarski teaches a University class on music recording every year fall term . Class meetings are held at his home studio and focus on the technical aspects of how to operate recording devices rather than on
individual projects. Class space is extremely limited, but Latarski
said many books are available to
educate people further about recording technology.

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