Musical Instruments

For the vast majority of home studio owners, the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software is the control center of their studio. The DAW is the program that allows you to create, record, edit and arrange audio.   Picking one that fits your needs can be a confusing tornado of options, features and opinion. Which one do you chose? 

If, like most home or project studio owners, you’ve opted to use a computer as the center of your studio, then you’ll most likely be hearing a lot about audio interfaces.    For the typical home user, the sound card on your computer is just fine. Unfortunately, for a studio owner, you’ll very quickly find that the onboard sound system is inadequate for your needs. They’re typically noisy, they lack inputs and outputs you’ll most likely need and they can be inefficient in the way they translate analog and digital audio.   That’s where audio interfaces come into the picture. An audio interface is a piece of dedicated hardware that you connect to your computer. In the most basic sense, the interface is the audio middleman between you (the real world) and the computer. 

January is a big month for new product announcements. In early January there was CES – the largest trade show for consumer electronics. Many companies keep their new products a secret so they can excite and surprise consumers with their announcements during the conference.  Late January has the NAMM show – the largest trade show in the world for musical instruments. Just like at CES, attendees at NAMM often keep the products they will present under wraps, until the show. What will be the biggest news in musical instruments for 2014. Best Buy will be at the conference to find out for you.

How are you going to be using your studio?   The answers to this question will set you on a path to figuring out what you might need to start your journey in recording. There are many, many different configurations of gear that can be assembled into a studio. Which configuration fits your needs best?