The Guide:
*This guide will be periodically updated as new techniques, gear, and software are explored
Right here is what we currently recommend for beginners based on our experience. We're looking to recommend the bare minimum to get you going to what you would want to go further. To get started in recording and mixing you'll need a few basic things:
-A Digital Audio Workstation(DAW), ie a program to record and mix into such as Pro Tools, Reaper, or Studio One.
-Headphones
-At least one quality microphone
-An interface, ie device that enables you to hook up microphones and other gear to your computer
-External software/plug-ins to get certain sounds
-Speakers/Monitors
-Mic Stand(s)
-Mic pop filter
-XLR Cables
-A computer that can handle what you're looking to do
-Slate VSX headphone monitoring system.
You may also want:
-Monitor stands with isolation foam pads
-External DAC and amp for headphones
-More RAM for your computer (helpful with virtual instruments)
-A midi control so you can physically control things like volume faders in your DAW and plug-ins
-A monitor control like a Nanopatch
-Acoustic treatment for your room
-An external mic pre-amp that can be plugged into your interface's ADAT (ADA8200, for example)
-Outboard hardware like a compressor, reverb, etc
-Ilok usb drive for software that requires it
-USB flash drive for storing software licenses and/or files
First thing, be careful who you listen to. People on forums seldom give any context when they make comments. They rarely say what kind of music they tested something on, if their recorded tracks had issues, what the rest of the mix looked like, if they're using a computer from 2001 running Windows XP, what sample rate they set, if they used dither and what type they used if they did, or anything else that would show that they used something in a manner that was correct or at all relevant to what you want to do. Also, some software companies don't provide instructions on how to use their plug-ins, so you could be listening to someone who has plug-ins inserted in the wrong place due to the developer's lack of an appropriate manual. In short, try everything yourself and make up your own mind.
Second thing, equipment matters. If you won't ruin yourself financially, feel free to start with an interface like a Lynx Aurora N and get a versatile piece of hardware like an SSL Fusion or Neve Portico MBP II. Software plugins cannot replicate certain aspects of hardware yet. Watch some hardware vs plugin videos on Youtube and you'll often notice that the low frequencies that make you want to move and the smooth high frequencies that create excitement within you are missing from the plug-ins. These are critical things allowing a listener to connect with your music. Think of a plug-in as sort of like a DVD and hardware as pristine 4k video. No amount of skill would allow a DVD to run in 4k resolution just as skill won't add things to a plugin that aren't there. The good news is that you can use a lot of plug-ins so long as characteristics from good hardware make it into the music at some point. Another piece of good news for beginners is that you can get quality stuff at the lowest prices in history. A Behringer UMC 404HD is inexpensive and perfectly good for recording and decent for monitoring. Microphones can also be very good at lower prices, like the Audio Technica AT-2020. If you're someone who wants to have some drinks with your buddies on a Friday night and do some recording, you can get by with some inexpensive stuff. Try some plugins, see what you think of the results and then you can decide whether you want to try your hand at becoming a paid professional.
Third thing, your plug-in selection matters. Some plugins emulate more of a hardware device than others. Plenty of plugins do not function properly in addition to also not emulating the hardware fully. Pure digital plugins are a little different because they are not trying to recreate complex analog processes. The best thing you can do is to try things out. Get an Ilok3 usb key so that you can try plugins that use the Ilok system. Dither plugins are very necessary when lowering bit depth. Certain plugins run internally at bit rates and sample rates higher than what you've set in your DAW. You want to place a dither plug-in after such plug-ins (like a limiter that runs at 64-bit internally). The plug-in's manual should tell you if there are bit rate changes. Usually these types of plug-ins have dither built-in that you can select. You also want to place dither plug-ins before hardware inserts and at the end of your master fader unless your last plug-in in the chain has its own dither to select. Try using Good Dither by Goodhertz with a high dither amount or Maat LinPro, no noise shaping on either except for when placed at the end of the mix to bounce to 24-bit. Dither plugins can radically alter the tonality of your mix. To end a session, you use them when converting from 32-bit float to 24-bit and 24-bit to 16-bit cd format to lessen the damage of eliminating 8 bits from the studio file. Most often this means losing high frequencies. NotJustAnotherDither and Maat LinPro can compensate for this pretty decently. Those are the best of all the dither plug-ins we have tried for the final spot on the master fader. TPDF dither seems to dull things more than is necessary
You can also use your limiter's dither if you have your limiter at the end of your session. The one I like best at the moment is Cedar's Adaptive Limiter 2. I prefer using that to end a session over no limiter and using a dither plugin instead.
