I’m in the process of turning my home office into a basic recording studio. I write songs in my spare time and decided it was about time I recorded them. Back in my university days I played in bands, had a great time and would have quite happily made that my career, but something called interactive media came along and distracted me. I really ought to get a band together, just for fun, but in the meantime I reckon there’s not much point in writing stuff if no-one gets to hear it, hence the home studio.

I’m just using a really basic setup for now – an M-Audio MobilePre USB interface for Mics and guitars etc. and a Radium 49-key midi controller keyboard. Software is cheap-and-chearful Apple GarageBand, which I figured was a good place to start learning before splashing the cash on something like Cubase or Logic. Seems to work pretty well, though I think I’m going to grow out of it pretty quickly…

Need to investigate speaker simulators next – I found that plugging a guitar directly into the MobilePre and using GarageBand’s built-in amp effects was OK, but not brilliant. Mic-ing up my old Peavy Classic 20 sounds a lot better, though I’m not sure it’s doing anything for neighbourly relations. Haven’t dared fire up my old AC-30 yet ;-)

Haven’t actually recorded a whole song yet – still getting to grips with programming drums and getting the rhythm tracks down, but I’m having fun and I feel like I’m making progress. So maybe one day soon all those songs of mine that currently exist only in my head might actually see the light of day…