Beginner's Guides

If you're new to recording music, here is some basic, simple info to take your recordings from suck to OK, on a minimal budget.

Decent Vocal Recordings

Cheap Essential Mics

Basic Mixing Tips

Microphones

Accessories

You'll definitely want a good mixer. The favorite of fluffy and Octothorpe is the Yamaha MG10/2, a 10-channel mixer which also provides phantom power (essential if you want to use a condenser mic). Some A/D boxes come with built-in hardware or software mixers (called a control surface if it's a software mixer which controls individual track parameters), as well as phantom power.

A/D Boxes

There are two major classes of device to consider: USB and FireWire. FireWire boxes are more expensive but tend to also be somewhat higher-quality and often allow recording on more separate tracks/channels at once. You will need to have a FireWire port on your computer, though. All recent Macs come with FireWire, and many PCs do. FireWire PCI cards are readily available for $20 or maybe less. USB is cheaper but is slightly worse on latency and often limits you to recording on only up to 4 separate tracks at once. All Macs and PCs these days have USB built in. Tascam makes some very good affordable USB A/D boxes, such as the US-428 (which was used on many MC Frontalot tracks) which has four audio channels, two MIDI buses, and a control surface, though it doesn't provide phantom power.

Software

If you are on a Mac, the best choices to consider include Logic, Pro Tools, and Cubase, though GarageBand is also pretty decent and is only $50 (and comes free with new Macs). On Windows you have a lot more choices but they tend to be lower-end; in addition to Pro Tools and Cubase there's Krystal, Adobe Audition (a.k.a. CoolEdit Pro), and more crappy tweaker-tools than you can shake a fist at.

A lot of people swear by Audacity, though those who have used real software tend to just swear at it.

Effects

Effects are the crutch of the weak. But we are all weak. You'll definitely want a decent compressor or maybe a multiband compressor, some form of distortion (preferably via guitar amp simulator but bitcrusher is also a lot of fun), and a reverb or two. If you can't carry a tune in a bucket you might also want a pitch corrector (aka "auto-tuner") but it's better to just practice.

Techniques

*Doubling - This is a very commonly used practice involving two tracks playing the same part, usually on vocals or guitar, to make the instrument or voice sound fuller.

Offsite Resources

*How to sing \"properly\" - an in depth guide, covering how to breathe, stand, practice, etc., with tips to follow and common mistakes to avoid