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Kim o' the Concrete Jungle's
Guide To
Recording Song Demos On the Cheap

5. Getting Set Up

All I've done so far is talk about gear for four chapters. You're probably looking at all this stuff and thinking, "What the hell am I supposed to do with it?" Well, let's get you set up so you can start recording.

The Computer

We'll start with the computer. If you're using a laptop like me, the first thing you want to do is plug it in. Music and battery life are not friends. Worse still, battery life has a big brother called power management, who says he's going to come around your place after school and beat you up. There's nothing else for it. You're going to have to take him out. In Windows 7, after you've plugged your computer into the mains power, you want to click the start button, then click on Control Panel -> System & Security -> Power Options. That will show you a bunch of power plans. If it's not already selected, choose the "high performance" plan. That should stop the sucker. But be careful, that Power Management dude still has some tricks up his sleeve.

Next you'll want to look on the left hand panel of the Power Options window. You'll see two options for "choose when to turn off the display" and "change when the computer sleeps." You'll want to click on those. There are two groups of settings on the sub-page, one for when the computer is on battery power, and one for when the computer's plugged in. Don't change the "on battery" settings, just the plugged-in ones. Change them all to "never." This way, that power management dude will never bother you while you're recording, and never ruin a track by poking his nose in where it's not wanted.

Windows 7 has some other nefarious characters to vex you. I almost guarantee you'll be working on an ambient and very delicate synth track one day, with the volume up so you can hear. Then, when you're done, you'll go to switch off the computer and be deafened by the Windows shutdown noise. It happens every time. To save yourself and your speakers from grief, do this. Click on Control Panel -> Sound then navigate to the Sound tab. You're looking for "Sound Scheme". When you find it, change your sound scheme to No Sounds. You really don't want your computer making any noises apart from the ones you ask it to. Remember where this sound window lives, because we'll be returning to it later on.

Depending on the phases of the moon (or something like that) you may have a problem with your anti-virus program. I must say, I'm using Avast (which is more than usually aggressive, like a doorman drunk on the power), and I haven't had any problems. But if your computer is choking during a recording session, anti-virus software is the usual culprit. If it bothers you, try disabling the anti-virus during a recording session. Usually, you can do that by finding it's icon in the system tray, right-clicking on it, and choosing disabling options from the menu. Avast gives me an option for "silent gaming mode", which disables scanning when an application is full screen. That's handy, because I can run Zynewave Podium in full screen mode. If you're bothered about your computer being unprotected, just go to the system tray and disable all your network connections for the duration. You're not going to need those during a recording session anyway.

Windows Update is the other thing that can interrupt you at the most inconvenient moment. Especially when it throws up one of those "Windows has been updated, please restart you're computer" messages. You can change this behaviour. Go to Control Panel -> System & Security -> Windows Update, then navigate to the "change settings" page. You can set it so that Windows checks for updates but asks you if you want to download and install them. You can also turn Windows Update off altogether. But if you do that, make sure you get into the habit of updating your system manually. A lot of that is important security stuff that stops your computer getting infected and joining the zombie bot-net hoard. Of course, if you take my previous advice and disable your network connections during a recording session, you won't need to do anything, because Windows won't be able to check for updates at all (hehe).

The next thing you want to do is pull your mouse, keyboard, and other bits and pieces out of all your USB ports and migrate them to a USB hub. Remember, you'll need all the USB ports you can spare for music gear. Installing a USB hub is usually pretty painless. Just plug it in and it will install itself. If it doesn't, then carefully unplug it, throw directly in the bin, and call yourself an idiot for buying a USB hub from the flea market for 20 cents. Some things just don't like USB hubs (printers usually), so you might still run out of USB ports, causing you to spend half your life swapping cables in and out. That's life. Put some sticky labels on your USB cables so you can tell at a glance what everything is.

The Interface

The first thing you'll want to install is your recording interface. And as I said before, it will want an entire USB port all to itself. I know you didn't buy the Lexicon [sniff], so I can't really help you here. But most likely, you'll have to insert a compact disk that came in the box and install the drivers from that. And sometimes that won't even work, because the CD is too old. If you run into trouble, get online and download the most recent updated drivers. In fact, do that anyway, because old drivers may stop your equipment from working properly.

Sometimes, the install CD will give you a control program that lets you change you're interface's settings on the screen. It's a handy thing, if you get it. But some interfaces don't have that. The Lexicon I-Onix doesn't. It doesn't really matter, because I'll be showing you how to do everything from inside of Zynewave Podium and the Windows control panel.

