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Here is another stereo mixing trick to go along with the Haas, cross, and panned delay tricks. This technique creates a stereo sound that fills the room and appears to come from all sides of the listener’s head at the same time. The basic idea is to start with a mono track panned dead center and invert the phase one one of the channels. Your digital home recording setup is quite likely already equipped to perform this trick. Show me how to set it up

Here is another trick for using a delay to create a bit of a stereo effect on a mono track. The basic idea is to pan the mono track slightly to one side (one to three o’clock should do it) and add a delay that is panned about the same amount to the other side (nine to eleven o’clock). Adjust the delay time to produce a sound you like for your mix, and there you have it! It is a fairly simple technique that can be used to push something like a supporting keyboard track out of the center of a mix but allows you to still keep it turned up in volume. Following is a description of how to do this trick in REAPER and more details on what kinds of delay settings I think sound good. See the details

You may have seen my tutorials on creating grooves with EZDrummer and creating custom drum tracks with Jamstix 2. These are great when creating a song recording from scratch, but what if you have an existing recording to add drums for? What about taking any existing recording and adding some midi synths to spruce up your production? I’m going to show you how to use REAPER to take any home recording and tempo map it so you can add custom drums or midi elements after the fact, and have them be in perfect sync with your audio tracks. Show me how to tempo map my recordings

Jamstix 2 is a VST drum plugin that is more than just a drum machine. This plugin is an entirely customizable virtual studio drummer. You can get very precise if you want to work that way, but the more impressive aspect of this software is to use it more like you might communicate with a human drummer. Tell him the arrangement of your song and what style you imagine. Then just keep asking him to change the riffs here and there until you hear a groove you like. If you need drum tracks in your home recording studio that are more individual and more human than midi loops, Jamstix 2 is for you. Let’s take a look at what it takes to get a basic groove going. Show me the Jamstix 2 way

Toontrack’s EZdrummer is a VST plugin that functions as a drum machine. Anyone needing to create drum tracks in their home recording studio owe it to themselves to check it out. This tutorial gives an overview of how to use the build in groove library to get a drum track up and running very quickly. Show me how to use those tasty EZdrummer grooves

In Home Recording Basics 1 we covered configuring your computer for recording. Home Recording Basics 2 showed you how to create and save a new project. In this installment of Home Recording Basics we are going to talk about recording your first tracks. After going through this tutorial you should be well on your way to a home studio addiction that can last you a lifetime. (more…)

In Home Recording Basics 1 we talked about getting your computer set up to operate as a DAW. The next step is to create your first project and get ready to record a few tracks. With REAPER and your soundcard properly configured, it is now time to take that next step. (more…)

So, you want to record yourself, your band, or someone else at home. You have never recorded anything on a computer and are not sure where to start. The first thing you want to do is ignore everything complex and simply try to get used to the idea of recording on a computer. This article is for you and will walk you through the process of installing your home recording software all the way to recording your first few tracks. Help me get started»