The Home Recording Handbook Lives Up To Its Name

Back in the mid-1980s, when I was first learning how to write and record my own songs, one of the most helpful books I stumbled across was Making Music, edited by George Martin, with contributions from a host of (mostly) British musicians. Wider than it was deep, it had three to six pages each on a huge variety of topics: seemingly every instrument used in popular music; songwriting; arranging; and producing--ranging from Martin's experience in Abbey Road Studios, to advice for the budding teenage musician recording in his bedroom. (The book even came in handy when visiting a friend of mine this year, who had just bought a mandolin, but didn't know how it was tuned. I pointed to his bookshelf and said, "Just open up Making Music; it lists the tuning." And sure enough, it did.)

The one area where Making Music now seems hopelessly out of date is in the technology: in the last twenty years, both in the recording studio, and especially in the home, the technology available to musicians has undergone a quantum leap. Whereas the first cassette multitrack recorders sold for about a thousand bucks in the early 1980s and offered four tracks, a computer program like Cakewalk's Sonar now streets for almost half of that, and provides a virtually unlimited amount of tracks, dozens of quality plug-in effects, and even a built-in synthesizer.

But Sonar is only one of many PC and Apple-based recording programs, with prices to suit any credit card balance. And getting started in this field can feel enormously complex to even an experienced musician. (as I discovered myself in early 2001, when I began to return to home recording after a decade away from the casette four track.)

Making Music In The New Millennium

Maybe it's a coincidence, but a new book from England, titled The Billboard Illustrated Home Recording Handbook feels much like Making Music, updated for the 21st century. Substituting for George Martin is Ronan MacDonald, the editor of England's Computer Music magazine. (Full disclosure: I've written a few pieces for Computer Music, and have exchanged numerous emails with Ronan.)

Perhaps Ronan's most important editorial choice is in concentrating on recording via computer. Because the most important--and most difficult first decision any musician faces when wanting to record is: do I use hardware or do I use computer software? While recording hardware is probably initially more intuitive and thus easier to get started with, the computer is infinitely more flexible and powerful. And you can read Blogcritics in-between takes!

In the place of sections devoted to all sorts of orchestral instruments, Ronan's contributors have written a few pages each on seemingly every piece of computer-based recording technology. There are some excellent suggestions on how to get started, and on learning how to manipulate the software, including writing your own song, and recording a cover version of a hit song. I used both methods when I was first learning about four-tracks, and I guarantee they'll work equally well to learn how to record on a computer.

Article Author: Ed Driscoll

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