The most important thing you'll be getting from this process is ASIO drivers. Every decent interface you buy will come with a set of those. Computers are troublesome, because they're really slow at processing audio. Left to its own, a computer will introduce audible amounts of latency into your recording, which will sound horrible. ASIO drivers will keep everything in time. Most of the time, anyway. Every now and then, latency can still rear its ugly head. But my point is, always use the ASIO drivers. Any decent audio program will let you choose which audio drivers to use. Not a few of them will ask you up front, the first time you run the program. Typically, your choices will be something like Windows Wave/MME Drivers, whatever your computer's internal soundcard is (probably Realtek), and your interface's ASIO drivers (e.g. Lexicon I-Onix u82s). If no ASIO drivers appear on the list, it's probably because the program doesn't support ASIO. And if that's the case, you'll never want to use that program for any task that involves layering more than one track of audio.

Okay, so you've got your interface plugged in, and you've installed the latest drivers. Do you want to use you're interface for all your system's sounds? Yeah, go on. Of course you do. Why do you want to listen to Youtube videos on your crappy laptop speakers when you've got a much better sound system already hooked in? If your interface came with a control program, you might be able to set it up from there. But let's assume you can't. Here's what you do. Click on the start button, and click on Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound (we've already been here before). Navigate to the "Playback" tab. Here you should see a list of all the devices available on your system, including your recording interface. Make sure that your recording interface is enabled and checked. That's it.

Now my computer has an annoying bug. It refuses to use my Lexicon I-Onix interface as a playback device while the internal soundcard is available. The work-around is pretty simple. Double click on the soundcard in the tab and disable it. Now it has to use the Lexicon. BWAHAHA. You can always re-enable it if you're using the laptop away from home and you don't have the interface with you.

The Monitor Speakers

Of course, you won't hear anything until you've connected your pair of Behringer Truth monitor speakers to the interface. Of course, you've got an appropriate pair of cables for that purpose, right? I'm sure I mentioned that somewhere already. So it's no good complaining at me if you suddenly find yourself holding an XLR to XLR cable, when you really needed a TRS to TRS. If you have the right cables, this is the easy part. Find the main left and right outputs of your interface, and connect them to the input on the back of the speakers -- don't get your wires crossed, or your computer won't know left from right.

Now the one really annoying thing about the Behringer Truth monitors (indeed most monitors), is that all the controls are on the back. But hey, at least the power switch is located where you can sort-of reach it. There's also an auto power-on feature. Call me a Luddite, but I hate dumb machines that try to be "helpful" by triggering automated behaviour when you least want or expect it.

Thankfully, you shouldn't have to mess with the other controls too much. Most of the controls on the back panel are EQ switches. That's easy, you set them all to zero. There are mute low and mute high switches. Don't mess with those, just leave them off. The one knob you might want to fiddle with is the "input trim". This one dictates how loud the speakers are, and it's tough to tweak it just right. The trouble is, you'll be working with a lot of different sound sources that will happen to be at different levels. You might find it difficult to find a trim setting that's just right, where the quietest sounds are not too quiet, and the loudest sounds are not too loud. And when you find it, you have to make sure you've got the exact same trim setting on both speakers. To begin with, it's probably best to leave the trim set at zero and ride the output gain on your interface instead. Once you've got a feel for your system and what needs to happen, then fiddle with the input trim.

So I guess the message is, don't spend too much time fiddling with the knobs and switches. Concentrate on speaker placement instead. You'll want to place the speakers relative to where you'll be sitting. They should be at just the right height so the tweeters are about level with your ears. You should also be sitting in the exact middle of your speakers. It's a good idea to experiment with how far apart you place them, because there'll be a sweet spot where they sound the best. If that sweet spot interferes with where you want to put your computer screens, then find somewhere else to put the computer screens. Because hey, you need to hear music more than you need to see it.

If at this point you want to sit back and put on some music I won't object. Go ahead. Enjoy it. If you've only been listening to rubbish computer speakers up until now, this will be a whole new experience for you. And if you catch the hi-fi bug and start to wonder how to make it sound even better still, don't think "bigger speakers", think "room treatment".

