/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>460717
Thanks. It could use some professional input, but it's probably okay for a starting point at least.

Have some mixer rape from a recent live studio recording session.

>>460707
20) Save. Export as WAV. Then export is as whatever filetype you wish, usually MP3. Listen, enjoy. You're done.

Now, I'm far from a pro at this, but I hope I've been of help. If you need anything else, such as EQ and mastering tutorials that are much, much better than any of this, go here: http://www.soundonsound.com/
I learned pretty much everything from three things: trial, error, and sound on sound. SOS have some of the best tutorials you can ask for.
Google every problem you have. Keep that notebook, date each step you take, read them. Note some more, note ideas. Everything. Note every time signature, every chord structure, every BPM. Every effect you use, every tweak.
Draw diagrams. Can't figure it out? Picture it. Draw your digital instruments on a sheet of paper like a band, draw imaginary cables, draw semi-circles for your panning and placement notes. Write your vocals in the margins, write where you'd like each instrument to sit in the mix, then reverse-engineer it and MAKE it go there.

>>460708

And before you do anything: Read any manuals you get for any DAW you use. They all have a help section, check that before you check online. And if you do use CEP and FL Studio, play with both of these individually and together for a week or two before you record anything serious. Learn the sounds, learn the instruments, learn the effects. In FL Studio, you can assign each instrument and sample to its own channel in a mixer, from which you can add effects, eqs, and panning all on a mixing board interface. It is an essential part of any program like this, find it and get used to using it and linking your instruments to their respective channels.
Also, get used to the step sequencer. Unless you're using all real instruments, it's unavoidable. However, if you'd like to know how to record guitar, bass, or drums in a DIY fashion, I can also help out. Let me know.

And after 2 hours of typing all this, please actually record something, and please tell me you can actually play an instrument.

>>460704
18) Same again, play with your EQs and volumes, and take a break. Leave it for an hour, or over night. Another vital tip: DON'T do it all on a set of headphones. Mix on an ear-level pair of good speakers, preferably flat (not pre-eq'd) speakers. If you're willing to invest, you can pick up cheap studio monitors new for $100 if you shop around. Not great, but much better than your computer speakers, or whatever headphones you're using. Reference with headphones, mix on speakers. Play it on different devices, such as your home radio, phone, car radio, different headphones, anything.

>>460705
19) If it sounds good, and you still haven't given up and just tried to make it loud, you can master it. Before doing this, make sure no instrument is clipping at all, lower the whole mix if necessary. Bounce it all down to a WAV, and still in FL studio, open that WAV up in a new session. There are a variety of plugins to use here built in, and some nice VSTs throughout the internet to play with, but some good free ones can be found at http://www.digitalfishphones.com/..
What you are looking to do here is make the sound louder and thicker, basically. It probably won't compete with professionally mastered music, but it can still sound good. A compressor is a vital tool here, but needs to be used carefully. Again, try some presets, and tweak them as needed, but keep the overall sound clear. Don't over-compress it for the sake of volume. Listen through the song, make sure there are no odd volume swells. This is the hardest part, and something I still haven't mastered (no pun intended). Someone else here may be able to help more with this step; I still outsource my mastering to my brother, he knows his shit much more here than I do.
Just remember: it should sound smooth and clear, not booming and crunchy. There's a volume dial on people's radios for a reason, they can turn it up themselves if they want. Reference the music you love, make notes on how it sounds, aim it towards that. Fail, read Sound on Sound, try again.

>>460702
17) Start with the drums. Use the presets in FL if you need a reference point. Mute everything else. Tweak them slightly, and A/B between them EQ'd and flat for reference. Get used to this. Happy with that nice drum sound? Don't be just yet, but unmute the bass. You want thick, but not boomy, lows for this, so try cutting the high end first. Slight boosts on the low and low-mids are good. Don't worry if it seems louder/quieter in the mix with drums, you can fix the volumes as you go. Once these two sound good together, start introducing the other instruments one-by-one, and trying to place them each in their own place in the mids and highs. Smooth curves, not sharp cuts, will sound a lot nicer, generally, unless there's something specific you're trying to fix (more later). Finally, add the vocals in, and keep them in the mids. Boosting the high end can give them air and make them stand out without making them too much louder, and cutting the low end is vital too keep them from getting too booming.

