So once you have sort of your centerpiece
of the computer, laptop, tablet, whatever
it might be, we are looking at our
DAWs: our digital audio workstation. And
these are the programs that we're going to
be using that typically
we record to, edit with,
process sound within, really kind of
build and arrange our track within.
So typical or other classic examples might
be like GarageBand, which is
free and comes with all Mac products,
Cakewalk, which is excellent
for PC, also free and Reaper, which is
another one, free Mac and PC. I know
there is a Linux one out there as well.
But again, you know what this DAWs
on a number of them are free
or sort of a pay what you will
price, which is fantastic.
or free versions, even like pro tools and
studio ones, like have a limited
free versions and things like that.
Right. Which is great because you can kind
of learn any of them and figure out what's
comfortable for you too. Know some
are more intuitive than others.
Or I mean, we all have different
learning styles, right.
So some might be more intuitive,
some people than others.
Yeah, and there's lots of information out
there about, you know,
I like to make this style of music or I
like to make this style of music, which
DAW is best for me. So you can do some
Googling if you have very specific needs,
because, you know, people have opinions
everywhere all over.
We'll just share the screen real quick.
All right.
So we're just going to show you, I'm
assuming a lot of music therapist
probably already have seen a
DAW before, but we got two tracks here,
Chris and Jesse both shred, what you do
is you just you can add MIDI instruments.
Were going to talk about that in a minute.
You can record anything that you would
record, you know, a guitar, a keyboard,
a microphone can all go in there.
You can use...
GarageBand has a feature that they have
their own amps, so you don't
even have to have an amplifier.
And then they have drums
that you can program.
They have drums that like follow the
groove of your song and
different stuff like that.
So you can add a track, basically
GarageBand comes stocked and loaded with
bass, drum kit, electric drum kit,
guitars, even marimbas and orchestral
instruments,
as well as, you know, traditional organs.
Get your Stevie Wonder vibes going on
and different stuff like that.
So basically, you know,
you just hit record.
You make sure everything's plugged in at a
good level and you can layer stuff in,
you can layer and vocals, do whatever.
There is a little bit of information
coming out later about
editing and stuff like that. That's
definitely beyond the scope of this video.
But
just to show you some basic, basic things.
So you just add tracks. And you set...
You can set the tempo,
you can set the key signature, key,
signature and time signature and kinda
go from there?
Awesome. You need headphones
You need headphones, you can even get
cheap ones with just this
is not an expensive one.
I think these are like twenty five bucks.
They're the Samsung HP Thirty's.
But even for one hundred dollars,
you can get professional level.
Like the Sony MDR
7506 is like, you know,
people record and mix with those like
professionals and that's ninety nine bucks
. So yeah, definitely, you know,
have some of those earbuds.
It doesn't hurt to have them, but it
wouldn't hurt to get something that goes
over your ear because those
are a little bit better.
I'm a fan of the over-ear.
I think that there
I mean first of all, they kind of give
that sort of studio feel,
which is really nice.
And I think they're a bit more sanitary
and, you know, in that sense, too.
They put covers on a lot of them.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I like to think about a lot, too, as far
as of course, we want to be able
to get a nice playback, but
I like to think about how do
people listen to music a lot.
Right.
And there's kind of this
this kind of joke about if you're mixing
something, you take it into your
car and listen to it in your car.
Right.
Or listen to it on your your cell phone,
because that's where most
people are listening to music.
Not two thousand dollar speakers.
Right?
Exactly. So I really do think, yeah...go
for comfortable headphones, right.
Go for ones that your used to
and that'll help you. Like we mentioned
later, you know, you can
work on that anywhere.
You could be.
You know, in the days of us going to
coffee shops, you could be in a coffee
shop, you could be, you know,
in a common area of wherever
you work or things like that.
So I would say super helpful for that.
