How to make home recording sound like studio recording?
First off, I don’t have a home studio. I have a USB microphone. I was wondering if there is a way to make my home recordings sound like they came from the studio. Do I need to buy a better microphone? Or do I need to create a home studio? I’m 16 by the way.
I have an ALESIS microphone.
You don’t really need a studio. All I have is a small USB audio interface, a couple mics, mic stand, and pop filter. That plus my guitars is all I need. The rest I do in software. My whole "studio" could fit inside a duffel bag if put away. Recording a full band with drums is another matter though, way more equipment and space needed.
You can do a lot with a USB microphone. Which one is it? If it’s a condenser like the AT2020 USB then the mic isn’t the problem, and you should instead focus on mixing skills. I mean, your performance matters too, as does the acoustics of your room … hang up some blankets behind you to prevent room echo from coloring the tone of your voice. It’s better to record as dry as possible and add reverb of your choice in software.
Once a mic captures a clean signal and decent performance, the rest is all in how you tweak that track, balance it relative to other tracks, and how you process the whole song.
The one thing you need to get CD/studio quality "loudness" is some kind of compression or limiting on your whole song. Compression makes the average volume level of the song higher, so you get a fuller louder sounding mix. A limiter keeps it from surpassing the max volume level allowable on CD/MP3s. The trick is in using these just enough to beef up your track, but not so much that you can hear distortion or an overall "loud mush" effect. Look into the PSP Vintage Warmer 2 plugin for this purpose and play around with the Knee and Drive knobs or the different presets. An alternative is the Izotope Ozone plugin. Otherwise if you know what you’re doing, the default compressor and limiter plugins in your recording software (DAW) will work. Also learn how to use a parametric equalizer to shape your tracks, that’s very important for reducing harsh, boomy, or muddy areas of the frequency spectrum on each track.
But there’s so much more. You really gotta start reading up on home recording, mixing, and mastering if you want to get up to studio level. If you want a full course in doing studio-quality recordings at home, the best one I found so far is this one: http://www.recordingreview.com/killerhomerecording/
You don’t really need a studio. All I have is a small USB audio interface, a couple mics, mic stand, and pop filter. That plus my guitars is all I need. The rest I do in software. My whole "studio" could fit inside a duffel bag if put away. Recording a full band with drums is another matter though, way more equipment and space needed.
You can do a lot with a USB microphone. Which one is it? If it’s a condenser like the AT2020 USB then the mic isn’t the problem, and you should instead focus on mixing skills. I mean, your performance matters too, as does the acoustics of your room … hang up some blankets behind you to prevent room echo from coloring the tone of your voice. It’s better to record as dry as possible and add reverb of your choice in software.
Once a mic captures a clean signal and decent performance, the rest is all in how you tweak that track, balance it relative to other tracks, and how you process the whole song.
The one thing you need to get CD/studio quality "loudness" is some kind of compression or limiting on your whole song. Compression makes the average volume level of the song higher, so you get a fuller louder sounding mix. A limiter keeps it from surpassing the max volume level allowable on CD/MP3s. The trick is in using these just enough to beef up your track, but not so much that you can hear distortion or an overall "loud mush" effect. Look into the PSP Vintage Warmer 2 plugin for this purpose and play around with the Knee and Drive knobs or the different presets. An alternative is the Izotope Ozone plugin. Otherwise if you know what you’re doing, the default compressor and limiter plugins in your recording software (DAW) will work. Also learn how to use a parametric equalizer to shape your tracks, that’s very important for reducing harsh, boomy, or muddy areas of the frequency spectrum on each track.
But there’s so much more. You really gotta start reading up on home recording, mixing, and mastering if you want to get up to studio level. If you want a full course in doing studio-quality recordings at home, the best one I found so far is this one: http://www.recordingreview.com/killerhomerecording/
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