This website has two main purposes. The first one is to teach your average person how to record their own music on their own computer. The second one is to show off some of my unfinished music, artwork, and sheet music.
If you go to another person’s studio it might cost you $30 an hour. But if you spend a few hours learning how to make your own music on an ordinary computer than you can do it for free for life. It cost around $400.00 for one Audio Interface box, a microphone, and some software. The list and links are in the middle of the page.
I have no affiliation with these companies that produce this hardware and software. I get nothing when you buy these products. They are just the equipment that I use. In fact I get nothing from any aspect of this website or program, it’s all free. I am hoping to have a studio some day that has two or three recordings happening at once. One studio album, and mixing one live album at the same time. I’m not sure how many people will get hired.
Personal Information
Music is my passion, and I like to record and play it every chance I get. I started out recording music on two cassette decks, upgraded to 4 track cassette recorders, and graduated on a few different kinds of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) on my computer.
I enjoy recording other bands music almost as much as recording my own music. I would never tell the band members how or what to play. It is my job to bring out the best in them.
I used to enjoy making single camera DVD Videos. I started out with $100 worth of equipment in 2004 when nobody was doing it. I have managed to make some interesting special effects videos. With Kaleidoscopes and melting movies, it is a lot of fun, but I think I would be happy to make a live concert video with eight cameras and no special effects. Maybe someday I will have the equipment I need to do that.
The Songs
The ‘Albums‘, ‘Album Credits’ , ‘Sounds’ , and ‘Sheet Music’ menu options are the final versions of these demos. The ‘Album Evolution’ menu item features all of the music I tried on my way to get there. There are 41 albums and 3 DVDs in this section.
Backing Tracks are usually Drums, Bass, rhythm instruments and sometimes Lead Vocals. These 80 songs, these 4 albums have the backing tracks already written. I changed the guitar and bass guitar tuning down to D standard, instead of E standard, so I have to rerecord everything. Although I will change them to fit better vocals if I have to.
I plan on writing better guitar solos, and probably most lyrics will get rewritten by somebody else. I like to write music, not vocals. Maybe the lyrics are fine, I don’t know. I will say that I would like these songs to be a celebration of life, all the good things. Right now the songs are about war, death, and a lot of sad, sorry ass, shit that I don’t want to think about. Some of it is ok, but damn. Every song?????
I always thought that it was more important to me to have fun with my friends playing music. Now I am real serious about my music. I would rather play with lesser musicians that aren’t arrogant, than play music with someone that thinks they are better than everybody and treats people bad because of it.
I have sheet music for rhythm guitar, lead guitar, and bass guitar, for all 80 songs. This should make it easier to learn the songs faster, as a group. I want to make DVD videos of me playing bass guitar for all of the songs to help the bass player even more.
It would be nice to have a singer that can sing too. Not just scream.
Two Computers
It works best if you have two desktop computers; One on the right is a teaching computer and the other is a working computer. The one on the right has my website on it. The one on the left has your instrument plugged into the audio interface, plugged into the computer. You want nice big computer monitors.
Do to flaws in the Clarity, the teaching computer is a little blurry. Some words may be hard to read, but if you have a clear picture on the working computer, and you look at the two together, you should have no problem following the instructions.
If you really have a problem with cash you could skip the mastering stages [Lessons 10] & [Lessons 11]. Then you woldn.t need the Ntrack & The BBE Sweet. ($294.91 total) Save $115.00.
If you have a real drumer you don’t need the Tabledit & Direct Midi to MP3 Converter. (Save $89.92) But you would need a second microphone, so you have an overhead mike and a bass drum mike. ($110.00 more) It is cheaper to use the fake drum program, but it does trigger sounds of real drums.
Or like me you don’t have a singer yet, and you don’t need a microphone.
I really recommend you buy all of this software. One hour in a professional studio could cost more than $30. You will spend a lot of time and it pays off in the end.
Hardware & Software (Under $410)
| Item | Description | Cost |
| Audiobox USB + Presonus Studio One | Hardware & software (DAW) | $94.99 |
| Ntrack | Software (DAW) | &69 |
| Tabledit | Sheet Music & Drums | $59.97 |
| BBE Sonic Sweet | Mastering Software | $46 |
| Direct Midi to MP3 Converter | Drums | $29.95 |
| Audacity* | Sound Editor | Free |
| Cool Edit Sound Editor | Discontinued | n/a |
| WinAmp | Audio Player | Free |
| Shure sm57 | microphone | $110 |
| Total | $409.91 |
I included one microphone. You probable need more mikes for the drums. I recorded everything directly into the audio interface, except the vocals. I used the sure sm57. It is the most popular microphone in the world. People use it on everything except cymbals. It has been on the president’s podium for over 50 years.
*We need a sound editor to do three things.
- Cut and Paste.
- Normalize.
- Convert WAV files to MP3 Files
This Audacity Software is free and it does what we need it to do. I have never seen and editor that can’t do those three things. Most cost $20 – $50. Most DAWs can do most of theses things, if not all of them.
| Direct Audio Converter & CD Ripper+ | MP3 Converter | $24.95 |
+This is good software to have. It does a lot of things. Most importantly it converts WAV files into MP3 files. The Audacity Software does this conversion . The bottom line is that you might not need this software.
Better Time
Cool Edit Screen Shot
Play these audio files
Better Time
Midnight Fantasy
System Requirements for the Studio One Software
Windows®
- Windows 10 22H2
- Windows 11 22H2 or higher (64-bit only)
- Intel® Core™ i3 / AMD, A10 / Snapdragon X processor or better
- 8 GB RAM minimum (16 GB or more recommended)
- Internet connection (needed for installation, activation, and cloud-based integrations)
- Monitor with 1280 x 768 resolution (high-dpi monitor recommended)
- A multi-touch enabled monitor with TUIO support is required for touch operation
- 40 GB hard-drive space
System Requirements for the Audiobox Audio Interface
Windows®
- Windows 10 20H1 (64-bit only) or Windows 11 (64-bit only)
- 200 MB storage space and 4 GB RAM for Universal Control (required for firmware updates)
- Available USB port