Getting Started can be Rough

Recording your music at home can be one of the most rewarding and free methods of expressing yourself. But there is a lot of gear and software out there, and even the fanciest gear in the world will not produce a quality recording for you unless you know what you're doing.

We run into that sort of thing a lot here in Portland. It seems like everyone is a musician, and everyone has a home studio. And though there is plenty of high-quality production going on around here, a lot of what comes out of Portland just sounds awful production-wise. It's true that a lot of people are actually going for that "lo-fi" sound, but many just use that to cover up for the fact that they don't really know the first thing about production.

I've definitely fallen into that category in the past. Hey, I learn something new every day. It's great to have such a huge community of musicians and producers to share techniques with, and to help each other directly on projects. Every project is filled with more and more learning experiences, and there's no end to what you can learn in this field.

About.com's Home Recording Guide has dozens of tips and tricks, do's and don'ts, and whatever else can fall in between to help you along your way.

So if you're new, and your recordings aren't turning out exactly the way you want them to, don't get discouraged. The best thing to do is to work with and learn from your community, and your second best friend is good old trial and error.

It is pretty tough to know how to get started. I will post more about this now and then, but here are a few really cool tools, toys, and lessons that can help you get started, and can continue to prove invaluable throughout your musical career.

Music Master Pro
The largest music school on the net. Learn how to play guitar, bass, drums and more.

Music Producer Pro
Learn how to produce like the pros with this vast library of training videos and mp3s.

Beats 365
Become a member and have access to hundreds of royalty-free beats, sound effects, instruments and acapellas for you to mix and re-mix.

Sonic Producer
Make your own beats utilizing thousands of sounds with this web-based production software.