A DAW is the program you use to run your audio session and you have a lot of options. Pro Tools is the most famous and I find it to be the most straightforward. Then there's Apple Logic, Reaper, Sonar, Studio One, Reason, FL Studio, and a few others. For the most part, they all do the basic audio functions. If you're a beginner, Reaper is pretty intuitive and inexpensive ($60). It has a lot of flexibility, good cpu efficiency, and comes with quality plug-ins. If you want to spend a bit more, check for Pro Tools Regular/Native licenses on Ebay and Amazon. Sellers sometimes include a usb interface. Studio One also includes a lot of good stuff and is fairly priced. As for the others, we don't keep up with them so much. Check our education section for a guide to free and inexpensive plug-ins.
Headphones are covered in more detail elsewhere on our site. For listening headphones, our advice is to use something with a neutral type frequency response so you're hearing the music as close as possible to the source (but you do have to take into account how a dac in your interface, cd player, etc, or headphone amp alters the source recording). For recording, you want a closed set that doesn't leak a lot of sound. A lot of people use the inexpensive AKG K240. VSX is very good for this. If you don't have VSX, an AKG K550 has good isolation and sound that is both neutral and open. However, its pads will fall apart over time and need to be replaced. Replacement can be had for less than $20. The 550 also works really well with the VSX plug-in activated. Our mixing headphone of choice outside of VSX is the AKG K701.
Microphones can sometimes be more complex than they're made out to be. For an untreated room, something with great room rejection is ideal so you don't get interference from the room's frequencies. The Shure SM7b is the king of room rejection and also has a very neutral frequency response that tolerates high sound pressure levels. It's been used on dozens of mega-famous albums of all genres. That said, it sells used for basically the same price as a new one. About $300. Rarely will you find any closed ebay auctions where it sold for $250 or lower. The Electrovoice Re320 is a bit cheaper and has almost as good a measurement of room rejection. It's used in professional broadcast and musical situations. You could record with some mics that cost under $100 and still get a very usable result from an untreated room. Shure's SM57 and SM58 come to mind along with the Behringer B2 Pro and Samson MTR-201.
If you're looking at a condenser, you can still get a great sound with no room treatment. A used Neumann TLM-102 is probably the best you can get for the money, usually around $500. Another good choice is a Samson MTR231, which is the same as the MTR201, just with Omni and figure 8 pickup patterns added. According to a reviewer for Askaudio.com, the MTR201 compared extremely well against their Neumann U87 (retails at over $3000).You can read the askaudio.com review here:
https://ask.audio/articles/review-samson-mtr201-microphone
Mics for non-vocal uses are something you don't have to be as picky about. You could get a bunch of Behringer XM8500s for $20 each and do a proper drum recording as many people have done on YouTube. It's also possible to use for vocals, but in our experience it wasn't ideal. It would probably be best to invest in one good mic if you're on a budget. Then record each part individually, building the song piece by piece.
