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Say you own a computer with an audio interface and various monitors then you are well on your way to creating your individual music at home. It would seem a bit exquisite to even think that you could do this, but with the VST plugins even a beginner can make various fantastic music. You have virtual equipment available to you at your finger tips. The day of complex equipment for music-making are gone. It doesn’t take being a comp or technology whiz to achieve many things when the VST plugins are utilized.

Without a doubt if youre into making your music then you have a couple of fundamental wisdom of the terminology that goes along with it. For example, youre probably aware of terms such as FM, subtractive and wave-tables. These are very popular and used synthesis methods that have been utilised for years. With the VST plugins, this has become an even simpler task.

VST plugins a great resource for those individuals who are interested in music creation and production.

Back in the day, if you were going to do serious things with sound, you needed a bunch of expensive equipment, or maybe access to a real recording studio. With computers, the bar has been lowered considerably.

Virtual instruments have given the home or laptop-based musician unprecedented access to new sounds and new ways to make them

Creating chart topping hits right from the comfort of your own room has never been so easy. Sound synthesis instruments which were once prohibitively expensive are now available to everyone in the form of cost-effective software such as VST Platinum.

VST means virtual studio technology. Once you have decided to give making your very own music a shot then simply go to the free on-line VST directory. You would discover downloads for the plug-ins there. Likewise it will be a great idea to do some research as to the best way to get started with them. In addition, check several of the music forums. You would no doubt find a wealth of data here.

Realise your own musical creativity by exploring VST plugins and get inspiration for a whole new musical composition. VST Platinum offers a all-in-one solution that rivals expensive sound synthesis instruments.

Creating your personalised music is a very rewarding experience. Up until the birth of the VST plug-ins, it really wasn’t an alternative for the lay person. There is numerous marvellous equipment on the market to do this, but it’s pricy and takes a fair amount of technical knowledge to the get the desired effects that you would be looking for.

It doesn’t matter whether you are interested in making your personalized music as a hobby or if its something you want to become serious about, you’ll want to utilise every of the qualities that these little gems can afford you.

Most individuals feel far more easy working with software synthesis then hard-ware. They don’t find it as frustrating, and hence become much more adept at it much quicker.

No dictionary can accurately reproduce tiny variations in pronunciation, volume, and stress. You must listen to a language before you can fully experience its idiosyncrasies. Being able to converse with a native speaker who uses correct pronunciation and grammar is the best way to accomplish this.

However, well-produced MP3s, CDs, and other types of foreign language recordings will work well if you know how to use them properly. This article provides several tips for utilizing your audio recordings to squeeze the most benefit out of every listening experience.

The Brain Creates a Map to Familiar Sounds

The brains of infants and young children catalogue all the sounds they hear. As we grow older, our brains associate those sounds with words, and later with specific spellings after we learn to read. Many foreign languages contain sounds we do not use in our native language. When our brains hear these unfamiliar sounds, they draw from the existing map, and tell our ears that we are hearing something we already know.

Take for example, the German words ‘Bach’ and ‘mich’. The ‘ch’ combinations are for different sounds that do not have an equivalent in English. An English speaker might hear ‘back’ and ‘meesh’. Even though both German words end with the same letters, the pronunciations are different. Increasing treble levels on a recording often makes it easier to distinguish the differences in such sounds.

Adjusting treble also makes it easier to decipher sounds such as ‘f’ and ’s’ in words like ‘auffahren’ and ‘ausfahren’; ‘m’ and ‘n’ in words such as ‘dem’ and ‘den’; or to pick out tiny variations in vowel combinations like ‘Meer’ and ‘mehr’.

Coping with Different Volume Levels

If you have purchased or downloaded foreign language audio from different sources, you probably need to adjust the volume when you switch from one recording to another. MP3Gain is a free software download that will non-destructively change the volume of MP3 files. MP3Gain works well on Windows XP and Windows Vista. There is also a MacMP3Gain available for Macintosh users.

vOLume VARiatiONS witHIN A forEIGN LAnGUaGE AUDio RECordING

Was the above title confusing to your eyes? Volume variations within a recording confuse your ears as well. With good audio software, you can normalize the volume for an entire file, or modify selected portions.

Full Speed Ahead – Or?

The first time you listen to an unfamiliar recording, resist the temptation to slow down the tempo. Play it several times at normal speed. You will pick up a few more words each time through. If there are some sections that seem incomprehensible, play those portions more slowly and listen to them several times. After you have learned the vocabulary for a new piece, try playing it more quickly than recorded. This technique gives the brain and ears a good workout!

Don’t Stop Learning When You Go to Bed

Listening to foreign language audio while you sleep speeds up the learning process. Try reviewing vocabulary for a recording just before you go to bed, listening to the audio while you sleep, and reviewing the vocabulary again when you wake up. Many people from around the world have successfully used this amazing sleep-learning technique.