The Behringer UMX Controller

Let's move on and get the controller hooked up. Mostly it's the same deal as with the interface. Get a cable and plug your Behringer UMX into a spare USB port. Alternatively, you could get a cable with 5-pin midi connectors and plug it into the midi-in of your interface, but I really don't recommend that. If you do, you'll discover there's such a thing as midi-latency, and it's not pretty. So suck it up and sacrifice a USB port to it.

Don't even bother looking at the CD for your drivers. I know for a fact those are out of date. Instead, go to this webpage and download the good ones:

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Support/U-Control-Downloads.aspx

You'll want the USB Midi Driver. There's two flavours -- one in 64 bit and one in 32 bit. Choose the one that matches your computer. (If you don't know what that is, go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> System and look for yourself. It'll be listed next to "System Type".) Once you've got the drivers loaded, your Behringer UMX is good to go. Easy, right?

Just a word of caution. Don't ever try and mount a second midi device to the same USB port. I have no idea what that does, but the manual warns against it. It probably just overwrites the drivers, or something boring like that. But hey, if it bricks your entire computer, you can't say I didn't warn you.

Your Plugins Folder

Okay, I bet you're itching to start wailing away on those piano keys now, but right at the moment there's nothing there for them to play. So the next step is to start yourself a plugins folder. And let's do this thing properly from the get go. You see, computer music stuff has a tendency to go critical. If you only downloaded the stuff I recommended, you've already got about a hundred plugins. You probably didn't realize. And trust me, it won't be long before you've got several hundred. If you start getting into sampling and looping, you'll end up with thousands of .wav files.

To an extent, being a computer musician is a bit like being a librarian. You need to start organizing your stuff, or you'll never be able to find anything. I once misplaced an entire softsynth, and I never did find it again. In the end, I had to go back to the website and download another copy. This was stupid and infuriating, because I knew the original was still installed on my computer somewhere. Don't let it happen to you. Get organized.

Every DAW you install on your computer will want to start it's own plugins folder. Every VST you have to install with an .exe file will choose a default install location that's nothing to do with anything. Your job is to stop them from doing this, and force them to install every VST in one central location. For my general music related files, I have a folder called HDREC. That stands for Hard Disk Recording -- which is what mucking around with a DAW used to be called, back in the day. Actually, that folder has existed since about 2004, and has made the leap onto my new laptop. I also have another folder called "Recording" for my project files, but let's focus on the HDREC for the moment.

HDREC used to have some oddball things in it, like templates for impulse tracker modules. But it's cleaner these days. It's divided into Samples and Plugins. Plugins is divided into VSTfx and VSTi -- i.e. VST effects and VST instruments. One day it might also have a VST-64bit subfolder, but not right now. VSTfx and VSTi are also divided up. I've got folders for the specific plugin bundles (e.g. Melda, Modern, and DSK). The other loose plugins are sorted according to type: Delay, Distortion, Dynamics, EQ, Guitar, Modulation, Drums, Monosynths, Polysynths, and Samplers.

If that sounds excessive to you, trust me, it's not. Each of those folders has at least a dozen plugins inside. Plugins can be kind of sticky. If you use one in even a single project, then you'll have to keep it around forever. If you don't, you'll end up with broken projects that throw warning messages about missing plugins. For example, I've still got a plugin called "Loopazoid", which is no longer in development and which I haven't actually used for years. But still, I can't delete it, otherwise all my older projects would suddenly be without drums. If you don't keep things organized, your plugins folder will quickly grow out of control. So yeah, start making folders.

When you have folders, you can install VSTs to them. That works one of two ways. Some VSTs come in a zipped file that just have the .dll file in them. The better ones might include a manual along with them, which you'll want to keep. You just have to manually copy and paste all this stuff into your plugins folder. Other plugins come as a .exe file, and use a proper installer to unpack everything. Either way, get into the habit of putting each VST in it's own dedicated folder. Lots of them generate working files, and you don't want these randomly cluttering up your plugins folder. Sometimes you can also download extra preset banks for a VST, and it's nice to have somewhere to put those too.

Once you've got all those pesky VSTs unpacked and settled into their new home, it's time to get your DAW working, so we can actually use them.

Podium Free

Zynewave Podium is a pretty clean program. It doesn't write stuff into the registry, or do funky things to your computer, so the install should be quick and trouble-free. In your downloads folder, you should have a zipped file called PodiumFree242.zip. Open that up and extract the Podium installer, then run the installer. Windows will do it's song and dance about "unknown publishers", and you'll ignore it, as usual. In the installer, the default settings should be fine. Eight seconds later, you should have Zynewave Podium Free on your system, ready to roll.