Lastly, as someone who is like, already
has tinnitus in one ear,
I definitely would say,
you know, watch the volume that you're
listening into your headphones,
do as low as you can
and then same thing.... That's why I don't
like the earbuds, because,
you know, there are a lot closer to your
eardrum and p
unching, punching your ears in a way that
they didn't expect that they
would get music at them.
Cool, let's hop onto that MIDI keyboard.
I'll do the show and tell
while you tell us about it.
That sounds great.
So the controller... Nice.
Is a essentially a controller.
It's often looking in
the format of a piano.
But also like we can see what Chris is
there has some pads as well for
triggering different sounds and.
Yeah, nice. So those you can play.
Yeah.
You can trigger whatever
it could be a drum set.
You know you could do something like that.
It's got all kinds of knobs to change, you
know, all kinds of parameters
that you can set and connect USB.
Yes.
And so this is, the main takeaway word
for me with this is controller, right.
It it does not tend to do anything on its
own, some come with software, but most
don't do anything on their own. Right.
You are using this to take all of the
sounds accessible in your DAW or in your
third party plug ins that
you might be using and.
Really control them like you would
with the standard instrument and so
nice things to look into when you're
considering MIDI controllers might be like
touch sensitivity if you're really
trying to get that real instrument feel.
Same with the drum pads
or the drum style pads.
Some of them have more touch sensitivity,
pitch wheels, things like that that might
make it feel more like a synthesizer
or that type of thing. But it's a...
I don't know how to say it..
I think you could spend the least
on this piece of equipment.
I mean, they make them really cheap.
I got mine. It's the the MKI , the
original version of the ARTURI Mini Lab.
.
I got it on Reverb, used for 60 bucks.
And you know what's cool is it comes with
a whole suite of instruments
called Analog Lab.
And I was worried I wasn't going to get
it, but I literally just emailed
ARTURI and said, "hey, I bought this.
Here's the serial number.
How do I access that?" And
they sent me the info.
So like I was like three thousand,
like classic synthesizer
voices and stuff, like all the ones you've
ever dreamed of. So that
was sixty five dollars.
And it's small.
You know, if you're a pianist and you want
a big one, you can get one
that's like the size of a piano.
But if you're not a pianist, you don't
need to worry about getting a big one if
you're just going to program left and
right hands separately
and things like that.
And I think it's a it's a huge thing to
think about, too, in terms of, like,
the mobility of your setup, right?
Yeah, it all fits in a backpack for me.
Some of them even come with a nice little
carrying case or something like that.
Yeah.
Cool, cool.
Well, you'll need something to capture
that sound with like the
things we're talking into.
Hello, Hello.
So,
you know, the, the MIDI controller that
we're talking about, this idea of
working within the digital space. Right.
Working within the DAW, using
the software instruments.
But of course you want to integrate or we
might want to integrate acoustic as well.
And that's where the microphone comes in.
So microphone, as most of us know,
captures sound, turns it into a
signal, and then we can
work with it within the DAW from there. K
ind of edit it out,
manipulate it, et cetera.
Yeah, there are different
types of microphones.
Yeah.
Even the, sorry, I was going to say even
the cheapest mics will be better
than the mic on your computer.
So these are
all of the ones you see in front of
you are less than one hundred dollars.
This is a condenser.
I'm turning it away from me.
So all these condensers he
talks about phantom power.
So that's just a button you have to
press on usually your interface.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
So those get, you know, a certain sound.
And then these are like the two most
famous microphones ever. An SM57
and an SM58, which they're the same
microphone in a different house.
So these are like what people have
recorded guitars on, like millions of
guitars and millions of vocals
and drums and everything else.
And you probably sang into
something like this before.
So these are can be found way
under a hundred dollars used
and there's a lot of copycat versions.
But these are the Shure SM57 and SM58
and this is Lyx, L-Y-X
condenser. It's just like a cheap
clone brand and it works great.
Sounds great.
Looks fancier than it is.
It's gold.
It looks cool.
I know it was like 70 bucksso.
