Hi friends. Are you interested in singing and have a good voice. Then why don't you record your own song with your pc. Hmm, I know that you are thinking that it's very difficult to record you vocals with multi-track recording softwares and mixing music with that is also very head scratching. But, no need to worry, if you are really interested, then I'll guide you and that's why I am writing this simple tutorial. After reading this tutorial, you will be able to record your own songs and can mix your vocals with music. But you need more practice to understand the mixing effects, like Noise Reduction, Delay, Flanger etc. Anyways, first of all understand the basic concepts of audio recording and after that, if you work hard, you will be able to use all the techniques of audio recording and song production.
So, as I tested, Acoustica Mixcraft 5.2 is the best for beginners because it has a very simple user interface and very simple audio controls. So, just follow the steps below:
1. First of all, you need to check the audio configuration of your pc. To check audio settings, just go to Start Menu>All Programs>Accessories>Entertainment>Volume Control
OR Alternatively, you can double click on the SPEAKER icon of system tray as shown in the image below.
2. Now, you can see your system's Audio Controllers.
3. You have to do all the settings as shown in the image above, i.e. Keep the sounds of Volume Control and Wave full and mute the sounds Line In, Microphone and Phone Line. You can see more or less options in the Volume Control of your pc, but you can choose them by going Options>Properties
4. Now you have to configure the Recording Section's settings, so click Options>Properties and select Recording option as shown in the image.
5. Now you have to choose Mono Mix, Sterio Mix, Aux, Line In and Microphone only. Select them and click OK.
(For advance settings, click Options>Advanced Controls)
6. Set the recording controls as shown in the image above and select the Microphone as the source of the incoming voice.
7. If you want to boost the vocals volume very high, then you can click on Advanced button and can select 1 Mic Boost.
8. Now the basic audio configuration is completed now. Now we have to understand Acoustica Mixcraft's interface. So open acoustica mixcraft 5.2 (If you haven't installed, download Acoustica Mixcraft 5.2 with patch from my blog and install in your pc) and when it asks for the type of new project, just click Close button as shown below.
9. Now you will see the user interface of the software as shown below. By default it may open with Instrument Track and Some Audio Tracks. Instrument track records the sounds produced by playing the virtual instruments of Acoustica Mixcraft. Audio tracks record the sounds from your mic and in these tracks, you can open your karaoke tracks and mix them with the recorded vocals. In audio tracks, you can trim, cut, copy-paste the sounds and can edit the sounds.
10. Now, let's start the recording. First of all increase the volume of any audio track in which you want to record your vocals. I am selecting Audio Track 2.
11. Now click on the ARM button. The recording will be done in that track which ARM button is clicked. In this tutorial, I have armed Audio Track 2 for the recording.
12. Now, in audio track 3, right click in the recording area and click Add Sound File.
13. Now select any karaoke track or song and open that.
14. As you open the karaoke music or song, you will see it's waveform. You can drag it and adjust it's position also.
15. Now get ready with your mic, put earphones and to start recording, click RECORD button. After clicking the RED record button, you will listen your music and you can sing with that and do live vocal recording in the armed track. I'll suggest you to hear music or song in one ear through earphone and hear your own voice in second ear without earphone. This is because if you hear music/song with one ear, your song tempo (timing speed) will not be disturbed and listening your own voice from other ear without earphone will help you to sing your best.
As you click Record Button, you will see that your vocals will start recording in the waveform. In the image below, Audio Track 2 is recording my vice and Audio Track 3 is playing the karaoke music.
16. After the recording is finished, click STOP button and if you want to do some sound effect editing work, you can do, but you need to know about special plugins and effects to edit your voice.
17. If you want to increase the quality and sound of the audio vocals recorded, simply click MIXER tab given below the Timer and increase the High and Mid sounds of the vocal track as shown in the image.
18. You can adjust the timings of vocal and music by dragging the audio as mentioned in the step-14.
19. Now after doing all the work, you can create our recorded song as mp3. Click File>Mix Down To>MP3 and save it on your pc.
20. If you want to create mp3 of your vocal part only, then simply mute or delete the music track and the mix the project as mp3.
Now we have finished the recording and sound production work. You can put your created mp3 in your mobile and can impress your friends. So, record your own music and keep rocking your friends.
There are so many options still there in Acoustica Mixcraft and mentioning all that options is not possible in this post, but if you will work hard with the software and explore it's options, you can learn all the options easily and music mixing and editing will be more and more simple for you.
I have recorded a sample song for you in my voice (i used a low quality webcam mic), listen below: