Monday, June 22, 2015

Music Education Monday:
Audio recording basics

This week for "Music Education Monday," we've got links to some guides available for free online to help musicians who want to learn the basics of audio recording.

(Note that this time, we're covering printed materials only; a future installment will attempt to recommend some of the many, many audio recording tutorials now available on YouTube.)

As you'd expect, a number of companies that make products used in the recording process publish instructional materials to help potential customers understand that process and how those products might be used in it.

The quality of these can vary widely, but three that seem at least worth a look are "Basics: Home Recording and Podcasting" from the microphone manufacturer Shure; "How to Capture Your Art - An Introduction To Multitrack Recording from TASCAM"; and "Basics of Modern Recording," from Roland, manufacturers of a variety of music and recording gear.

Universities are another good source for this sort of material, and the "Introduction to Sound Recording Technology" from Stanford University's well-respected Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics is a useful overview of its subject.

Lastly, for a more in-depth look, you can check out a 278-page PDF representing the complete course notes for "Music and Technology: Recording Techniques and Audio Production" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  These are course notes, rather than an actual textbook, so you'll need to do some additional searching, reading and follow-up to get the maximum benefit, but at the very least, it's a cheap way to get a sense of just how much there is to learn about the topic.

Have you run across any other free online instructional materials or tutorials about recording that you found to be particularly useful? If so, please share in the comments...

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