Ways to Record Sound using a Personal Computer

This post illustrates several ways on how you can record audio/sound to your personal computer. This includes from the most basic technique to the most advanced method. The resulting recording quality also depends on the technique/ways you are using. Before you can record sound using a personal computer, it is assumed you have the following hardware:

a. (REQUIRED) Sound cards with line or microphone input (for most basic ways on recording sound to your computer)

However if you are looking forward in capturing great sound quality; you should be using an external audio interface. This type of audio interface would not be mounted internally (like your old motherboard audio chips or PCI soundcards) but it would be connected to your computer via Firewire or USB bus.

For Windows users and beginners, it is easy to start with an USB Audio interface since they are fairly common and easy to install/integrate in all PC’s and laptops. If you do not have an external audio interface, you can read this post for guidance.

b. (OPTIONAL) Audio mixer – you might have one at home, so you can use it to record sound to your computer. But this is optional and you do not need to buy one. If you need to buy, you can read this post.

c. (REQUIRED)Studio monitors
d. (REQUIRED)Audio Cables
e. (REQUIRED)Audio recording software, you can use Audacity which is a free recording software. Or if you are looking forward to record great sound quality and do some mixing on your own, you should start with Reaper. URLs below:

Audacity: audacity.sourceforge.net
Reaper: www.reaper.fm

Take note there is a lot of ways to record sound. I will show you different configurations and their strength and weaknesses:

Method 1: The most basic configuration

This is very basic, the instruments (could be anything) is plugged into the microphone/line-in input of the soundcard. The audio recording software in the personal computer takes charge in the recording process. And then the soundcard output is connected to the computer speakers for monitoring.

The advantages of this method is that it is very easy to set up. The disadvantages are :

a. Very noisy signal/Bad recording quality
b. Low amplitude or very weak signal.
c. Poor frequency response.

This is only recommended to record voice signals such as an amateur voice tape recording but this is not recommended for professional recording. You can use Audacity using this setup. You do not need a sophisticated or multi-track software to get this job done.

Method 2: Using mixer on the instruments side

Instruments can be connected first to the studio mixer thus conditioning the signal such as amplification and removing of noise. This is recommended for studio recording because the signals are now strong to be recorded and less noise.

Plus since the audio mixers are employed, it will have an excellent frequency response which is very essential for professional recording.

Although this method is great but it does have a lot of disadvantages which are as follows:

a.) You cannot perform multi-channel recording using this setup. Since a mixer stereo output is plugged directly into the sound card line-input. You will only have one stereo signal recorded one at a time. This would work for one at a time recording. But if you are looking forward to record a band simultaneously which consists of several instruments (guitars, bass,vocals); then this setup cannot be relied.

Multichannel recording is the most accepted modern recording techniques. It works by channeling inputs to every tracks created using your recording software. For example if you are recording 3 tracks together (one vocal, one guitar and one bass), then in your multi-track recording software there are also 3 unique tracks created. This is very useful if you are mixing tracks and you can mix them easily using this method.

b.) An impedance mismatch would most likely happen along your signal path. If this would happen, you will have a noisy or weak signal despite having a maximum gain settings on your mixer. You can read this article on the sources of noise and the solutions.

Method 3: Using mixer to route all signals coming to it and from the computer

This is an efficient one, because all controls of the volume is on the mixer. In this setup, the instruments are feed to the mixer, the mixer then conditions the signal by using it’s pre-amp features or some EQ then it is being feed finally to the audio interface/soundcard for DAW analog to digital conversion.

At the same time the audio recording software feeds out signal to the soundcard/audio interface which then connects to another input in the mixer to control the volume. The mixer output then connects to the studio monitors/speakers to hear the signals being played. This is a very useful setup during multi-track recording.

For best results, you should be using a mixer capable of having input and output signals very well. These are big mixers and can cost a lot. Also you need a multi-channel recording audio interface/ASIO compatible and should be external audio interfaces not onboard.

Method 3: Using external audio interface only

Today’s external audio interface (whether Firewire or USB) are very powerful. They can handle mixing tasks and allows you to do multi-channel recording without having to use an external audio mixer. Modern audio interface can handle a lot of inputs at the same time. For example if you have 5-input multi-channel audio interface, you can record 5 musical instruments to your DAW software simultaneously as 5 different tracks. See screenshot below:

Method 4: Using external audio interface and mixer direct signal path

In this type of setup, you will have the luxury of conditioning the signal first using the mixing console high quality pre-amp (only if you are using a console with great sounding pre-amps like Neve). This is complex and very expensive methods of recording. You can see the setup flow below:

On the audio playback, it would be connected to your audio interface analog outputs instead to the mixer. This what makes this method different from Method 3. There are several advantages of having this setup. One big advantage is that you can mix outside the box. You can read this post on the mixing ITB vs. OTB.

Try to experiment other types of setup that fits your budget and your needs. But the method 3 is the most recommended method if you are into professional audio CD production.

Content last updated on July 4, 2012