How to record a song at home?

Many people simply love to sing, some know how to play certain musical instruments, others compose music, lyrics, in general, ready-made songs. And at one fine moment you may want to record your work so that not only your close people can listen, but, for example, send it to some competition or simply post it on the Internet on a personal website or blog.

However, to put it mildly, I don’t want to spend money on professional recording in a studio, or maybe there isn’t enough of it anyway. This is where the question appears in your head: with what and how to record a song at home, and is this even possible in principle?

In principle, this is quite possible, you just need to properly prepare for this process: at a minimum, purchase the necessary equipment and properly prepare everything for recording a song at home.

Necessary equipment

In addition to a good voice and hearing, a microphone plays an important role in recording a song at home. And the better it is, the higher the quality of the recorded voice. Naturally, you also cannot do without a good computer; the speed of audio processing and general editing of recorded material will depend on its parameters.

The next thing you need when recording is a good sound card, with which you can record and play back sound at the same time. You will also need headphones; they will only be used when recording vocals. The room in which the recording will be carried out also plays a very important role, so that there is less extraneous noise, windows and doors must be covered with blankets.

How to record a song at home without good software? But there is no way, so it will definitely be needed. What music programs can be used for this, how to create music on a computer, you can read in the articles on our blog.

Preparation and recording

So, the music (phonogram) for the song has been written, mixed and ready for further use. But before you start recording vocals, you need to warn all household members so that they do not distract you from the recording process. It is best, of course, to record at night. This is especially true for city residents, because the noise of a big city during the day can penetrate into any room, and this will interfere and affect the quality of the recording.

Playback of the soundtrack must be adjusted in volume so that it sounds approximately the same as the voice. Naturally, it should only be played through headphones, since the microphone should only pick up a clear voice.

Now you can start recording. The main thing is not to rush and not expect that everything will work out on the first take; you will have to sing a lot before any option seems ideal. And it’s best to record the song separately, breaking it into pieces, for example: sing the first verse, then listen to it, identify all the irregularities and defects, sing it again, and so on until the result seems perfect.

Now you can start the chorus, doing everything in the same way as recording the first verse, then recording the second verse, and so on. To evaluate the recorded vocal, you need to combine it with the soundtrack, and if everything is satisfactory in this version, then you can proceed to processing the recording.

Voice processing

Before you start processing recorded vocals, you need to take note that any processing is a deformation of the sound and if you overdo it, you can, on the contrary, ruin the voice recording. So all processing should be applied to the recording as little as possible.

The first step will be to trim off the excess empty space, right up to the beginning of the vocal part of all recorded parts, but at the end it is better to leave free gaps of about one or two seconds, so that when applying some effects they do not abruptly stop at the end of the vocal. You will also need to correct the amplitude throughout the song using compression. And in the end, you can experiment with the volume of the vocal part, but this is already in conjunction with the soundtrack.

This option for recording a song at home is well suited both for musicians, and possibly entire groups, and for simply creative people who do not have enough finances to record their work in a studio. How to record a song at home? Yes, everything is not as complicated as it might seem. For this, three constants are enough: a great desire to create something of your own, with a minimum of equipment and, of course, knowledge that can be gleaned from articles on our blog.

At the end of the article there is a very short video instruction on how to set up the equipment and record a song at home: