Here are some great tips I have thrown together that will get you started in the right path! Just remember that recording is a craft an it takes many years to tweak out your style! It does take awhile to learn so be patient! I have been mixing live for 12 years and had worked for some of greats! I really do believe that you can use live technique in the studio vice versa!

1. Be prepared! Pre production can be a very powerful in the whole process! I like to lay my drum tracks and then rehearse with them for a few days! It is a really good way to tweak and work out all the tweaks!

2. Once you have found the sound and feel that you are looking for it, it is time to lay some tracks! What I do in Logic! I set up 16 tracks and I will keep the first 8 for drum tracks and I will arm 9 and 10! I usually will put my vocal on 9 and acoustic on 10! Be sure set you’re in and out points! If you are recording many tracks you will want to increase the amount of ram that your program uses! This really comes in handy later if you add loops and instruments to the mix! IF you don’t enough ram to run your program then it may crash while recording!

3. How to find that perfect sound! I love to mic my acoustic and run direct also! This is where I used to mess up all the time! I would always get strange pops on my acoustic track and realized what was causing it! Every time the acoustic and plug would lose a little connection it be recorded! Guess what I found that works great! Use some WD-40 on your tips! All I can figure is that the corrosion cause a break in connected! Smoke will cause a film on electronics also!

4. Check your batteries and make sure they are good! Don’t use those cheap they really don’t work well! I love the Pro cells for the reliability and they last forever!

5. Make sure your power source is grounded properly! I recommend a battery back up also! I would also make sure you have a good quite power supply on you pc!

6. Always restart your pc or Mac before you so any recording. It reboots your system and frees up the resources that are needed to process all the information. It is always a good idea to not run any other programs while you record. Never, I repeat never have another audio program running unless you are using it for your recording purposes. I use word to read lyrics and haven’t had any problems! It is not as a big of an issue as it used to be though. Back in earlier windows it was a big issue! Just remember a lot of computers (or macs) don’t like to share audio drivers with different programs at the same time.

7. Updating isn’t as important as you think. I ran the same 98 and cubase happily together for 4 years. That is success! I attribute it to not ever putting it on-line; I bought a laptop just for that purpose.

8. File Handling. I have found that moved files could give you a headache. I have found out the hard way! Always save your audio folder in the file folder as your project. Always make a folder per new project. That way when you move your files they will all be nice in tidy all in one place. Other wise you may waist a few days of your life trying to figure out where those new audio tracks went, plus it makes you look like a chump.

9. Always!! Save Save Save your song. Be sure before you checking out that new verb plug-in that you save your track. I have had Logic crash while mixing before a save. Logic is a cool back-up feature that will save your butt in this situation. But be aware that if you delete a track, it is gone! I wish they had a step-back feature like a lot of other programs.

10. Mac or Pc? It really depends what you want to do. I love them both and have had great success with each one, using all the tips listed up above. I do think Mac has caught me for now. I do think the learning curve in tougher with a Mac. After you get the hang of it. You will be recording like a Pro Engineer.

11. Keep your levels clean! If you peg into the red you are just square waving the recording. Use a compressor to catch vocal peaks. Always use a pop filter on a vocal! Unless you are using a dynamic or the mic has a built in Pop filter. The Filter will catch the air before it hits the diaphragm. Sometimes causing a popping sound.

12. I like to set my recording at 44 and 24bit. I do dither down to 16 bit for CD. It always sounds great. Find what works for you! It really depends on how much disk space that you want to you use.

13. Monitors? Use what sounds great to you! For a few years I used some decent passive near fields that were hot that year. Gear changes so fast and there really are some great sounding speakers out there. I have used all kinds of monitors! I love headphones, cause you can use them anywhere and have your privacy. I suggest the Sony MDR-7506 they have awesome response and a nice full range. There are a great deal of powered monitors out there and do some research and find out what you need for your purpose! Don’t forget that Shielded ones are the way to go!.

Now start you have some great tips to help you get started! Pick out that hit tune and lay it down and start tweaking away. There are many ways to mix and many styles! Go find your own thing! Before you know it you will highly demanded audio engineer.

There are many new site that are popping up all over the web that are making a lot of Banks and people happy. So cash in on the web while it is open and enjoy the liberty that you have. You are the worst person that a Record Company Hates, you know the one; that keeps all the money in his own account! Go for it!