Music Software and how it has changed in the last 10 years

Recording a CD used to be a very expensive, very complicated process. With fairly basic equipment and free software you can now do a fairly reasonable job at home.

Did you know that you don't need to spend hundreds of dollars to get a demo recording done? and you don't need to spend lots of money on equipment either!

When I was in my first band and we needed to get a demonstration CD done we would have to spend hundreds of dollars going to studios and getting tracks laid down.

It would take hours and they'd have these huge 24 track analog recording machines and enormous mixing desks that looked really impressive.

The reality is that it is the music that you produce that's the important thing... not how flashy the equipment is!

After a few of these experiences I decided to start my own home studio - so I purchased mixing desks, microphones and software for my computer. I was constantly playing and fooling around.

I spent thousands of dollars on all this equipment - I had mixing desks, dat machines and the works!

When my wife and I had children we didn't have the space for the home studio - so it had to go! I consolidated into one computer which I used for my internet business, and sold off the rest on e-bay.

The point of this story... you don't have to spend money to do things!

Just a matter of two or three years after I sold all this equipment I'm now looking into what I can do with my current computer.. and free software that is available online... and I work out that I can do nearly everything I did with my expensive software!

You can get an audio recording program called Audacity - Its an Open Source program (which means its completely free, with no nag screens, optional upgrades, or spyware included) that will do nearly all of the audio editing I used to do on my big computers.

You can set up this software on your computer, and then borrow a decent quality microphone. Then set it up and start recording yourself, one track at a time!

If you play guitar and sing you'll be able to do quite a decent job of recording yourself that way. Simply record the guitar first, and then sing over the top.

You can also create midi file accompaniments completely free using low cost or no-cost midi sequencers as well. So if you're a musician my advice is to do what you can for very little cost, and concentrate on your music... not the gadgets!