Yeah exactly.
I think that things to consider with this
right there, these different
styles, microphones.
And Chris is just kind of laying out how
we might use them in different settings.
But these tend to be a little bit more
geared towards picking up sort of more
sensitive or intimate type sounds and
space. So, again, we're speaking
relatively close to them.
We have them set in a way that
they're picking up our voice, but they're
not picking up too much else in the room.
Right.
Whereas those other microphones that
Chris showed, you know, they they might be
used to pick up a drum kit, might be used
to pick up a really loud guitar amplifier.
Right.
And they're they're meant to kind of
handle that that punch a little more. So
we usually see them
more in live settings.
In my opinion.
I think if you have to start with one..
Dynamic mic is probably
a nice way to start, because I think it is
a little bit more flexible and kind of
rides the line between the live and the
record setting a little bit better.
Yeah, or just a USB mic.
If you want to skip the
whole idea of an interface.
Those are pretty popular.
I mean, they're hard to get right now.
I think the world is running out of them
because of coronavirus,
like places are running out of stock.
So I'm sure you can still get them.
But they're fewer and farther
between than they were before March
because everybody's
suddenly Zooming from home.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's great,
and if you don't get a USB
mic, you will probably need an interface.
So I'm going to try and do show and tell
until you tell them about interfaces.
Sounds good.
So the audio interface...
Nice...
Looking good.
That's uh..
We have it on the list.
It's the Presonus audiobox USB.
So standard.
I think it's like one hundred bucks.
Perfect.
And we'll get back into the
audio interface in a sec.
But I was just thinking, as you were
talking about the pricing for
things you keep mentioning, Reverb.
Reverb is a really nice
buy and sell site for gear.
Both used and new.
The one thing that I would like to mention
is you might want to check in
with your facility as far as
being able to use budget on used gear for
something that works for others, it
doesn't. I've often had to go to buying
new route, which is
you're unfortunately spending a little bit
more, but it's maybe
easier to get that budget.
It's just something to consider.
Or maybe like if you can find out a way
for you to get reimbursed, maybe that
could be a loophole around that.
But otherwise, yeah, usually a place is
going to tell you not to use that
kind of a because it's almost like,
almost like an Etsy marketplace.
I mean, Etsy owns them now.
So it's uh people, you know, individual
sellers selling their items like I've sold
and bought many things off of Reverb.
So Sweetwater is obviously a solid place
with they have great customer support. If
you don't know what you need,
they can help you a ton.
So Sweetwater would be a great place to
get things if you have
to buy everything new.
Yes.
And, you know, I think that we are aiming
to make ourselves available
for this Tech Nook to also be a resource
to help kind of figure out what is it that
I need within a certain budget,
perhaps, what do I need to get started
or going all the way to the level of like,
"hey, I'm trying to build up this this
kind of serious clinical project
here. And how can I make this?"
Totally
So taking us back to audio interface,
which we were just looking at, this is
we're going to think of this as kind of
like the hub of our recording setup.
This is where our
microphone will plug into.
This is where often a live
instrument, such as like a guitar,
might be able to plug directly into,
where we're going to control off our
headphone audio, even our
headphone level, rather.
So there's a lot going on in there.
It also typically might have like phantom
power, which we might need to
power a microphone such as this.
So it really holds like a nice central
place in organizing and
facilitating our recording setup.
And, you know, I think the main thing that
I like to think about as far as what I'm
looking for these is the number of inputs
that I might need for
whatever it is I'm doing.
They they start at a single input i
nterface, right, which means I
can record one track at one time,
but we can take that all the way up to.
Well, actually I don't know
how high they go up to, but
within a decent price range, you can get
like a four, probably a four input
interface and that will enable you to
record a guitar and sing at the same time
or have two different mics picking up
different angles of the same
signal or something like that.
Outside of a mixing console. I think you
can get up to like 16, but that's like
professional level stuff and that's going
to be over a thousand dollars usually.