The first time you run Podium, you'll see a popup prompting you to create the default Zynewave Podium folder in My Documents. If you're following my advice about keeping things organized, you might want to click the Configure button and choose all the locations manually. But since these are all for files specifically related to Podium, the default settings are sensible. Clicking Build Default Folder is probably for the best.

When that's done, you'll be presented with Podium's project start page. That doesn't mean we've finished setting up, though. If you look down the settings on the right-hand side, you'll see that audio inputs and midi inputs are all set to none. And you're going to have to change that.

In the top left-hand-corner of the Podium's Window you'll see some menus. Go to Setup -> Midi/Audio Interfaces. In this window, you'll be able to setup both your interface and your Behringer UMX controller. The first tab is the midi page. If you've done everything right, you should see the UMX in the input and output list. If your interface has midi inputs and outputs, they should be there too. For now, just check the UMX box, and move onto the next tab.

The second tab is for setting up audio. From the Audio Driver Type pull-down, you'll want to select ASIO Drivers. From the ASIO Interface pulldown, choose the driver for your interface. Mine's called "Lexicon I-Onix u82s". If you don't see your controller or your interface in either of these two tabs, you've probably mucked up the installation of the drivers. Get online and download the latest version of the correct drivers, then try reinstalling them.

Now we've just opened up a can of worms here, because this is also the page where you'll set the default sample rate for Podium. There is a huge debate about sample rates. The manufacturers started it by building converters capable of 88.2KHz, 96KHz, and even 128KHz. But they're not entirely to blame, because there are plenty of people out there who think bigger numbers on a spec sheet must mean it's better. Prior to this, the standard was 44.1KHz for music and 48KHz for film.

To put these numbers in context, you have to understand a little about Nyquist theory and human hearing. Nyquist theory is basically a mathematical proof that shows any possible waveform can be perfectly reproduced from two samples. It's the basis of digital recording. A sample rate of 48Khz means that your interfaces is capturing 48 thousand samples each and every second. And since it needs at least two for every sound-wave, the highest sound it can capture pulses at 24 thousand times a second (or 24KHz). That's nice, because the range of human hearing has been established at 20Hz to 20KHz. And mind you, only little kids can hear as high as 20KHz. If you're an adult, you've got considerably less range than that. For example, the absolute highest frequency that I can personally hear is 14KHz, but that's mostly because I'm a guitar player in a loud rock band. Rest assured when you put a CD or a DVD on, it's pumping out every single note and harmonic you could possibly hear, and a little bit more. The highest note on a standard 88 key piano is only 4186Hz.

And yet, there are people who will swear on their mother's gravestone that they can hear a difference between a CD quality sample rate of 44.1KHz (capturing 22KHz sound-waves) and 96KHz (capturing 48KHz sound-waves). The argument is that, even though human hearing stops at 20KHz, musical instruments can produce harmonics well in excess of that, and those high harmonics can have complex interactions with the sound right down into the audible range. If you want to know how much water that arguments holds, go and look at the frequency response charts for microphones and monitor speakers. Trust me, you can't hear the effect of a 48KHz sound-wave that's not captured by your microphone or reproduced by your speakers. But if the source produces high frequency harmonics that have an effect in the audible range below 20K, then the effect will be captured and reproduced faithfully, even when the original high-harmonic is not. So what are people hearing when they say they can hear a difference? Most of the time, it's nothing at all -- it's all in their imagination. But sometimes older converters are inconsistent, and simply work better with one setting than the other. That's why you want a new interface, with modern AD/DA converters.

If at this point your brains are melting, don't worry. The message is simply this: set the sample rate in Podium to 44.1KHz and forget about it. You'll have enough trouble making your songs sound good in the unambiguously audible range, so never mind the extreme high-frequencies beyond hearing. You can (and should) ignore the argument completely. And that goes for the other nitpicky arguments about clock-jitter and dithering as well. Trust me, if your recording sucks, it's not because of minutia like this.

So why not use 96KHz anyway, just in case? You'll want to avoid it because 96KHz files take up more than twice the space and require more than twice the processing power. It's a resource hog. If you don't have the best computer in the world (and perhaps even if you do), 96KHz audio will put some pretty punishing limitations on what you can do.

