This information covers a wide aspect of computer recording. This includes digital hard-disk recording, and the basic funcionality of recording software in general. I will cover a basic aspect of digital recording, certain attributes and functions that are common in the digital domain, and Some programs that may be of use to you and where to find them. If you have any more questions, then you can email me with your question, and I'll try my best to get back to you with an answer in a timely fashion.
When understanding sound, and its two main characteristics, frequency and amplitude, computer recording (digital recording) has basically the same characteristics. These are just labeled differently in the digital domain. Instead of referring to these characteristics as frequency and amplitude, we call them sample rate and bit depth (or bit resolution). If you can imagine film passing by a light, and having frames-per-second as your resolution, then you can imagine a sample rate. If a film had only 10 pictures for every second, then the video wouldn't appear as consistent, and you would notice each frame. And in digital audio, instead of frames, you have samples. Think of a sample as a snapshot of audio. A sample is just an amplitude measurement. Your computer will make a reading at a given moment, and "take a picture" of your sound. The level is recorded in that "snapshot", and your computer goes on to the next sample. It's really that simple. But this is where it gets complicated. Sample rate is how many samples, or "snapshots", your computer will take in one second. To maintain a consistency, this number of samples has to be high. Really high. So high that if you took the snapshots yourself, you'd be there for a long long time. A common sample rate is 44,100 samples in one second. Imagine taking that many pictures. You'd have to have one of those new cameras or something. Okay, sorry for getting off track. 44,100 samples per second can also be read as 44,100 cycles per second. And cycles per second are measured in Hertz (Hz). And one-thousand Hertz is One Kilohertz (kHz). So in other words (or abbreviations), we can say that 44,100 samples per second is 44.1 kHz. If you've recorded on your computer before, then you've probably seen that number somewhere. So anyway, (I'm going to rush this by you REAL quick.) Your sample rate must be twice as high as the frequency that you're trying to record digitally. This is known as the Nyquist Theorem. So if you want to properly record the frequency of 2 kHz, then you need a sample rate of at least 4 kHz. The range of human hearing is what? 20 Hertz to 20 Kilohertz? Okay, so if you want to get the entire range, you need twice that of 20 kHz. So you'd need a sample rate of 40 kHz to record the highest possible frequency that the human ear can detect. So why is there a frequency of 44.1 kHz? Look it up; I don't have time to explain these petty things to you petty people. (I'm just kidding of course, these things aren't petty at all!)
Okay, so if sample rate affects the frequency, then what affects the amplitude? Bit depth. This sometimes goes over people's heads, so I'll try to just do the same, and throw it as far over your head as I can, but I'll make it sound interesting while I do it, okay? Now... Digital recording is in binary code. Binary code is a bunch of zeros and ones. There is a slot for each number, and it's either on or off (one or zero). Your bit depth has a string of these digits, and the amount of digits in the string is your bit depth. If there are two digits, then my bit depth would be 2-bit. If there were 16 digits, then my bit-depth would be 16-bit. And if there were 24 digits, then guess what my bit-depth would be? Hmmmm... Okay, now that I confused the hell out of you, here's somewhat of a better explanation. Bit depth ONLY affects your amplitude, and has nothing to do with your frequency. But a higher bit depth won't give you a higher amplitude; it will give you more levels in that range of amplitudes. Think of it as having a volume knob on your stereo. A low bit-depth would be like having 4 different volume levels. It would either be at 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. So imagine level 1 being really quiet, and level 4 being so loud that your glasses are falling out of cabinets in the kitchen. Between these two levels, there isn't many choices in volume. You'd be like, "Well, do I strain to hear it or have the neighbors complain?" So a higher bit-depth would just have more amplitude levels. Now you can be really soft, or somewhat soft, or quiet, or moderately quiet, or moderate, or moderately loud, or loud, or really loud, or extremely loud, or holy shit his windows are falling out of his apartment, or (I don't really think you can get louder than that in your home). Anyway, back to the real bit-depth. In an 8-bit recording, you have 28 amplitude levels, or 256 possible levels. In 16-bit, you have 216, or 65,536 levels. And in 24-bit, there are 16,777,216 possible amplitude levels! That's quite a resolution. Now, the question is: Can we notice the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit? Well, that's where I tell you to look it up for yourself. (Unless you wanted to pay me a dollar for every possible amplitude level).
