If you are considering recording your own music you have a lot to learn. Knowing where to start is a considerable challenge. I’ve spent a couple of years researching products, trying new equipment, lurking in audio forums on the internet, and just recording and trying to make it sound right. In the process I’ve learned a lot of things either by pain or by expense. I’m just now starting to understand how things fit together.
This year for Christmas, Cindy bought me a DVD copy of “Alan Parsons’ Art & Science of Sound Recording.” This is a three DVD set of lectures by Alan Parsons (The best EVER audio producer in the world in my opinion). It is a fairly complete survey course in audio recording of music from a master of the craft. While most of the information that he covers is knowledge that I have already picked up through some steep learning curve efforts, it is very comforting to know that I have pretty much understood what needs to be done and roughly how to go about it.
This is more than just Alan’s opinion. He is actually very good about bringing in other producers and performers who have considerably different opinions than his own. The presentation is very good at making a distinction between what is fact (today) and what is opinion.
If you are considering getting into audio recording I would strongly recommend that your first purchase (before buying computers, interfaces, microphones and tons of other toys) be this presentation. It isn’t cheap (about $150 US) but it can save you more than that by helping you to understand what tools you need to accomplish your recording plans, what they are called, and how they are used. If you want to spend a couple of months just confused and trying to learn the vocabulary of music recording you can skip this expense, but if you want to hit the floor running consider starting here.
http://www.artandscienceofsound.com/
You can either buy the DVD set (like Cin did for me) or you can download the individual modules from the web site. This is a great place to start.
Just sayin’