So I don't think anybody will want to
start there brand new unless you're
just suddenly mic-ing up drum kits.
Yeah, I would say nowadays, too, there are
so many good cheap ones, like all the
technology is kind of met up in a way that
like for one to two inputs, you don't need
to be spending all that much money. So the
Audiobox, the Scarletts, the Focusrites.
Right?
Those are all great like starter ones.
There are some other ones.
Behringer makes some...
Behrginger is like the king of cheap gear.
I think the MOTU is one
we have on the list which
I;ve heard some some really great stuff
about. And all of those are I think
under under two hundred dollars you
and for starting like those will
do all the things you need to do.
Are they things that you'll grow out of?
eventually probably.
But I still have my two input Audiobox
USB and it'll be a while until I upgrade.
I'm looking at the UAD
Apollo but that's going to be a while
because I want to wait till I can get the
nice one with the quad core and
over a thousand bucks. So, you
know, you get to wait a while.
So I use the Arrow myself, which
is sort of the smallest version
The in between. Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's you know, the thing I'll say
that's nice about it to consider is it has
the ability to do like digital
signal processing on the interface.
So what's nice about that is it sort of
takes the load off of your
computer a little bit.
Sure.
You could be running
sort of a lighter weight
computer and need more
processing on that.
If you are doing more
intense effects-laden music.
Yes, but your computer is a 2011
MacBook. You might want to consider
something like the Arrow would be a
great entry, kind of mid level entry.
So yeah cool.
And you'll have to connect all
that stuff and a main too. We
won't need to spend a ton of info on this.
You'll need instrument
cables, quarter inch cables.
Those are the same on either end usually,
or you'll need XLRs, which have the male
and the female ends. Those c
onnect to like microphones usually.
Yeah, that's about that's about all it's
in that I mean, the main thing I like to
think about as far as music therapy, kind
of like mobile studio setup is concerned
is and I've learned this the hard way is
think about the length of your cables.
I have I've been I've said, "oh, you know,
give me give me something more than I need
because I never know what I'm going to
need it." And then I'm kind of trailing
cable, you know, they're all getting
tangled. And I spent half the
time getting them de-tangled.
That's like the...
They always somehow tangled themselves
if you have enough room for them to.
Right?
Yeah.
I mean, I've been pretty happy at home.
I've got several.
What is this.
I don't know.
Four foot something.
Three foot mic cables.
They're great for at home because it's
that same reason they
don't get in the way.
But I have a couple of longer ones if I
need them for, you know, using regular
long playing a gig or whatever.
Yeah, I suppose that's about it for the
cables, you know, I just think it's this
is where you might have to do
a little bit of your homework.
The thing is, is most
most of the hardware we're talking about
doesn't come with cables, unfortunately,
might come with a power supply
or it usually comes to the power supply,
but it doesn't usually come
with the cables connected.
So I will give a shout out.
There's if you want, like a super high
Fidelity cable, if you're like somehow if
you're an audio nerd, my friends over at
Caulfield Cables make these super pretty
cables that are like
high fidelity, low capacitors. That means
your signal is the clearest it can be,
because one thing to consider when you
start like we're doing another video on
guitar pedals, when you start adding lots
and lots of length of cable,
the sound gets degraded.
This is something you probably
won't care about as a beginner.
But as it goes along, you'll realize like,
oh, that's affecting what I'm doing.
So check out them.
Their stuff's really cool.
Caulfield cables.
It's really pretty, too. I like that.
I like that cable.
Yeah, they're awesome.
They're a little small.
Nothing of here is sponsored, but I've
worked with them with my podcast, so I
just thought they're cool
and I shout them out nice.
And we're doing that.
I just want to say really quickly,
I have this guy hooked up so
it's a little hard to see.
But Oh, coil-y cable
I got this coily cable, you know, and I
Fun.
Yeah, that's I think that's what I wanted
to mention as you were talking about. It
is like you can have fun with this stuff.