Ok, now that you know a little about the digital realm, I'll backtrack, and explain a little about the difference between digital and analog. Analog recording means it's analogous to the sound source. Things continue to move and sway and vibrate, pretty much. A sound source vibrates, creating sound waves through the air. The air particles move analogous to the vibration. The microphone's diaphragm moves in accordance with the air particles. The electric current flows in amplitude waves in respect to the microphone's diaphragm. The magnetic strips on the tape get magnetized in accordance with the electric voltage amplitudes. (or, the phonograph creates grooves based on this same vibration, and a record is made). That, my friend, is analog. The digital world has most of that in it, but at the electric current stage, it goes through an A/D (analog to digital) converter. This is where magic happens. This is where electric current gets changed into binary code (zeros and ones) and a computer is off somewhere taking large amounts of pictures of the fantastic city. (Damn tourists!) So they say that in the digital world, a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy is the same thing you started with. In theory, yes. But sometimes there are shortcomings, and they lie in the different A/D converters. So if you want to make copies of something, the more times you bring it back over to analog, and back to digital, the worse the quality will be. (Not that you would really be able to tell if you did it once or twice along the way). But you know that if you tried to make a copy of a cassette (those of you who were born before 1990, of course) you would get this hissing sound. And if you made a copy of that, there would be more hiss. And a copy of that? Sounds like a constant wave rolling along the shore, while the TV's on nothing but static and there's a bunch of cats outside fighting over some food. All at once. Trust me; I've seen it happen when I was on the beach in Fort Lauderdale at this Meow Mix convention and the hurricane took out all the cable and... well, forget it; I guess you had to be there.
Ok, now's where I skip to the good part: Software. All recording programs (or the good ones, anyway) have all types of parameters that allow you to manipulate your sound. A common view in an audio program is the waveform editor. This gives you a view of all your amplitude levels and frequencies in a little graph. Vertically, along the y-axis, you have your amplitude. In the digital world, the highest amplitude level is zero. The lowest, you'll find, will be negative infinity. But just so you know, the lowest audible sound is at -60 dB. I haven't really covered decibels at all, nor do I choose to. Look it up! Decibels are just a relative measurement of sound, and I'll leave it at that. Along the x-axis, you have your time. The relativity between amplitude and time is your frequency. The waves that are long and wide are low frequencies. The narrower waves are high frequencies. If you want to know the math behind it, take some calculus, and study sine and cosine functions. But we're going to keep it a litte simple for now. Another common part in the audio software is your track list (or playlists). This will not only show one waveform, but it will show every track you have recorded. (kick, snare, hi-hat, etc.) Previously, there was two-inch tape with 24 tracks. You would have to rewind and fast-forward your tape, and if you made a mistake, you'd either have to re-record it, punch in on an overdub (look it up if you don't know the term), or physically splice the tape and put it back together. This is called linear editing. In the computer world, we have the beautiful thing called non-linear editing. It's called non-linear because you can access any point in the timeline by either clicking a mouse or punching in a few numbers. Some other common, wonderful things that you can do in computer software is copy, paste, undo, time-compression and expansion (changing the length of something without affecting pitch), pitch-correction (changing the pitch without affecting its length of time), redrawing your waves with a pencil tool, multiple fade-ins and outs, and complicated automation. (You can automate volume levels so that your faders move up and down without you touching them, things go from right to left at a certain point in the song, or things turn on and off or solo or mute on their own. And that's all I have to say about automation).
Here are a few programs that are good to record with and manipulate audio: Pro Tools (industry standard, in every studio you can think of), Cubase, Digital Performer, Cakewalk (Sonar, etc.), Nuendo, Reason (ReCycle, ReBirth, etc.), Cool Edit Pro, Soundforge (and Acid), Logic, and even Fruity Loops. I've probably forgot to mention a couple, but I don't really care right now. I'll go back and fix it later. I'm trying to go to sleep after typing this damn thing for you people! Why do you demand so much from me? I'm only a small seed in this enormous industry that is shrinking every day, and people like me get fired from studios all over the place, just because they forgot to shine the producer's shoes one night, and he couldn't mix without his shoes shined, and these damn studio owners are locking up the reeses pieces at night so the interns won't eat them and that extra $1.50 per year can actually go toward a blowjob on Canal Street, and the music sucks so bad today that even 10-year-olds are saying "Well, back in my day there was Spice Girls", and I'll just be homeless with a piece of wood, some screws, and fishing line with my homemade guitar, trying to play "Marguaritaville" on the corner of 42nd and Broadway for a couple of pennies per day, trying to pay off that guy who keeps taking my shoes so that he can sell them for money to go to the internet cafe and look up "how to record computer music" and see this site at https://hypnotixhiphop.tripod.com/recording101/computerrecording.html and see what he's actually doing to me so that he can go back outside and give me my shoes back so I have something to write about so I can make a platinum song and then one day go back to the studio and tell the owner to go to hell. But hey...that's a whole 'nother subject about the recording industry that I choose not to get into. Look it up!