Before you leave the Midi/Audio Interfaces window, you'll want to click on the driver setup button. This will open a page of settings specifically related to your interface. First, you'll want to check and make sure the sample rate here is exactly the same as you've set it in Podium (i.e. 44.1KHz). If they don't match, very strange things will happen to the recorded sound in your projects. The second thing is to set the default bit resolution for your recorded audio.

Regardless of how many bit-rate options your interface offers you, there are only two actually viable settings -- 16 bit and 24 bit. In case you wanted to know, the bit-rate controls how many steps of resolution there are between the noise floor and the loudest possible sound you can record (the noise floor is the point at which the random junk produced by your system is louder than your recorded sound). For computer-based recording this is rated in dBFS; i.e. decibels relative to full scale. -∞ dBFS means silence and 0 dBFS means you goofed, sending your signal over the top and into nasty, nasty digital clipping.

When I was talking about sample-rate I made an argument in favour of frugality, but that definitely does not apply to bit resolution. Go for 24 bits. It's not that 16 bits always sounds bad (it's the standard for compact discs), but actually recording in 16 bit resolution can be tricky. Whereas, recording in 24 bits gives you headroom to spare, so it's the safe and carefree option. There's also such a thing as 32 bit floating point resolution. When you render your final mixes they will be in 32 bit floating point, because that's what Podium Free uses internally. Your interface might let you set 32 bit for recording as well, but it only samples in 24 bit, so it's just a big old waste of space.

You'll probably also see some settings for ASIO here, but for the moment leave those set to the defaults. We'll look at those a bit later on in the guide when we start running into nasty latency problems. When you're done on the Midi/Audio Interfaces page click first on Apply and then on OK. That should get the ball rolling.

We're not quite done yet, because Podium still doesn't know its way around your computer. You're going to have to draw it a map. Let's run through this quickly. You want to go to Setup -> Preferences in the menu at the top left of the Podium Window. This will open the Preferences dialogue, which has seven tabs in it. For now, we're only interested in the Plugins tab.

This is just a list of folders, telling Podium where to search for VST plugins. You should already see the folder for Zynewave's plugins in the list. You might be tempted to move the Zynewave plugins to your general plugins folder, but don't bother. They won't work with any program other than Podium. You'll want to add your personal plugins folder to this list. You'll want to check the Automatically search for missing plugins option. That will come in handy if you ever decide you want to rearrange your plugin folder. Don't worry about the other options. Most of them are unavailable in Podium Free anyway.

The other six tabs in the preferences window have plenty of options in them too, but leave them alone for now. You can mess with them later, when you understand what any of it actually does. When you're done in the Preferences dialogue, press Apply then OK.

The last thing to do is to build a plugins database. But Podium won't do this until you start a new project, so let's do that. When you've cleared away the preferences dialogue, you should be left with the New Project page, which looks like this:

Screenshot of Podium's New Project page.
You'll see this page every time you start a new project in Podium.

On the left there's a box that lists all your recent projects, in case you want to load one of those. But we're interested in the panel on the right. This is where you setup new projects. Let's start one now. Click on the Edit Project Name button to give it a name. Then go down to the plugin section and choose Build and Load Plugin Database from the dropdown menu. Then click on the Create Project button. You'll now launch into the exciting process of building the database.

Building a plugin database will take Podium a long time, because it has to open the plugins one at a time to check them out and kick their tires. Sometimes Podium won't like a plugin. Sometime Podium will hate a plugin so much it crashes. If it happens, don't worry. Just restart Podium and build the database again. The nasty plugin will have been included on the quarantine list, so Podium won't try to load it again. If you've only downloaded the plugins I've recommended, you shouldn't have too many problems. When the scan has finished, you'll be whisked away to the arrangement window. This is where you will be your main working area.

The next time you start a new project, you'll have some extra options in the plugin database menu. Instead of always having to rebuild the database, you'll also be able to load the existing database, or update the existing database. Loading the existing database is the best option, if you haven't added new stuff to your plugins folder in the mean time. With that option checked, Podium will take no time at all to get you started.

Do you have a dual monitor setup? If you do, you can make your experience in Podium much less cramped by moving some of the control panels to the second screen. First, make sure your second screen is extended the display rather than just duplicating it. You can change the settings by right-clicking on your desktop and choosing Screen Resolution from the menu. Next to where it says Multiple Displays, you change your second monitor to Extend desktop to this display. You should be good to go.