Involve Your Entire Body

Do you listen to audio while walking or working out? Try to incorporate body movements and facial expressions.

For example, consider the following sentences: ‘Are the children upstairs? No, they are downstairs.’ As you hear the first sentence, look up, raise your eyebrows in a questioning manner, and point up if possible while you repeat the phrase with exaggerated facial expressions. Create a mental image of children playing at the top of a flight of stairs. For the second sentence, shake your head and look down.

Similar to Pavlov’s dogs or an athlete in training, this stimulates and maps a brain-body reflex. The more senses you involve while learning, the faster and more complete the process becomes.

Work it – Work it – Work it!

Your brain needs exercise and stimulation to work at peak efficiency. Apply the tips in this article, and you will push your brain to use more of its potential.

(c)Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author’s note below (with active links) are included.

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Probably the first thing you want to think about before you start spending any money on getting a home recording facility together is, why do I want to record at home?

You probably already know the reason, but the clearer you are about this the better your results will be.

Do you want to just pick up your guitar on a whim and record the latest idea that’s passing by? Do you intend to record an album in its entirety at home and release it? Do you want to make podcasts to broadcast on the web? Do you want to ‘flesh out’ your musical ideas to get an idea of how the final product might sound. All are valid reasons for having your own home recording setup. Each one also suggests a particular amount of money you will need to spend to get the result you desire, and the amount of effort you need to expend making it happen.

What you will need.

From a basic standpoint you will need some way to record your performance or ideas – this could be into a Personal Computer[PC] or mac or onto a stand alone recorder. You’ll also need someway of getting the performance into the recording medium – whether that be via microphone or a piano keyboard. You will also need to find some way to ‘deliver’ your product – via mp3 mix/cd or podcast. All factors to consider as you set up you home studio.

What is best; Computer recording or stand alone?

I will confess that in my opinion and experience, the simplest and most effective way to record anything at home is with a stand alone recorder. Several years ago I recorded an entire album using Fostex DMT8, 8 tracks to do the lot- including backing vocals guitars and eveything. To those of you unfamiliar with what I mean by stand alone recorder then have a look at units from Fostex, Yamaha, Roland and others. In general they have a built in hard drive or media card which records data that you produce as a result of recording yourself. This can be as simple as engaging a ‘record’ button and playing or singing. There’s no fuss involved with this. Some of them also allow you to burn a CD at the end of the process so you can amaze your friends! There can be disadvantages as I will discuss later, but depending on your final aims as discussed earlier, you will make allowances for any shortcomings.

Recording onto a pc or Mac takes us into a more complex word, so if you’re not computer savy, or prepared to enagage in a long and sometimes frustrating journey I’d go with the stand alone unit.

Why is it more difficult to record into a PC?

Recoding into a PC has a minimum of 3 steps:

Input device-microphone/keyboard/turntable

Sound card-converts your ‘real world’ sound into computer language.

Recording software-does the job of ‘capturing’ your performance.

Once you have got your recording chain set up then it ‘can’ be as easy as using a stand alone unit, but to get to that point you have to deal with a number of factors-the #1 bugbear of most home computer recording nuts is a friendly tike called ‘latency’ .

Latency: ‘ something that is revealed later’.

For those not in the know, latency can be compared to hearing your voice echoing back from a canyon, heloooo-hellllllloooo. There is a gap between when you yell and when you hear your voice returned. If you plug in a microphone and set up your recording software and say the ubiquitous ‘hello’ you will get a similar effect!

Unless you invest in a super high end recording system such as ‘Pro Tools HD’, then this is something you need to work with as a home computer recording afficionado.

The reason we encounter latency is that the computer needs time to convert the analogue [physcal sounds via electrcity] into digital data; ones and noughts. With a good sound card this can take between 7 and 15 milliseconds [ yep that's 15 thousandenths of a second] and then about the same number of milliseconds to convert it from a digital signal back into an electrical analogue sytem that we can usefully use to hear the sound coming out of the computer. Bare in mind that our ear ‘notices’ a sound as an echo at around the 50 millisecond mark [ more on this later] – so if we have a sound card with 25millisecond [ms] input delay and 25 ms output delay then our ear wil perceive it as an echo- not much good to play along with as we will be out of time.

That’s pretty useless you might shriek, so how do people manage to do all this computer recording stuff at home? A-ha. Those clever people who make sound cards m-audio, Presonus, Yamaha etc have done something very clever, they instigated a process called ‘direct monitoring’.

Direct monitoring allows us to hear the incoming sound at its source- straight after you have plugged it in- instead of through the computer where you will pick up a substantive delay. You can still listen ‘though the computer’ if you choose, but in my experience it’s pretty distracting especially with large latency times. The other thing that your clever software program/soundcard combo will do is to record your new track in time with the others by making allowances for the current latency times.