You know, They're very Jimi Hendrix.
Yes.
Yeah.
It seems all very techie,
but at the same time, like,
I have fun with it.
Yeah.
I think my mic sounds nice.
Yeah, yeah.
The coily cables.
Now the same thing.
You might want to use a coily cable
because it adds length and it kind of cuts
the highs out of your sound a little
bit like you might want that.
Plus the coily cables naturally
coil up and do their thing and you don't
have to worry about wrapping
cables as much as much. Cool.
Other thing that's pretty
straightforward microphone stance.
You know, I've got this short little desk
desk stand that I bought, you know.
You probably at least want one boom stand
and maybe one desktop stand.
But, you know, if you've got one
boom stand, you can do a lot.
You know, they're
incredibly, you know,
I think they're great for accessibility
as far as like maybe being a mic that, you
might be able to use with someone who's
bed bound, for example, or
just needs some sort of
intentional positionality of the mic.
Yep.
And then those are called boom, because
they they're the ones that you can adjust
at the middle and you can basically make
they can either be straight or
they can be any form of like an L.
They can move around
in whatever direction.
We have them. They're just a
little big to fit on the screen.
While, we're talking into them,
but yeah, they're
you look like a movie crew
coming through, but.
Exactly.
But they're cheap.
The you know, I think you can
get them for about 20 bucks.
Brand new, a cheap one.
Pop filters.
We don't have them right now, but
that's the way you're going to hear it.
Buh and the puh sound.
So if you have that little pop filter, it
blocks that, a little bit
of the air disperses that
and you won't have those B's and P's,
plosive sounds coming through.
You can literally, like,
put pantyhose on a
on a wire hanger, though, like you can
find ways to get around it if
you're trying to be super cheap.
But just just keep in mind, like.
Your clients are going to go
"what the world is going on?
Like, what am I singing into?"
So keep that in mind.
At the same time.
You know, it's also
a nice way of, I think, making them
accessible as well. I mean, maybe not the
pantyhose, but I know that
there are some DIY methods to
keeping the mic
clean or reusable for a patient who
might not be able to use it otherwise.
So, yeah, that's something
I know people have even, like, put Ziploc
bags, like, over it and then you can
just wipe it off.
Yeah, cool.
Well, the last couple of things we we
definitely did in order of like need.
So, kind of take us through
these last things here.
Sure.
So the last couple of things which
I would put these more in the category of
like "I'm trying to build a studio type
environment," A
re monitors and room treatment.
So monitors are
if you're not listening back to your
headphones or you're not doing like a
headphone split with whomever you're
working with, it's a nice way
to hear the sound in the room.
Right.
So monitors are essentially speakers, but
they're really meant to give you a nice
stereo image. If you're doing cool panning
and stuff like that in your music, they're
meant to give you sort
of a flat response.
So that if you're working on
maybe like EDM or something that's like
super bass driven, that you can get
kind of accurate representation
of how bass-y that is before you
hear it in a more distorted way.
And these are
these these, I think also add to the
cool feel, the cool factor, if you will.
Definitely feels official, even if
you had cheap monitors, you know.
Yeah.
One thing I would say
monitor-wise it is like.
You might think, oh, I need five, six,
seven, eight inch monitors because
that's what professionals are using.
But if you are in a small space,
you do not need large monitors like
Presonus makes for one hundred bucks.
You can get the pair of three
and a half inch monitors, which.
It's super small, so basically that's why
your computer speaker doesn't sound
great, right?  It's a small speaker, but
so it's a small speakers, you know, three
and a half inches, but it's super loud.
And the problem is, when you get these
the bigger speaker you get,
the louder it's going to be.
So if you're at home or you're at your
work office or whatever, you might not
want, you know, five, six,
seven, eight inch speaker
because it might be too loud.
So, you know,
those are good. And you could maybe get a
bass, you could save the money, get that
and get a bass subwoofer to go with it and
you get the best of both worlds.
