Simple Guide to Recording

This is the simplest way I know of with a computer mic. I can’t promise I’ll answer more specific questions, I just suggest that you tinker around with things as you follow this guide~

Please keep in mind that this is only one way of recording on a computer and it’s fine if you do things differently or just use this guide to give yourself an idea of what to do.

I hope that people will be able to find this at least somewhat helpful.

Please do not take this guide and post it elsewhere without my permission. I did take time to put this together, after all, so I’d appreciate that. :’3

1. Make sure you have something like these: Mic, pop screen, recording program, headphones/earbuds, PC. You can go here for some mic suggestions or information; it’s a mic review thread. I primarily use Cool Edit, so this guide will lean towards Cool Edit functions.

2. Set your mic recording properly.
I personally like recording at a lower volume since I tend to sing louder, and it makes the mic pick up less computer whirring.

3. Plug in your headphones/earbuds.
I usually leave one off to hear myself more clearly, but it’s all personal preference. Don’t play the music way too loudly since it’ll pick up and to remove that with Noise Removal later on will be a pain.

4. Play the music and click record on your recording program.
Be sure to hold your pop screen between your mouth and mic. I usually lean in very close to my mic since the recording volume is low so this usually picks up better (somehow it sounds not as good when I record when leaning back). I usually save it as a .wav to keep it from compressing.

5. Open your mixing program and open up the karaoke track as well as the vocal track you’ve just recorded.

6. Sync the timing of the vocal track to the karaoke track.

7. Proceed to edit the vocal track only. I usually do Noise Removal (info) with a sample of the computer whirring, do Dynamic Processing with an S-Curve (info), then adjust the amplification so that it isn’t too loud or too quite. Noise removal removes the excess background whirring of the computer. Dynamic processing evens out the volume in the vocal track so one part isn’t louder or quieter than the other.

8. Add reverb to the vocal track. Be sure not to add too much or too little for whichever song you decide to sing! Every vocal track always has reverb, even if you don’t hear it; every song requires a different amount of reverb. (For CoolEdit, to find Reverb, it’s as follows: Effects -> Delay Effects -> Reverb))

9. Be sure to play through both tracks at the same time in the program and adjust as needed.

10. Save it and you’re done!