In summary; For ease of use and less technology hassles get a stand alone hard disk recorder. For more complex productions consider getting a computer/soundcard/software combo, but be prepared for a sharp learning curve.

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Recording telephone conversations used to require expensive hardware and dedicated recording equipment. On the low end, one could use a simple wire to connect a phone handset with a tape recorder. An office with multiple phone lines would need expensive solutions that integrate a PBX with call recording. PBXpress www.callcorder.com is a great example of this approach, providing effective simultaneous recording of analog and digital (VoIP) telephone conversations over multiple lines.

But what if you only need to tap certain conversations once in a while? Purchasing expensive hardware is not nearly cost-effective in this case. Using a tape recorder is always an option, but it does not give you the convenience of digital, its user-friendly instant navigation and transparent search.

Using a computer to handle the recording is perfect for the purpose. Surprisingly, you might already have the necessary equipment to start recording phone conversations immediately. A simple voice modem is the only hardware you need. It is fully capable and sufficient to record your phone conversations. Have a close look at your modem. If it is marked “Voice” or “Data/Fax/Voice”, you can use this modem for tapping. If, however, it is labeled as “Data/Fax” or “Fax Modem”, then most probably your modem does not support the necessary voice features, and therefore it won’t be able to record.

Having a voice modem alone is not enough to record calls. You need call recording software to complement your modem. The software would control your modem, record and store conversations on your hard disk. In the past, modem manufacturers used to bundle such software with their modems, but this is not the case today. Currently, you are on your own if you need software that can record your calls.

Call Corder (www.callcorder.com) by Pingram Software is one of such products. Its purpose is recording telephone conversations, compressing them, and storing in Windows compatible sound files that can be played back with Windows Media Player, Winamp, or any other music player.

Call Corder supports most brands of modemd. If it can’t find an exact match for your hardware, it defaults to the closest generic device. If you are recording an incoming call, Call Corder will log Caller ID information provided by your modem. This usually includes caller’s name and number. In order to receive this call information, you have to subscribe to the Caller ID service offered by your phone company. If you do not have Caller ID, you can always fill in the caller data by hand.

Make marks and memos about the conversation while you’re recording or when you’re finished. You can conveniently search for a particular call by typing any word or phrase that’s in the call’s memo, and Call Corder will automatically show you all conversations containing this information. Of course, you can also search by the telephone number or the name of the caller.

Try Call Corder free for 30 days to ensure that your modem is compatible! Download your free evaluation copy from www.callcorder.com

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A midi controller keyboard does not have a sound generating module in it and is used only for sending midi messages to external software / hardware.

So how is it useful if it cannot generate sounds on its own? It is useful if you have a predominantly software based recording setup. If you use a software sequencer for sequencing the tracks, and if all your instrument sounds are generated using soft-synths and VSTs, then you only need a controller keyboard. You just have to connect the keyboard controller to a computer or a laptop, which will have all the necessary software programs.

There is no need for you to go in for a full fledged digital keyboard. A midi controller keyboard will be able to send all the performance related messages to the software programs. The controller keyboard will send midi messages to capture all of the performance related parameters. It can send messages which indicate which note is to be played, how hard or soft it is to be played, any effect like pitch bend or modulation was used, etc. Some keyboard models will also have knobs, and sliders in addition to pitch bend and modulation wheels, so that you can easily add effects.

You will find controller keyboards that have less than 61 keys as well. Many users actually record one track at a time, so they really do not need sixty-one keys since they will not use both the hands together. Besides, a smaller controller keyboard will take less space as well. A smaller keyboard will help you easily demonstrate your recording capability to others. Whenever required, just dump your laptop, soundcard and the MIDI controller keyboard in a bag and carry your portable recording studio with you.

MIDI Keyboard Controller Reviews

Adding Audio Has Just Got Easier!

Only a few years ago the only way to add sound to your web site was to use a .wav or midi file. The problem with this was that the file size could be fairly large and the whole file needed to be downloaded before it could start to play.

Streaming audio was made available in the 90’s and was in two basic formats, mp3 and Real Audio which enables the audio to start playing while it is still being downloaded. The size of these files is a lot smaller as compression algorithms are used but some loss of quality may be evident depending on the algorithm.

With these streaming audio formats audio player software is required by the browser and a streaming server is also needed.

Now audio can be streamed using Macromedia Flash (version 6 or above) from almost any web server and most web browsers can play the flash format files.

This is all very well but unless you can program in Flash (Flash 8 basic costs $399) you would need to pay a programmer to develop the audio button, which would also be expensive.

WebSiteAudioReviews.com has reviewed most of the easy to use software products that enable anyone to add audio to there web site and cost from $27 – $97

Most of these software programs have built in sound recorders so all you need to do is record your track and click a button which creates the required html code and paste this code into your web page. Then upload the .swf file and html file to your web site and you have audio on your web site in just a few minutes.

So, before you add audio to your web site read my reviews at www.websiteaudioreviews.com