here’s the first installment of a series of tips and techniques that we’ll be posting every now and then to help you out a bit on this thing called D.I.Y. music production…

today we’ll be answering one of the most frequently asked questions… what gear do I get to work on music?

it’s pretty obvious that there are a TON of toys that you can get and most of them will do a decent job in creating or recording music… but depending on what you want to do music wise it will take some thought before you get your wallet out and dish out the cash

so the first thing you have to consider is -what will you be recording?- vocals? guitars? will you be sampling drums? multi tracking?

let’s say you’ll be recording a couple tracks simultaneously… a simple 2 channel interface USB or FIREWIRE will do the trick

this is M-Audio’s FireWire Solo it’s a solid little piece of machinery a bit old but it will get the job done. It has 2 input audio channels with built in pre-amp on the mic input… if you have a separate set of pre-amps you can plug them into the two line inputs on the back for more control.

this will be the most important part of your setup to start recording and producing your tracks… remember that a dedicated sound card will give you an accurate frequency response and the ability to handle more plug ins and vst instruments inside your DAW. I recently saw this interface refurbished at around $150 don’t know if you can still get it new, but I would suggest you look into the replacement model, something like the FastTrack or you could go for a different brand like the PreSonuos FireBox or the Inspire, I personally have not tried them but they’re on the price range of 150 – 199 and so far my PreSonus gear has not made me regret the purchase.

a good pair of near field monitors is key to knowing exactly how your mixes are coming together… here I’m showing you the KRK RP-6 I personally have the RP-5 and they have proven to be accurate, responsive and durable… although you need to get used to them and their sweet spot, currently they’re on a nice price range (around $99 each depending on where you buy them)

one thing these monitors lack is the bass frequency response… it’s there don’t get me wrong but takes some tweaking to get it to come through in the mix and not over do it because you don’t actually feel them… or you end up making a very thin mix because you’re trying to not over saturate the mix (both mistakes I’ve made and corrected them by proper listening)

the mighty HEADPHONES… now there’s a bit of debate about whether or not you should do a mix with headphones or not… I personally (and some colleagues agree) think that it should be a combination of monitor and headphone. If your ears aren’t tired or messed up you should check your mix at a low volume with a good pair of headphones… and then with a really crappy pair of cans…

I personally keep close 4 pairs of headphones to check my mixes… my main set are the ones on the picture the Sony Pro MDR-7506 also the MDR-V700 the MDR-V500 and a set of in ear headbuds really cheap. It’s all about dynamic range and how picky you are… I am extremely obsessive so I check and double check on different brands and models just to be sure every thing’s sounding the way it should.

We’ll leave it at this for now… next week we’ll discuss more about DAW’s, microphones and we’ll dwell a bit into the live setup.

Any questions or comments are welcomed!