I’ve read so many forums about recording at home… there is loads of info out there.. but as always… I can’t find someone normal with a normal budget who is not a purist and is just trying to get some decent tone out of his gear.

I’ve decided to just buy a few mics and an cheap interface to get me started.

Interface: Alesis IO2

Mics: SM57, SM58 and SEX1R Ribbon.

The interface was recommended by my guitar teacher who said “I’ve used this for years and has never failed me” and he records a lot… so I just bought it without hesitation.

The microphones… well.. the SM57 is just a must have according to everyone out there… the SM58 is more for vocals and I just wanted one, but the unusual one here is the Ribbon mic. Don’t know about you but when I recorded in the past I always found the guitar to be too dry… too much “in your face” creating an unnatural Tone… I believe that sound should have enough space to develop itself before it reaches a “reverb” ish state.

The Ribbon mic does this.. it picks up signal in an 8 shape giving you loads of space for the sound to develop, and the SM57 gives you that “in your face” sharp guitar tone, the combination of those two gives you an awesome result, a very natural tone without any effort, I downloaded Audacity which is a free recording environment without too many tricks but it gets the job done and did I mention… it’s free!

The interface is as simple as it gets and it’s very sturdy, I also use it to listen to music from my computer, it’s got 2 inputs and a separate gain control for both, it’s got phantom power, stereo/mono and master volume, very simple.

“Recording” is a very “scary”/”tedious” process… every time we see that red light suddenly our fingers get nervous and they don’t want to play as they always do… very frustrating, however.. having the interface at home means you can get used to this feeling.. of being recorded.. you can also do as many takes as you want or just leave it recording for hours without spending money on a studio. the other very useful aspect of Audacity + Audio Interface is that you can play along recordings/songs with great quality through your headphones… getting the true tone of your microphones wherever you are sat in your room, it also allows you to experiment with mic placement.

Conclusion… buy stuff and try… there is just too much information out there and too many good salesmen trying to get you to buy the expensive stuff.. talk to normal people.. approach your teacher or someone at the rehearsal place and ask them what they use, you’ll be surprised by the results!

I love what I achieved with all the little gadgets.. I bought everything 2nd hand except for the ribbon mic.. spending  a total of USD $370 (interface + microphones + cables) which is very cheap compared to what a lot of people spend on this first approach.