One of the coolest things about pc-based home recording studios is the wide-open world of virtual instruments.  And of all the different kinds of instruments we can play via MIDI on our computers, drums are probably the most used.  And why not?  You can have a drum track on your song without even touching a drum.  Technically you don’t even have to know how to play drums (though I think it helps a LOT if you can) in order to have them in your recordings.  And perhaps the biggest benefit for my wife – I don’t have to make all the racket in the house that a drum kit would create.  This is also a plus if you live in an apartment and drums would generate neighbor complaints.  One of the down-sides to all this is that it’s actually fun to play drums for real!  But finding a place for the kit to live is hard if you don’t have a lot of space in your house.  Plus, even though it’s a lot of fun to play drums, recording them is typically not easy.

In order to record live drums, not only do you have to have a kit (space issues), and a drummer good enough to be on your recording, you have to have a bunch of additional microphones.  For example, the kick drum needs a certain kind of mic (like an AKG D 112, for example) that is very different from the snare drum (typically a Shure SM57 or two), which is very different from what you’d need for overheads (2 large diaphragm condensers like the Rode NT2-A).  So by using virtual drums, you’re saving yourself a lot of money for mics if nothing else.

Figure 1

So what is virtual drumming anyway?  Well, if you’re recording a song, you can load up a software plug-in/program (into your multi-track recording software like Reaper), which contains recorded samples of actual drums (usually – though there are synthesized drum programs as well), and have your computer play these drums via MIDI.  It’s like having a drum machine inside your computer.

There are several different ways you can build a drum part.  For those of us who are control junkies, you can do it like me.  I like to build my tracks one measure at a time using my MIDI keyboard.  Drum programs will typically assign each drum in a kit to a specific key on a MIDI keyboard.  See Figure 1.  I will turn on the metronome in Reaper to keep me on the right tempo, and play, say, the kick (bass) drum part for a measure or two by simply playing the “C” key on my keyboard.  Then I’ll do the same for the snare drum part, using the “D” and “E” keys […]

Read the full article here: http://www.homebrewaudio.com/virtual-drumming-use-your-computer-to-drum-without-drums

A very common question I see is “should I use compression in audio recording?“  The best answer to this question is, as is so often the case, “Do you need compression in your recordings?”  Let’s start with a workable definition of compression in the audio recording sense.  When you lower the

volume of only SOME of your audio, usually the bits that are clearly louder than most of the rest of the audio you’re working with, you are “compressing” that audio.  This is usually done in order to allow you to raise the average loudness of the entire audio file.

Now, this can be done manually, by which I mean you could open your audio in an editor, seek out all the areas where the wave forms (I like to use the term “blobs” instead) are loudest, then turn those bits down.  But that can get REALLY tedious and time consuming.  So to automate this process, a a machine (nowadays done with software) called a “compressor” was invented.  This allowed folks who really knew what they were doing to more quickly manipulate volume and loudness dynamics.  The dark side of the situation, though, was that it allowed folks who were less expert to mess up their audio, and do it much faster and more efficiently than ever.

There are all kinds of settings on a compressor that are better discussed in other articles.  For the moment I’d like to focus on a visual explanation of basic compression, since I strongly believe that those who use compressors to mess up their audio (usually without actually WANTING to mess up their audio) do it because they don’t have a really good grasp on what compression really is.  This should help.

Read the full article, including visual aids, here: http://www.homebrewaudio.com/should-you-use-compression-in-audio-recording

The video for this is finally done!  Recently we published an article on how to take a song apart (figuratively) in order to learn how the pros record music.  In order to demonstrate this concept, we used a song from Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The song is called My Eyes (sometimes referred to as “On The Rise”), Music by Jed Whedon; Lyrics by Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, and Joss Whedon. That article is here http://www.homebrewaudio.com/cover-recording-of-my-eyes-from-dr-horrible

We were asked to do a video of the result and have finally finished that, though it took several days longer than we (and by “we,” I mean me:)) anticipated.  The result was worth it though.

Find out more and see the video here:

http://www.homebrewaudio.com/record-music-video-cover-recording-my-eyes-from-dr-horrible