HOME Recording

Being stuck at home means we have much more time to pursue some side projects, whether for fun or maybe as a side hustle. One of the simpler, and more enjoyable ones is recording audio at home. Maybe you want to lay a new track down, or try your hand at voice-over work. Either way, it doesn’t take too much to try out, and if you feel this is your calling, there are a number of upgrade paths you can take to elevate your recording capabilities.

- Ren Alcantara

YOUR MOBILE PHONE

The simplest way to give home audio recording a try is to use your mobile phone. Modern mobile phones have decent enough microphones for at least getting a feel for recording a short snippet of audio, a nice riff, or a song verse or two. Play around with the distance between your audio source and the phone’s mic until you get as full a sound as possible. Better recording apps also make quite a difference, usually thanks to a better interface and the ability to record additional tracks that you can lay on top of each other. I personally have had success putting a vocal track down on a guitar recording I made with just my phone and the app Bandlab. It might not win a grammy, but it was more than adequate for sharing, and should be plenty if you just want to experiment with making music at home.

If you have an Apple device, Garageband is a very easy-to-use and surprisingly powerful application that lets you record layers, keep time, and even loop tracks with an intuitive UI that anyone can pick up and learn with little effort. I’ve recorded podcasts, made intro music, and recorded two-and three-track layered audio on it and an iPad pro, and the results don’t sound like they were made on a single, portable device.