I can't forget to mention MIDI. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, which is a language which allows software and hardware to "talk to each other". With MIDI, you can connect your keyboard to another piece of gear, and the keys can access sounds on another machine or software. When recording in MIDI, you don't record any audio, but you do record what notes are played at what time, for how long, how hard the notes are hit, if there is any pitch change or modulation, and a whole bunch of other information that I refuse to get into right now. Hey, I'm on a tight schedule here. MIDI can be used to have one device your master controller, so that when you push play or record on that sequencer, any other devices in the chain will play at the same time, at the same tempo. These devices are called slaves. Kind of like sex slaves, only with audio. "Bend over and bark like a piano!" Whatever that meant. There is also HUI, (human user interface), which uses MIDI so that a piece of hardware (like a digital mixing board) can control multiple functions in a software program or another device. For example, I can use the Yamaha DM2000 console to control the faders in Pro Tools. When I turn up and down a fader on the DM2000, the corresponding fader in Pro Tools will move. And when I grab a fader with the mouse in Pro Tools, the physical fader on the DM2000 moves up and down right before my very eyes! Pretty cool to watch, I might add.
Now with all the programs I've listed, if you are serious about hard-disk recording, then get Pro Tools. This software is made by digidesign and you can even download the free version of Pro Tools to learn the basics. And no, I don't work for digidesign, but it is the industry standard. In Pro Tools, there are many many plug-ins that emulate certain pieces of outboard gear, or allow you to do much more that just the basics. A plug-in is an application inside another application. It's similar to a parasite. A plug-in can't work by itself without the main software, and it's nothing without it. But it is still a program within itself, and quite complicated and also quite expensive. Some plug-ins can cost $1,000 for a bundle of them. But others are free, and with those, you are limited. An example of a plug-in is an 1176 Compressor plug-in, or just a simple 4-band EQ, or a reverb device. There are even plug-ins that emulate a two-inch tape machine, so that it adds a warmth to it for those analog addicts. Anyway, that's all I have to say about plug-ins. In terms of software, (I won't be a Pro Tools whore) some say that Nuendo is better, and I haven't tried it yet, but you can go to www.steinberg.net to get it. Steinberg also makes Cubase, which is a good audio/MIDI program. Regardless of what software you buy or download (or steal), make sure your computer has the most possible amount of memory and storage space. At least 256 MB of memory is required for many of these programs, but I'd reccommend 512 MB. And for storage, at least 30-40 GB of space. If you don't have that much space on your computer, then get an external firewire drive, or USB drive. You can buy the Lacie D2 Firewire Drive, with 160 GB for about $165 somewhere online. With this drive, you can run sessions off the drive without copying any files to your hard drive. This is because it spins at 7200 RPM and has the Oxford 911 chip in it. Don't ask me about that, look it up! If you're that guy or girl who just wants to begin and learn a thing or two without spending any money, then download FruityLoops and make some beats.
Alright... Here's the little list of terms for computer recording: OS (Operating System), Macintosh vs. PC (OSX vs. OS 9 & Windows XP vs. NT, ME, 95), Bit Depth (Bit Resolution), Sample Rate, Nyquist Theorem, Time Compression/Expansion, Pitch Change/Bend, Record Enable, Waveform Editor, Regions, Playlists, Overdub, Replace, Step Record vs. Real Time, Transpose, Quantize, Plug-ins, Sound Files: (.wav, .aif, .sd2, .mp3, .ram, .ra, .au, .wma, .aac), MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), Beat Clock, Timecode, LTC (Longitudinal Time Code), VITC (Vertically Integrated Time Code), ROM (Read-Only Memory), WORM (Write-Once, Read-Many), RAM (Random Access Memory), Virtual Memory, File Compression, Storage, Firewire, USB (Universal Serial Bus), CD-R, CD-RW, Audio Interface, MIDI Interface, HUI (Human User Interface), USD (Universal Slave Driver), MHz (MegaHertz), GHz (GigaHertz), MB (MegaByte), GB (GigaByte), TB (TeraByte), Kb (KiloBit), Mb (MegaBit), Kbps (KiloBits Per Second), Mbps (MegaBits Per Second), Streaming, RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol)
I'm sorry if I've offended anyone in any way, but I'm just trying to get basic knowledge downloaded to your brain as fast as possible. My mental server is shutting down, as I work nights at a studio, and I've already been up almost 24 hours. I plan on writing more later, and I may fill in the blanks from time to time. Like I said before: if you think of anything I forgot, don't hesitate to email me and I'll be sure to add it in this confusing mass of information that I've suddenly decided to put online at a ridiculous hour after work on some type of spur of the moment brainstorm in trying to get more hits on my site. Oh yea, don't forget to check out the main page before you go. That's where all the music is. Peace and goodnight. It's 3:52 pm and I'm going to SLEEP.
© Hypnotik 2005