When I got started in the music biz, recording was done on long black strips of magnetic ribbon gathered onto reels. We called it 'tape.' I know...I'm old. I did some recording in a studio a few years ago and just about everything was digital; it was unreal (heh-heh). It used to be that setting up a recording studio required a lot of space, specialized equipment, lots of training, and BIG BUX. Nowadays, all you need to make really good recording can be carried in a briefcase.
How can you make your own recordings? First, you'll need some hardware: a computer with a USB 2.0 port and a sound card. Fortunately, just about every computer made nowadays has both these things included. Now, while you can plug things like a microphone or a guitar into your sound card, you will need an adapter that connects either a guitar plug (1/4 inch) or mic plug (usually called an XLR) to a miniplug (the size of the plug on ear buds). But, rather than doing this I'd recommend spending a few bucks on a USB recording unit from a company like Tascam or M-Audio. This gives you a standard mic input and guitar input and a bunch of other useful features as well. While you are at it, invest in some decent cables (check out our cables). You'll also want a decent set of headphones. When you are recording, use your headphones as monitors. Now this is the persnickety part of the process: getting everything talking to everything else. My experience is that this process goes easier on an APPLE, but it can be done on a WINDOWS machine, too.
Now once you have everything talking to everything else the fun starts. I've used GARAGE BAND to create most of the sound samples here at JAX. If you buy a USB recording device, you might get some very serviceable software with it (light versions of Cubase and ProTools, typically). Once you are running your software and your instruments are talking to your computer...well, all kinds of good things happen. Before you record, put some nice fresh strings on your guitar and read the article on tuning. Have fun!
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