The interface is your way of recording into a computer. First thing is to make sure it's compatible with your DAW. The interface houses the DAC and ADC, that convert analog and digital signals such as when you convert digital audio to your headphones/speakers or analog from your microphone or outboard hardware into digital recording. Many manufacturers publish the specs of the chips instead of the actual measurements of the device. Two interfaces can have the same chips and sound wildly different. It takes a lot of effort and careful implementation to get an interface to meet the possible capabilities of a DAC or ADC chip. Then you have the headphone and speaker sections. At the end of the day this is all about whether the interface allows you to hear things in a way that allows your work to sound good or translate onto most listening systems people use. You want to keep your mixes and masters kind of neutral because listening systems and headphones add coloration. By coloration we mean that they add frequencies to the recording you're listening to. For example, if you load up your recording with high levels of bass then when people play them back on listening systems that add a lot of bass, your recording will now sound way too bass-heavy. All interfaces produce identical results when bouncing to disk.
You want to start your sessions with a sample rate of 44 khz and then use the upsampling inside your plugins if available due to IMD you get when working at higher sample rates (creates artifacts in your mix, but you can use higher rates with hardware). You can use Metaplugin to load your vst plugins and oversample them if the option isn't available on the plugin. You just have to listen and decide if you like the results. This is mainly done to offset problems that can occur at 44/48khz when pushing the limits of plugins. You'll want to set the buffer on the interface at lower settings such as 256 for recording and higher settings such as 1024 for mixing. Latency is a delay in hearing things after they've happened. You want to minimize this during recording. Consult your DAW manual for how to measure it. You can also use Unison plugins through a Universal Audio Apollo interface to record without latency.
Looking at the sheer volume of audio software out there, it can be overwhelming at first. This software is the same exact stuff used by your favorite artists, engineers, and producers.
That means reverb, delay, harmonization, pitch correction, compression, limiting, gating, eq, dynamic eq, stereo imaging, and analog emulations. You can consider one of the subscription plans offered by various companies out there such as Slate, SSL, Plugin Alliance, Relab, and McDSP. Typically prices are between $14.99 and $24.99 a month with certain deals here and there. You'll get access to all their software and additional offerings from other companies sometimes. But, the plugins available from companies who are not the one offering the subscription can change. Case in point, Relab withdrew from the Slate bundle and started their own subscription plan.
Companies have sales, usually Nov-Dec and June. Flash sales have become more frequent over the years too. Plugin Alliance probably has the most frequent sales next to Waves. If you're just starting, you could try a PA subscription. It's hard to recommend purchases because a lot of that depends on what is on sale. With a PA subscription, you can spend minimally and have most of what you'd need to see if working with audio is for you.
On the topic of computers. In all of our testing we found that a processor that scores around 100 single core points and 1000 multicore/64 points on cpu.userbenchmark.com good to use as a bare minimum one would want for audio. An overclocked Ryzen 1600, for example. You can build a bare bones system with a processor like that for a low price. Single core is relevant to high cpu plugins that don't spread out over many cores. Multi core is important if you want to run a lot of efficient plugins on many tracks and auxes. 8 gigs of RAM can do the trick if you're not using lots of virtual instruments. 16 gigs is much safer. We set the Windows paging file to auto and find that to be the most stable for our usage. That regulates virtual memory.
When you find that you're running out of cpu, you could consider using a DSP server to run plug-ins outside of your computer. You have two choices: Waves and UAD/Universal Audio. Computers are getting more powerful by the year, but still face serious limitations when certain plugins are using up a large percentage of one core. Audio plug-ins are not able to easily spread the workload out among many cores. DSP works largely the same way. A UAD plugin has to fit on one Sharc chip. You can't take a Lexicon 480 that uses say 60% of a Sharc and then put 10% of it on six different chips. All 60% has to fit on one Sharc chip. There are other options where you can use an old computer to run plug-ins, but we haven't found those all that easy to get into. Keep in mind that UAD servers only run UAD plug-ins, Plugin Alliance, and Softube stuff that originated on UAD. You cannot get a license from PA or Softube and then use those plug-ins on a UAD server. You'll have to pay for the more expensive UAD license. Waves servers can also run a select few PA, Flux, and Sonnox plug-ins. There is also Avid DSP, but the cost is way too high if you're not committed to being an audio professional tied to Avid's system with Pro Tools.
