Home Studio Set-up: Adventures in Home Recording… Multitrack This!

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Putting a record together without any prior experience may not be as difficult as it sounds—especially when it comes to home recording and digital audio.

Multi-track this! I was about to engage in my first ever home-recording project, and I’d recently gotten my hands on what many consider the greatest microphone ever made: the Shure SM57 dynamic. The plan was to record 12 songs in digital audio directly to the hard drive of my Blue & White G3 (Apple) Macintosh computer. Since I had no idea of exactly how to go about doing this, other than making sound samples in Quicktime, I called my friend Dave, who’d actually been inside a real recording studio.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “You can’t plug an XLR into the USB. You need a 16-bit audio sound card capable of analogue/digital conversion.”
“Huh?”

Indeed, this was just another among many technical assaults I’d soon receive on a regular basis as I went deeper into the high-tech universe of recorded music. Essentially, I’d need four key components to get music into the Macintosh: the microphone, the microphone cable, the sound card, and the compatible multitracking software (though, as I was soon to learn, if I wanted it to sound good, I’d also need a preamp and a compressor, etc.). Dave, after running down another huge list of endless techno-jargon, recommended I call Sweetwater or Musicians Friend for the equipment I’d need. I promptly failed to take his advice and went to eBay.

I bought a piece of outdated software called BIAS Deck (around the year 1999), which did offer the ability to multitrack, meaning I could record one instrument to one track and record another instrument to a separate track, while playing along with the first recorded instrument/track. But this software proved seriously overdue for an upgrade, and it featured hardly any effects. Dave said it was useless for my purposes. Result: $100 down the drain.

After messing around with Deck for a few days — and not recording a single track — I called Sweetwater and made the first of many credit-card purchases. Not regretfully. Dave was pleased that I bought Emagic’s Studioworks 8 sound card, which came with a Discovery Version of the Logic Audio software: eight tracks, reverb effects, and EQ abilities. “Now you’re making music,” he said. Of course, a Discovery Version, as I was soon to learn, is really just a tease to get you to buy the more advanced — and more expensive — version of the software. And, of course, this means another dent on your credit card.

Nonetheless, I had some cool new toys, and I couldn’t wait to get started. My brain was busting with creativity. I installed the software, unlocked the registration key, and patiently sat through the tutorial. A day later, I was ready to record the first track of my masterpiece. But first I had to learn something else. An XLR cable, which is commonly used to plug a microphone into a mixing board, has three prongs on one end (boy), and three holes on the other (girl); the sound card did not have compatible XLR holes. “A sound card uses RCA cables to go into the mixer,” said Dave, impatiently. “The XLR also plugs into the mixer.” Radio Shack carries all kinds of plugs, jacks, and cables. It had one that adapts an XLR to an RCA and voila (!) — I had a signal.

Pure magic, watching the cartoon Logic Audio LEDs go up and down as I sang into the SM57. But it wasn’t a good signal. In fact, it barely made the orange LED bar rise above -20 dB (I hadn’t a clue what that meant, by the way). Still, I knew something was wrong. “Dude,” said Dave, wearily. “You need a preamp.” I sat back and sighed. Well, at least I had $500 left on my credit card. (Stay tuned for more!)

Shure SM57: Microphones for Recording

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(Admin’s note: This is a guest by J.M.)

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Adventures in Home Recording with the SM57: Putting a record together without any prior experience may not be as difficult as it sounds—especially when it comes to home recording and digital audio.

I’d never been inside a recording studio, and I didn’t have any connections in the music business. In fact, the only microphone I owned was the little plastic round thing with a gray wire that attaches to a Macintosh computer. I’d been in a few bands, but the most recording I’d done was to stick a tape recorder on the floor and press the play/record button. I’d never read any books or magazines on the subject, either; the technical aspects of the entire process simply had never entered my mind—until I decided to make my own record.


I shared my decision with my friend Dave, who’s an idiot savant when it comes to recording. He can tell what microphone was used to record the guitars, drums, bass, etc. on just about any album, how the microphone was positioned, what preamp was used. He’s never wrong—and it’s scary. “At least buy an SM57 dynamic microphone,” he said. “You can record anything with it, and it’ll sound great.” Janis Joplin used an SM57 for her vocals on some of her recordings, apparently, so that couldn’t be a bad thing. “You write some pretty good songs,” said Dave. “Why spend all that effort on something that’s gonna end up sounding like crap? Invest 50 bucks at a pawnshop, and you’ll walk away with something you can use. You won’t regret it.”

You won’t regret it.

Those words became my mantra as I forged ahead into a universe of technical details so vast that a minute change to just one of them could alter the entire musical spectrum of an entire two-minute song—for better or for worse.

Fifty bucks later, and the venerable Shure SM57 became my first real microphone. Five inches long, an inch in diameter, the SM57 is built with enough heft to survive atomic warfare. Mine wasn’t brand-new (I couldn’t afford such luxury at the moment)—it was beat to hell, with scratches along its dark gray hull and oily gunk (that reminded me of the stuff that gets scraped off a sidewalk) lining the mesh over the diaphragm. How could it sound good in this condition? The pawn broker plugged it into an amplifier—and, wow! I’d never heard my voice in this way this before: thick, rich, smooth, like ironing a candy bar. It was the greatest sound I’d heard in my entire life.

I had written 12 songs for this recording project. I’d play most of the instruments myself, but Dave offered to play bass, and another friend said he’d play lead guitar. I wasn’t much of a singer—but I’d make do with my own pipes and maybe convince a friend or two to sing. They’d sound great, I promised. I had a really cool microphone. Janis Joplin used it on her albums. They assured me they could not sing like Janis, but they would accommodate my project nonetheless. Besides, it sounded like fun. But, as I was soon to discover, fun is a serious misnomer when it comes to recording music.

Welcome to Microphones for Recording!

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If you’re looking for information and articles about microphones for recording, then you have come to the right place! Whether you’re recording in a home studio, or in a professional production facility — you need to learn all you can about microphones.There are great microphones for recording music at home, perfect microphones for recording live music on location, and solid microphones for recording interviews and podcasts. Let us be the resource to help you understand the differences!