Frankly Audio

As I stated in my initial post, I want to help get novices on their way to recording and mixing. Beside the fact that I love music and appreciate the bond that music creates between us all, I remember having been frustrated at the “teaching” style of others when I was trying to get some information and help. Right now you can use the comments section to contact me or click here. I will have a link on the right hand column shortly. I am looking to create a mailing list as well.

To help the novice as well as anyone looking to get into Quartz AudioMaster audio recording software, I have created a tutorial to get your feet wet. I’m sure there are things I’ve left out that you may want help with so feel free to email me or post a comment.

I  spent a an hour or so getting aquainted with Quartz AudioMaster (QAM) today and have to say I am very impressed. The interface is sleek and pleasing to the eye, the quality of performance is very good except for a lag between making manual adjustments to controls and the execution of the move by the program. You can use rubber band/envelopes to create value changes so in a worst case scenario, if you can’t execute and capture mix moves live, you’ll be able to input them manually.

You have a four track maximum with the freeware version of QAM. If you like it I strongly suggest paying for the program. It’s a great value. If you want to get something a little more ubiquitous, splurge on the Sony products. Those of you familiar with digital audio workstation (DAW) software probably noticed that I have nothing to say about ProTools. Here’s why; I’ve hardly ever used it. It’s expensive and has never offered anything that I couldn’t either do in ACID or VEGAS or live without. I understand it is the industry standard, but if you follow along here you will find concepts and information common to all audio recording environments. If someone wants to set me up with a free ProTools workstation… I’m all ears!

So here’s an introduction to Quartz AudioMaster software:

Quartz AudioMaster Tutorial-Introduction


Quartz AudioMaster User Guide

Figure 1

Getting hooked up can be a bit confusing now that we are recording tracks. What you need to be able to understand a execute is that when you are recording multiple tracks to add layers to your composition, you need to be able to hear what you’ve already recorded but you want to make sure you’re not sending it back in with your new track and re-recording it. You want all of your tracks to be clean individual takes of the various parts.

Those of you using self contained multitrack units will find this already a function of your equipment. Those of you using ACID or another software PC based solution will find this as well but if your are not properly set up you could easily find yourself blending tracks that you don’t want to blend.

Figure 1 shows the simplest hook-up for those using a PC. Audio goes into the mic/line jack on your computer and audio comes out of the speaker/line out jack. You will arm tracks to record within your software and you will use your soundcard’s mixer utility  to select what source is recorded. Do not select “what you hear” as a recording source. Select instead, line or mic input, whichever your sound hardware supports and the corresponding input jack you are using. If you are using a microphone it must be made specifically for high impedance or line level inputs. If you really want to do this right you should invest in an audio mixer.

Before we mix we have to have something to mix. These initial posts are intended to get us all on somewhat the same page, so the next logical step is recording your performance or “tracking”. You may use different approaches to starting this process. If you are attempting a straight forward typical song arrangement without tempo changes you may want to use either the internal software metronome or a simple drum loop to preform with to maintain meter. You can program tempo changes but we’ll get into that later.

Again, if we use the paint-a-picture allegory for recording multitrack music, this is where you define your horizon and lay down the base color palette. You’ll use the instrument you are likely most comfortable with, guitar, bass, keys or just a pilot vocal, all of which you can eliminate after you build up your tracks so don’t worry so much about the quality at this point unless you are sure footed enough to record a “keeper” on your first track. One of the great things about working in the digital realm is that even if you have only four audio tracks to record with you can “bounce” them indefinitely without degradation (provided the source you record includes little or no noise). Bouncing tracks is a process that was also used decades ago with analogue tape recordings. What you are doing when you bounce tracks is combining multiple tracks together on to fewer tracks, even a single track. In the digital realm you can combine all four tracks in a four track application into one track and have three free. Something that could not be done in the analogue domain because the destination track would be wiped (recorded over) in the process. Also in the analogue domain the structure of audio tape itself along with noisy circuitry added a suffocating amount of noise and decreased dynamic range tremendously as the number of bounces increased.

In theory, as far as the actual recording parameters you have in your PC, you have the ability to record a signal technically better than almost every recording up to around the 1980’s. The magic is the music not so much the technical specs.

We’ll continue with more on tracking.

If you’d like to follow along, I’ll be using Sony ACID Pro software for the PC (Windows) for the most part which is one of the Sony ACID family of multitrack audio recording applications. If you’re considering purchasing one of the ACID programs there’s a fairly hefty difference in price between ACID Music Studio and ACID Pro. Look at their feature comparisons and prices to determine which is right for you. Both programs can be downloaded as thirty day trial versions, all that is required is filling out a brief registration form after installation.

There’s a very nice freeware application called Quartz AudioMaster . It’s a very capable application and one of the best I’ve seen especially for freeware. The layout and basic functions are essentially the same as ACID and most other multitrack audio recording packages.

Both programs allow you to record audio and MIDI. The freeware version of Quartz is limited to four tracks of audio. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the interface, play around, do any included tutorials and scan the help file.