You could have it.
Yeah.
That's if you're building it out.
Right.
I've also I'll be honest,
you know, I've used,
I've used my, like,
computer speakers that I buy as sort of
monitor-y type things right.
And it works.
That's what I have at work. It's just
simple. And I don't even have
nice monitors here at home.
I do all my mixing and stuff on my
headphones, so I just
check in my car and stuff.
Yeah, absolutely. And then the last thing
that we put on our list here is room
treatment.  So room treatment
is essentially your way of
creating a more sound friendly or
recording friendly
environment. You can get
different types of treatment that
essentially you can
catch over a responsive echo or bass or
things like that and give you kind of a
more controlled sound in your environment.
Also, depending on the setting you're
working in, they can be really nice for
creating more isolated environment, too,
to just kind of protect
the privacy of that space.
So something else to consider.
Yeah, and you mentioned some pretty
cool DIY methods of doing that, right?
Yeah, for sure.
I would say I would agree with you if you
are fortunate that you have a space like
at the old place we worked at, we had a
space that was a recording space. So,
you know, it's in a
hospital, it's by a hallway.
People are still walking by, but
we put treatment all on the walls.
So the room was very dead,
but it was better than it was dead, than
noisy, echoey, weird things.
But some things I would consider
mostly if you're trying to eliminate noise
in your recordings or weird reflections.
And those are things that, like
you won't notice them at first.
But once you start noticing
you'll go "Oh,this room does have a weird
reflection" or "Oh, it is catching a
lot of bass in that corner of the room.
" It's weird things that until you start
to notice it, then you can't notice it.
But
some simple things to think of is
these condenser mics.
A lot of the
se condenser and dynamic mics are
directional, so they're not picking up the
sound from back here that much
they like very much at all.
They have like a pretty narrowband.
So what you want to do is put treatment
behind whoever is singing.  So
I've used moving blankets, I've used extra
carpet, I've used, you know,
anything that's super absorbent.
If you have a mat, if you're at home and
you have a mattress, you can prop up on
the wall, you know, things like that
recording in a closet with clothes all
around you, you know, things like that.
If you're trying to get the sound of a
classical guitar, but you're
in a hospital, right?
Like bring some clothes
or bring some blankets
from the last time we moved, we have
several moving blankets. So
those have been super handy.
I can literally just screw them to the
wall of my house or drape them on,
you know, music stands or whatever.
So I definitely say that.
The other thing I would say is like
before you hit record, just like, listen,
right now I can hear my
computer's working hard. It's
"sshh." Turning air conditioning off.
That's a huge one.
If you're in your facility, you
might not have control over that.
So maybe just being mindful of where that
vent is and maybe being an
opposite side of the vent.
Also, if you can like in the hospital, I
realized there were several things like
can we unplug this refrigerator
for a couple of minutes?
You know, can we do can we unplug
things for a couple of minutes?
It's safe.
But also like
if you're doing a clinical recording and
there's a monitor beeping
or whatever, like.
Humanistically, you know, that is
capturing the sound of what
their life is right now.
So
there's something to be said about not
polishing things as well,
not trying to hide and mask those things.
So just keep that in mind, because that
could be powerful to have. Beep,
beep, beep or whatever
the infusions over or
whatever the issue is.
So I'm a huge fan of that myself.
I was thinking about that as you
were saying it, and I think that.
For myself, I like to get to the
point where even recording becomes t
he creative process, and so sometimes you
are capturing those sounds and you're
hearing back to it, and maybe that's
what's inspiring, like the next
idea, right
or kind of wanting to work with and shape
that. I really love that kind of like
environmental
music therapy type vibe where it's like
we're playing with the environment, not
trying to get away from it and and
recontextualize in that way for sure.
One of these days I'm going
to do my, like, sampling.
I'm going to sample a bunch of sounds from
the NICU, just to show nurses what
they're putting these babies through.