Back in Podium, you'll be able to create some new windows and move them across to your second screen (just grab them and drag them to the right). You open a new window using the Window menu. Personally I find it most useful to open a new inspector window, and a new project window and put them side by side. Then I'll change the profile of the new project window to Mixer (look for the row of buttons near the bottom, just above the transport controls). If you don't want the mixer, try the Editor profile instead, which is also quite useful. Or you can just mix and match between Tracks, Editor, and Mixer on your two screens. Whatever works for you is good.

The Amp Simulators

Setting up your hardware amp-simulators is pretty straight forward. Just plug them into your interface, switch them on, and set the input and direct monitoring volume on your interface. But there are a few little issues you should be aware of. Both the V-Amp and the ToneLab (and others too, I'm sure) have different operating modes you can select. You'll want to make sure you're in the best operating mode for direct recording. On the V-Amp, you press the D and E buttons together at the same time to go into "Config." mode. For the moment, just make sure it's set to L1 mode, because that's the most fool proof. On the ToneLab, you have to hunt down and press the Amp/Line button. Use the up and down arrows to set it to Ln1. It's just possible that these are all factory default settings. I wouldn't know. I haven't been near the factory settings for years.

There's one more thing you have to look out for with the V-Amp. Do you play a passive bass? Pick up your bass and look for the slot where the 9V battery goes in. If there isn't one, then yes, you play a passive bass. And if you do, the default input gain on your V-Amp is set too low. To change it, go back into Config. mode. Then press and hold the TAP button and turn the gain knob all the way to the right. I left my V-Amp on the default setting for years before I learned that little trick. And boy did I feel silly.

While you're plugging in, you will have to decide whether you want to record in stereo or mono. That's mostly going to depend on what sort of part you want to play, which is going to vary from song to song. But I think, for the most part, you should record in mono. The dry signal out of both units is pretty much entirely mono anyway. Only a handful of the effects generate any significant stereo field (I'm thinking mostly about the ping-pong delay and the stereo chorus here). If you record mostly mono tracks, you'll have much more freedom to pan things around while you're mixing. And mono files take up half the space of stereo ones.

What kind of cables are you using to connect your amp-sims to your interface? I think, where possible, you should use the balanced lines with the 3-pin connectors, and they should not be longer than they need to be. Balanced cables do this neat trick where they cancel-out any hum that happens to get into the line that wasn't in the source. In an untreated home studio, full of RF bouncing around, you're going to need that. But some cables are never balanced; for example, guitar cables. When you use unbalanced cables, you might have to take measures to eliminate noise (i.e. setting up noise gates).

For the ToneLab, you'll have to use unbalanced cables. On the Bass V-Amp Pro, you can suit yourself. It's got every kind of connector. Alternatively, the V-Amp and the Tonelab both have digital S/P Dif outputs. If your interface is obliging, you can use digital for the cleanest possible signal chain. But beware. Digital inputs on interfaces usually bypass all the features of the interface and go directly to the computer. You won't be able to adjust the gain, or use direct monitoring. For this reason, I don't personally use the S/P Dif connection.

And this brings us to the thorny issue of gain staging. If you're a guitar player, you might want to plug your guitar into your Tonelab, and your Tonelab into your interface so you can record a guitar track and listen to it back. But hey, that's easy, right? Easy as hooking it all up correctly! But hang on a minute. Let's count all the volume knobs in the signal chain between your fingers and the speaker cones. The first one's on your guitar. You've got three more on the top panel of your Tonelab -- gain, VR gain, and channel volume. Then there's the Level knob on the back panel, which brings us to five. Your interface will have an input gain control, which makes six. Podium gives you a gain fader on your guitar track, and another on the Master track. Also, once you've got the guitar track recorded, you can change the gain on that too -- so that's nine. If you want to hear what you've recorded, the signal has to come back out through your interface, which will have an output level knob. Then, finally, there's the trim knob on the speakers.

That's a grand total of eleven volume knobs between your fingers and your ears. If any of the first seven gain controls aren't set correctly, they could ruin the sound of your recording. If the last four controls aren't set correctly, then you may not be hearing your playback accurately. And mind you, it's only eleven for the simplest possible signal chain. If you want to add effects plugins, or chain a couple of stomp boxes through the send and return on your Tonelab, that number goes up.

Gain staging is the art of setting every single one of those volume knobs correctly. When you get it right, every single one of your devices is receiving a signal in its optimal operating range, and outputting a signal that's good for the next device down the line. It's one of the big differences between you and a professional audio engineer. If you wonder why your recordings don't sound as good as professional ones, gain staging is part of the answer.

