Set Up for Recording Acoustic Guitar on a 4 Track

Series Summary

Have you decided that you want to give home recording a shot, but you don’t know where to start? You’ve heard of the digital music revolution, and you know that analog is nice for warmth and tone, and you’ve chosen to go with digital. Maybe the ubiquity of software applications that allow you to do on your laptop what it used to cost thousands of dollars to do in a studio swayed your decision. Whatever the reason for going digital, now that you have, you’ve got to learn how digital recording works. With the large number of inexpensive options for getting your songs down, the choices can be pretty overwhelming, but if you start simple and get a little bit of help, you’re sure to be pleased with the results.

In these free music studio and production videos, get some basic tips on how to do 4-track recording. Our expert will walk you the process and give you some pointers to consider when you’re making your first forays into music production, with tips on how to set levels and use effects, record to different channels, lay down bass, drum and guitar tracks, how to overdub and multi-track, saving tracks, and mixing techniques.

Video Transcript

"BRIAN MONTGOMERY: All right. So I think it's time we can actually start recording the song, so what I'm going to do first is just lay down a basic rhythm guitar track. To do that, we got a microphone here running with the XLR cable into the back of the machine into the left input there. I need to push this fader here up so we got a level coming into that channel there. Indicator switch here , we can switch that down to the L. We've got the pan turned all the way to the left so this track stays to the left. Our input here, it's tape, guitar, mic/line; we're going through the mic/line so we need to bring that guy all the way down to there and master fader up into its position. If you're going to be monitoring from the external speakers, going to have that switch here down and have our little monitor level set up there and now we just gotta get a level for the instrument."