Home Recording For Musicians For Dummies

by Jeff Strong

Build a home studio to fit any budget

Explore equipment and techniques for making top-notch recordings at home

You've picked a perfect time to start recording! From PC-based to studio-in-a-box, today's equipment lets you put together a professional quality CD right at home, if you know how to use it. This guide covers everything from microphone placement to multitracking and mastering, helping you choose the right tools and use them like a pro.

Discover how

Genres: Music, Reference, Nonfiction, Technology, Rock N Roll

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good reference book. A lot of the information was presented in a no nonsense manner which I liked. Some of the information may be out of date now but many important points are still valid.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book with answers.

[David Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I read to research this post was Home Recording for Musicians for Dummies by Jeff Strong which is a very good book which I bought from kobo. This book assumes you are a musician who can play an instrument and now a bit about how sound is formed etc so it skips some topics. I'm not a musician but am interested in recording various friends making music so was interested in this. You have various options when it comes to recording like you can use a computer and have things like your mixers and equilizers in software form, which if you already have a computer is probably your cheapest option. Another option is buying a standalone recording studio which makes it difficult to upgrade. One thing they suggest is to start with buy the essential stuff to do your recording and you can add to it at a later date. Digital recording is the way to go whether you use a computer hard drive or a storage in a box, often called a SIAB solution. You need plenty of microphones and a lot of people use the various types of cardoid microphone for instruments & dynamic or something similiar for voice. The dynamic tends to record midranges so is no good for recording operatic vocals. You can put a pair of tights over a mike to protect it from dust. You might in some cases need a pop filter to stop crackle noises getting in the recording. The best interface for computer recording equipment is USB 3.0 which is 10 times faster than USB 2.0. Some storage devices use proprietary formats for storage when ideally you want to use a format like MP3 or AIFF that can be exported. The best MP3 encoding software which is also free is probably the iTunes software. It's probably the easiest to use too.

[George Bradford · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, my new year's resolution for 2010 was to record an entire album of original songs. I would write them. I would play every instrument. I would record the tracks. I would mix it together. I would master it. And I would burn it to a CD.

Writing the songs and playing the instruments was the easy part.

How would I ever record them?

This book, Home Recording For Musicians For Dummies, lived up to its name and delivered what its title claimed.

I'm not big on these "for dummies" types of books. But this one jump started my recording project. It laid out a simple path with clear instructions. So simple and clear, even I could follow it.

Now, I've got a CD with 14 original songs recorded on it.

This book helped make that happen.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a lot of information in it, but it is most certainly *not* for dummies. I was kind of disappointed in the presentation of information. Right now, I think if you're trying to learn about music recording, a better book would be "Modern Recording Techniques" by David Miles Huber and Robert E. Runstein. Perhaps if I knew more about recording I would find Jeff Strong's book more valuable, but the gap in my knowledge and what he's written is to the extent that it's not actually useful to me. It sounded like a lot of, "Here's how to buy a lot of things you will need," and not enough of, "Here's how to use the stuff that you have," which is what I was looking for.

[Roger Mendoza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. I really like that the book covered a great deal about recording music. It covered a broad scope of sound basics, various musical instruments and how to record in a home studio. I liked that it also covered advanced topics in an easy to understand manner. I found it very helpful (as a non-musician) and would recommend this to others.
One cool thing that I really liked, is that the author provided real world settings for various instruments. After reading this book, I actually understand quite a bit about the home recording studio. Thanks to this book, I have a nice little home recording studio. Great book, for sure!

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This covers a wide range of needs, so there are things that probably will not apply to you. Fortunately, that is pretty well-explained, and it should be relatively easy to pick out what is relevant, though that can always change.

The last chapter on marketing is probably the most out of date, but that is acknowledged in the chapter. Where technology is concerned, it moves fast.

[The_J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice breadth and depth of the subject, amazing tech surrounds us.

[Fabio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Che fatica...
(nonostante tutto, qualche dritta utile c'è, ma il libro rientra nella stretta cerchia degli assolutamente inconsigliabili)

Sarà il caso di tornare alla narrativa

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book that got me thinking about recording and all the steps it involves. Got me to realize that what I had done last summer (2015) excluded editing, mixing, and mastering. I went right from recording to distribution. Whoops!
This book was very easy to understand and a great reference for my future recording endeavors.

[Steven Gaskin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me from knowing next-to-nothing about recording and mixing to having a good understanding of the basics, and most importantly, of where I need to go next to keep learning, so as an introductory book, it's done everything it needed to. I liked the writing style too.

[Chi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the entire book just to get some knowledge about recording audio. I was especially focused on vocals, although the book provides more than that it was still a useful read. Just a basic overview of information in one place.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This helps. It really does.

[Ghighi Eftimie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit outdated for 2017, but is good information.

[Eule Hagar · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wonderful, if dated, resource.

[Ro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that I plan to come back to as it will give me a solid roadmap to setting up my home studio for content creation.