Build your own recording studio!

My wife taught me a valuable lesson about surprises last year, for my birthday. A week earlier, I had spoiled a significant surprise that some people had planned for me, and she was upset with me. I told her that I didn't like surprises. Why couldn't life be ordered carefully, without surprises?

On my birthday, my wife led me downstairs, blindfolded, her sister, my brother in law, and our kids accompanying us. When we got to the basement, they let me look. It wasn't my basement, at least, not as I remembered it. A new room had been built, and a "Happy Birthday" banner strung over its door. They told me that they had built me a recording studio. Inside was all my music equipment, all set up and ready to play. I was absolutely stunned - but more than pleasantly. I learned that day that not all surprises are bad.

It is entirely possible to record high fidelity music with little budget. Your own computer has most of what you need to get going - all you otherwise need is a good sound card, instruments, a quarter inch to eighth inch jack coverter for your computer's microphone and line-in ports, a relatively quiet place to record, a decent microphone, and blankets.

The software to do the job is had quite easily. I use the open source Audacity program to record and clean up tracks, and I use Quartz Studio Free to mix it down in stereo, and add reverb effects (I don't like the recordings it does, which have a lot of clicks and noise.)

Forget American idol. Be a rock star, opera diva, or country legend in your own basement! :-)