Cakewalk-Basics

Most of the Home recording sections are based strictly on my experience. I do not consider myself a pro, but I have made many discoveries and have had a lot of experience in recording.

This section is primarily for those individuals who wish to record their own music from their PC. Unless you have been under a rock for the past few years you have heard of a variety of Home recording studio software. We will be dealing with Cakewalk Pro audio. Their are other, newer versions of cakewalk out there but I prefer Pro Audio for various reasons. The main preferred reason is simply because I am used to the way it is set up.  The interfaces are different for many versions of cakewalk but you can still use most of the tips from this section and apply it to your version.

Although you can apply most of the information given here to just about any setup, the main focus of this section is for those who don't have a lot of money to spend on hardware and software.

In order to follow along and get your hands dirty you will need the following:

• Cakewalk Pro Audio

• A cheap Computer Mic (like 9 bucks @ wal-mart)

• A pair of computer speakers (don't have to have these)

• A pair of headphones (for recording separate tracks/listening to playback)

So you have the mic plugged in, got your headphones and your guitar. Let's make some  *Descent*  sounding tracks.

So you're in cakewalk and opened a new project. now what?

First thing is to have a look at the tracks... pictured below

The area circled in red is the track names (which you can edit by clicking inside it and typing). Here is also where you set which channel you want to record. You'll see a box under the "source" column with the default title of MIDI inside it. To change it to your your soundcard thus changing it to your mic choose Left, Right, or stereo. Just left click inside the box and while holding the left button down drag the mouse up or down until you get the desired channel then let it go.

To arm the tracks for recording simply click on the R just to the left of where you set the channel.  it should turn red. That means you are ready to record.  To begin recording just go up to the top where you see the buttons pictured below.

 just hit the red button and you're recording.

*Note: You should only arm the tracks you want to record presently. You can record another track at any time by setting the source ..left, right, stereo.. and arming it. You can listen to what you've already recorded and record another track at the same time. Which makes it oh so awesome! That's the basics. Fairly easy eh? Go to the Tips-&-Tricks section for some more useful info.

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