>>460700
15) Did you record melody vocals? Place them where they should go in the song, turn both of them to half the volume of your lead vocal track, and pan them 50% either side of it. Slowly raise the volume of each until they just accent the main vocals, maybe even to the point of being the same volume, but not louder than it, and they shouldn't just "jump" in when they come on. Slightly quieter is always better that too loud. Alternatively, you can have just one of these melody tracks dead center with your main vocals, just quieter, if you like. Again, this is down to what works within the song.

>>460701
16) Now, the mixing: EQ. Assuming you haven't done this already to anything, trying to fit everything in its right place can be daunting if you've never done anything like this before, especially when it comes to EQ. It's something I'm out of practice at too, so I'll link some articles after this too. Remember: you don't have to make the whole song loud yet. That can be done in mastering, if all goes well. Also a good rule of thumb: it's better to cut something than boost it, usually. This really applies if you find yourself boosting the high end of something phenomenally, try cutting the low first, then raising the highs.

>>460697
13) If you're still happy with your work after your break, load the WAV up in cool edit. Put it in one track, arm another. Get your microphone. Plug it in, sing your heart out. In key, hopefully. Now, disarm that vocal track, arm another empty, and sing along again, this time to yourself. Not necessarily melodies, either. If you hear melody vocals in it, sure, but you can always do them on another track after this is you like. You should end up with two reasonably similar vocal tracks. Save these as WAVs, again. If you do want some melodies, do these too. Record them the same way, so that each section with a melody on it will have 4 vocal tracks. Don't worry, it won't sound like a choir. However, if you want something bare-bones sounding, even one track is fine.

>>460698
14) Back to FL Studio. Open up the session with your song, and place the two vocal tracks into it. Mute the first for now, and mix the second one in the center at a volume you like (not too loud!). Now, unmute the second one, leave it centered, and SLOWLY turn it up from 0 volume uuntil you can just barely hear it with the first track. This will really thicken up the vocal line without using too much effects or mixing, and without having to leave it louder than everything else.

>>460694

10) What other instruments have you used? Look at your notes, where those people were on stage, where these instruments were on the other albums you've heard. Place the other instruments into the spectrum where you haven't panned anything else yet. Don't try to "Fill it up" with loads of instruments. Use less, and more creatively, and you'll achieve a much better sound overall. Don't be afraid to move your keys around, and don't be afraid to leave some things centered either (just not everything!).

>>460696

11) Sounds okay? I hope you've been saving as you go along here. If not, save your session. Export it as a WAV.

12) Take a break. Don't wear your ears out. You won't be able to hear any changes you make, no joke. Tired ears are your worst enemy. Even if it's overnight, or just an hour, take a break.

>>460693
9) If you recorded your keys in stereo, great, just leave them where they are. If you recorded in mono, place the low end to the left, and the high to the right. The space in there is up to preference, but I would probably go about 50 or 60% in each channel for something done like that. However, if you would like to use other instruments in here too, you get to play with the panning! Some artists would even have the whole keyboard track 100% in the right channel, and a guitar (or synth, or flute, or anything) in the left. These are the instruments you can creatively pan a lot easier; you just have to listen back a lot to see what works for you.

>>460691
7) You'll notice, generally, live drums are spread out. I can break down other methods later, but assuming you're using FL studio, you'll probably use FPC for live sounding drums. Not an excellent drum machine, but can work pretty well with practice. The advantage here is that its initial setup has each part of the kit panned already, so there's a nice spread on the drums. Bass drum should be pretty centered, same as snare (usually). Others loosely panned around the spectrum. Try imagine a kit itself, the picture your headphones as a semi-circle. Place each drum in their respective places in the semi-circle, without going entirely 100% in either direction.

>>460692
8) Place the bass instrument (whether guitar or sequenced) in the center of the recording. Try to limit the recording to one primary bass instrument, it's much easier to deal with. If you must have another low-end instrument, slightly pan them, maybe 5% or less in each direction. From experience, it gets very muddy and can be a pain to mix with too many low instruments. Clarity is the goal, regardless of the type of music in question.