Getting it roughly in the ballpark isn't too difficult. You look at the meter on your device and set it so it's bouncing along nicely without ever going into the red. Or at least, that's good for stuff where you have a meter. The Bass V-Amp Pro doesn't have a meter, but it does have two LEDs for receiving signal and clipping, and you should get into the habit of looking at those, because they're better than nothing. And nothing is what you get from the Tonelab. You'll have to set that one by ear.

But to get the best possible recording, you're going to have to make finer adjustments than this. That means you'll have to get to know your equipment. Will something sound better if you push it a little harder? Or is it better to stay well away from the red zone? How much signal is too little? You'll only answer such questions by experimenting and tweaking, and learning how to use your ears. And given the almost limitless complexity of modern recording setups, you'll go on refining and adjusting things pretty-much forever. Some say life is all about the journey, not the final destination -- but that's just because the destination is a myth.

Real Keyboards

If you're a keyboard player, rather than a guitar player, you might have a nice hardware synth, electronic piano or workstation you'll want to use for recording. It's possible that your instrument will have both an audio output and a midi output. Why not set it up so you can record either one? Or both at the same time!

The midi file, after all, won't take up a lot of space. If you record it alongside the real audio, that will give you more options down the line. You could choose to use the (probably superior) audio track. Or you could assign a VST instrument to the exact same performance. You could blend both together for a layered, luscious sound. The whole business of recording on a computer started out when people decided to use a computer as a midi controller to play their hardware synths. So keyboards are the most mature and flexible instruments for computer recording. (That's why I recommended you get at least a controller.)

To set it up, you make two connections instead of one. If you have the option of USB midi, then that is preferred. Otherwise, get a midi cable with 5-pin connectors, and plug the midi out from your keyboard into the midi-in of your interface. If your setup is a controller with a separate sound module, then hook the midi-inputs of the sound module to the midi output of your interface, instead of your controller. That way, Podium can use the sound module as well, so you can play it with pre-recorded midi files.

Microphones

Hooking up microphones to your interface is pretty straight forward. You'll want to use three-pin balanced microphone cables always, and plug them into the Lo-Z microphone inputs on your interface. You'll also want to set your microphone on a microphone stand. None of this business of pulling the mic off the stand and twirling it round your head will do for recording.

You do have to be mindful about what type of microphone your using. Your Shure SM57 is a dynamic microphone, which is pretty fool-proof. But if you've taken my advice and bought a Rode NT-2A, you've got yourself a condenser microphone too. After you've plugged it in a condenser, you'll have to engage the 48V phantom power, then leave it sit for a while to warm up. If by some chance, you manage to get your hands on a vintage ribbon microphone then be careful -- accidentally sending 48V phantom power to it might destroy the ribbon.

If you're going to use the microphone for singing, you'll want to set up your pop-filter. Don't sing into the Rode NT-2A (or any other condenser) without the pop-filter. The diaphragms on condenser microphones really hate being bathed in spit. And they tend to be quite hissy and poppy too. If your interface or microphone has an 80Hz low-cut switch, then you'll want to use it for vocal recordings. But it's no big deal if it doesn't -- you'll just have to use an EQ plugin on the vocal tracks in Podium. If you're spoiled for choice, it's likely that the 80Hz low cut on the microphone is superior to the one on the interface's preamp, which in turn is superior to making deep cuts in an EQ plugin (but that's a massive generalization, so don't hold me to it).

Guitar & Bass Direct-In

You can still record an electric guitar or bass if you don't have a ToneLab or a real amplifier you can mic, provided that your interface allows for it. Some interfaces (like the Lexicon I-Onix) have dedicated instrument inputs. Others just have a switch, which will be labeled either Hi-Z or Instrument. Either way, you'll want to use an unbalanced, shielded guitar cable (i.e. the ones with the quarter-inch phone jacks).

The direct sound you'll hear coming out of your monitors will be very clean, very dry, and very boring. You might be tempted to switch off direct monitoring and load a guitar-amp VST in Podium. But beware! It's quite likely you'll have latency issues. It's always better just to bite the bullet and monitor the direct signal while you record.

Here's a tip for you. The very best sounding electric guitar going direct-in is one of those twelve string Rickenbackers. If you ever find yourself recording one, give direct-in a try, because chances are, it will sound better that way than with any amplifier you try to run it through.

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