Make sure to download the free and very accurate Keyfinder software. When we've tested songs that we know the keys of, it's gotten it right every time. Some songs are in more than one key or do things outside of regular keys. You will need to know the key of the song for some plugins.
You also need a regular computer type speaker. Something like a Bose companion that's big enough to showcase a full range of sound while still being a regular consumer speaker. You'll find that without acoustic treatment, one room can sound drastically different from another. Some rooms are so bassy that everything sounds muddy. So you'll want to test your work in other rooms on other speakers. Acoustic treatment needs to be specific to your room(s) and can cost hundreds of dollars or more. If you can't treat, the best thing is just to get to know your headphones/speakers and test your work in various places.
To finish our your mic setup, you'll want various kinds of stands to suit the guitar amps, drum kit pieces, and singers. It's probably best to buy these in a store because there are so many different stands with different attachment parts that you may order some and find that the stand has the wrong piece for your mic. But there are good deals on Ebay and Amazon for stand and cable packages that clearly show everything, so if you know exactly what type of adapter you need on your stands, you can sometimes score 4 or 5 stands plus 4 or 5 cables for around $80. XLR cables that are not well constructed are prone to falling apart and loose connections cause noise and hum. Finally, a pop filter that costs a few bucks is good to have to protect your vocal recordings from plosives and spitting noises. Some mics, like an SM7b, can get by without one though.
A usb flashdrive can be handy, especially if you are a Waves or Plugin Alliance user, because you can store your licenses and take them with you wherever you want. Other than licenses, a flashdrive is good to have so you can bring audio and project files from place to place. If you have a Microcenter in your local area, they usually have the best prices on Flash drives and SD cards. We have been using their flash media for years with no real problems.
Lastly, if you listen to real tracks from Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or Jammit, know that those tracks sound way different from your's because they are heavily treated with very specific FX, often by a new engineer who did not work on the album. On Gearspace, famed engineer Michael Wagener (Metallica/Dokken/Megadeth/Skid Row/Ozzy) has often talked about gear he used. This gear was also used by many others. Harmonizers, Reverbs, Room simulators, pitch shifters, compressors, all these things with very specific sound signatures. These pro tracks, especially ones from the 80s, are treated with things like a Lexicon 224 or 480 reverb, Eventide H910/H949/H3000/H8000, along with classic compressors like 1176, LA2A, and DBX160. That's in addition to the saturation and other qualities of analog tape and mixing consoles. Unfortunately, a lot of this classic gear has not been ported to native software. But enough of it is available as affordable and can get you many classic sounds.
If I were to break it down to the most essential, here would be the list:
Inspirata
Cedar Adaptive Limiter 2
UAD Cooper Time Cube
UAD Bx20
Black Box HG-2 MS
Overloud Tapedesk
Overloud Dopamine
UAD Capitol Chambers
Softube Atlantis Chambers
Eventide H3000 Factory
Tokyo Dawn Molot GE
UAD 1176
Liquid Sonics Seventh Heaven Pro
Waves CLA Effects
UAD Lexicon 480
Eventide SP2016
Sonnox Vox Doubler
Softube Fix Doubler
Softube Fix Phaser
Softube Tube Tech MKII
Lindell 902 De-Esser
Acme Opticom XLA-3
Schoeps Mono Upmix
UAD Lexicon 224
U-he Satin
Fabfilter Pro-Q3
Softube Weiss DS-1 MKIII
Softube Mike-E
For more detailed info on all these things, see our education and blog sections. The videos section links to many great youtube videos where you can hear everything in action.
Links:
Gearspace Botched Mastering Again
Samson MTR 201 Review
The Sun City Rockets
Keyfinder
Gearspace Thread On Botched Mastering
Ultimate Plugin Analysis Thread
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