>>460689
5) Open up FL, import the parts. Set the BPM. Arrange them. Start writing, again. Play with the various instruments, see what you can do. Build the song. Don't overly focus on how "clean" it sounds until you have a good song. Don't even worry about mixing it until it's something you like. Volume-wise, just make sure nothing is clipping. Quieter is better at this stage, but not too quiet. Just remember it's not going to instantly sound professional because you've recorded it digitally (something I've seen many DIY "engineers" do).

>>460690
6) Now, once you have a decent tune, it's time to clean it up a bit. A lot can be done with panning to clean your tracks up. Even though you've only currently recorded keys, lets assume your digital instruments are a band. You'll ideally have drums, bass, keys, and maybe some other electronics or hell, more keys. A nice method is to picture it being played in a room, and you're watching in the middle. How do you hear it? Where are the players? Where are their amps? Draw it, you have a pen and paper, right? Now, listen to something you like, or what sounds like you've written. Pick where the instruments are, note them down.

>>460688

4) Fire up CEP, test it out, make sure it's picking up the signal, get writing (If you have nothing down). Use the metronome, do it right. If you're just writing, don't even play the song start to finish; play it in sections. Record a few bars of each part separately. If you have a part that has a few layers, or melodies, record them separately! Don't overplay them.
If you can find out, see if your keyboard records out in stereo. Test this by playing through the keys while recording a test track, then listen back to it through headphones. It should sweep from the low on the left across to the high on the right. This will help mix nicer later. If it's only in mono, no worries, but more work. Split your keys in the middle, and record low end on one track, then come back, and record the high end on the other.
Save them in a high quality, usually WAV. Save them individually, not all as one big track. Don't even worry about vocals yet, until you're completely satisfied with your song.

>>460686

2) For all else, try get FL studio. Any version. 7 and 8 are easily found, again. Very easy to pick up, plenty to master in it, and the provided instruments are decent quality. I'm sure there's better, again, but I've used this for years and it has never faulted me.

>>460687

3) If you must, just pick up some cables and plug your keyboard's output right into the mic jack on your PC. Simple, but works. For something better, pick up a digital interface. Here's something I used recently: http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/audio_interfaces/ci_series/models/ci1.html
For $100, it's great. Comes with software too, Cubase LE I think (I still just used CEP with it). You could even pick up a single input 1/4 to USB interface for $40 if you check around.

>>460685
What the fuck happened to my post? Oh well.

1) Like everyone said before, get Asio4all and a DAW. I've used Cool Edit Pro for years, pretty outdated now, but does the trick for tracking. The 2.1 version is easily found online. Nowadays, it's adobe audition, never used it so can't vouch for it. Audacity is okay for bare-bones recording too.

Alright. This is going to be a lot of posts. I've done a lot of DIY recording over my years as a musician, so I might be able to help you out for

the cheap/free side of things, though a few anons might think my processes outdated, so weigh in anything useful against this.

I'm going to assume you're going from scratch, are doing it cheap/free, and want to use a PC and keyboard, as you said. Let's also assume vocals.

I'll break down gear and some other techniques if you'd like afterwards. For starters, on top of your PC and Keyboard, get a microphone. Quality is,

right now, unimportant, but if you're willing to spend money, try get a shure SM58. I've never had an issue with these for vocals, and have (although

I should have used an SM57) used them for live mic'ing instruments. And get a pen and paper. Take notes, by hand. If you're doing this DIY, get

ready to learn from trial and error, and your own notes can remind you what you've done much quicker than rooting back through the DAW afterwards.

Also, get some cables. A few 3.5mm male-to-male, 1/4" male to male, 3.5mm male to RCA, and adaptor to convert the heads will do the trick. At least

one stereo cable of each, and maybe 2 or so in mono of each too. More is better.
>not having a 12-year old collected box of cables for recording emergencies.

Also, get ready to listen to (and break down) your song to the point where it can almost get unbearable.

Anyway, into it: