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Intro to De-Essing [Video]

Joe Gilder — Wed, 05 May 2010 16:00:07 +0000

De-essers. They’re so cool, but a lot of people aren’t sure exactly when or where or why to use them. Here’s a long overdue video where I explain just that. Enjoy! (And be sure to leave a comment.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CKPx4N1CY8

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Understanding Pro Tools Released!

Joe Gilder — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:04:43 +0000

Last night’s webinar was a lot of fun. For about an hour we talked about Pro Tools and some of the reasons I use it. I’ve got a replay for those of you who weren’t able to make it.

Understanding Pro Tools

I’m proud to announce my latest tutorial video series. It’s called Understanding Pro Tools, and it features 9 HD videos, totaling over 3 hours of Pro Tools training.

Throughout the nine videos, I walk you through Pro Tools, showing you all the things I think you need to know. If you like the videos I post here on Home Studio Corner (and I’m up to over 50 of them now), then you’ll love Understanding Pro Tools. It’s a more in-depth, hold-nothing-back look at Pro Tools.

The price right now is $39.

I’ve posted the webinar replay on the order page, so head over there now and check it out!!

www.UnderstandingProTools.com

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Pro Tools Resources

Joe Gilder — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:20:08 +0000

Here’s a list of my favorite Pro Tools posts here on HSC. Enjoy!

Articles

12 Home Studio Necessities #2 – DAW/Recording Software
Why I Use Pro Tools
Ask Joe #4 – Pro Tools Questions
Do I Need Pro Tools Certification?
Mbox2 Pro or 003?
Using the Stock Digi Plug-ins

Videos

How to Make Your Hard Drive an Audio Record Volume in Pro Tools
Productivity Part 1 – Label Your I/O
Productivity Part 2 – Using Session Templates
Inserts and Sends in Pro Tools
How to Create a Click Track in Pro Tools
Using the 4 Edit Modes in Pro Tools
Solo Safe in Pro Tools
Pro Tools Track Types Part 1
Pro Tools Track Types Part 2 – The Master Fader
4 Ways to Use Playlists in Pro Tools
Using Groups in Pro Tools (or any DAW)
Inserting Time in Pro Tools
File Management in Pro Tools: Using Save Copy In to Shrink Your Sessions
Using QuickPunch in Pro Tools
Importing Session Data
Printing Effects and Instruments in Pro Tools
Session File Management in Pro Tools

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2010 Goals for Your Home Studio [plus a FREE eBook!]

Joe Gilder — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:00:44 +0000

Happy New Year!

As we move forward into 2010, everybody’s making new years resolutions. Get ready for the gym to be packed for the next 30 days.

Don’t worry, they’ll give up soon, and things will go back to normal.

What about you and your home studio? What are your plans for 2010?

More importantly, how do you plan to actually achieve those plans?

It’s so easy to have big dreams for your home studio, only to turn around a year later, and you’re still “getting ready” to do those big things you’ve been planning.

I hate new years resolutions.

Why? Because they’re always such huge, ambitious goals. We say things like “I’m going to lose twenty pounds this year.” That’s admirable and all, but why do we almost never get close to making it happen? Because we fail to specify the steps to achieving that goal.

Rather than “losing twenty pounds,” we’d be better off setting a goal of working out once a week. For most of us, that would still be a change, but it’s not some huge, insurmountable goal.

Okay, this isn’t a weight-loss website. If you’re like me, you’re telling yourself, “I’m going to finish my album this year.” That’s great!

But if that’s all you say, then it’s not going to happen. Trust me, I’ve said it on multiple New Years days.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t aim to finish your album this year, but I’d suggest you put some effort into this goal. Give it legs. Create a game plan for how you’re going to get there.

Here are a few suggestions:

Set a date. I don’t care if it’s December 31, 2010. Put it on your calendar. This act alone can be enough to trick yourself into making things happen. Remember Pam and Roy from The Office? They were engaged for something like three years. They never set a date…and they never got married…and she ended up kissing Jim. Set a completion/release date for your project, or your project may end up kissing someone else and calling off the whole thing.
Set mini-goals. Now that you have a completion date, you need to set up markers along the way. These mini-goals will look like this:
- Finish Recording Guitars – Feb 1
- Finish Recording Bass – Feb 15
- All the way to…
- Finish Mixing – November 1
Do something EVERY WEEK – Your schedule is most likely insane. However, if you want to knock this thing out, commit to doing at least something for the project every week. Just like the weight-loss analogy, don’t commit to 6 hours a week. Commit to just an hour a week. As you make small progress week by week, you’ll find yourself getting more and more excited rather than more and more burned out.

These are geared towards those of us trying to finish an album, but they’re applicable to you regardless of what your 2010 goals are. Like I heard someone say once, a goal isn’t a goal until it has a date.

You should know that I’m nowhere near being a master at this. I’ve been working on an album for a couple years. I haven’t given it the priority it needs. I want to change that in 2010, and I want you to join me.

With that in mind, I’ve written a brand new eBook to give away. It’s entitled Home Studio Production: A Roadmap to Finishing Your Album. It’s a blueprint of the recording process, something to help guide us both through the process, so we can finish some albums in 2010!!

I already sent it out to my newsletter subscribers. To get your own copy, simply sign up to the HSC Newsletter by filling out the form below. You’ll get immediate access to the eBook, and you’ll receive regular tips and promotions from me via email.

Sign up here:

[Photo by Bob Jagendorf]

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The Secret to Good Home Recordings

Joe Gilder — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:41:15 +0000

You may remember a video I posted here a week or so ago. It was the one where I was showing you how to import session data…at 5:30 in the morning.

That was with a buddy of mine who drove all the way down from Indiana to record drums at The Walnut House for his upcoming album. We also tracked acoustic guitar and some vocals. I got an email from him yesterday about vocals. He spent the last few days re-recording the vocal tracks in his home studio.

He tried several different microphones and preamps, but he ended up settling on the Blue Woodpecker and the Focusrite Trakmaster Pro (which I own). Here’s the interesting part. When we recorded the vocals at The Walnut House, we used a Neumann U87 and a Universal Audio M610 tube preamp. Why is this interesting? Let’s look at the price difference between the two:

Setup #1 – Woodpecker ($1,000) + Trakmaster Pro ($340) = $1,340

Setup #2 – U87 ($3400) + M610 ($800) = $4,200

Setup #2 costs three times as much as Setup #1, yet he liked the vocal sound from Setup #1.

Why am I telling you all of this? What does it matter? Because it demonstrates perfectly what I’ve been trying to say for the last week or so. The gear is not nearly as important as the person using it.

High-dollar gear?

Chances are you check out some of the audio forums out there. If you do, then you’ll find all sorts of stories like this. Engineers will compare one piece of equipment to something much more expensive, only to prefer the cheaper one.

Am I saying that there’s no place in the world for expensive equipment? Not at all. I’ve used it, and it’s amazing. The problem is that a lot of home studio owners hear people rave about this high-end microphone or that high-dollar preamp, and they freeze. They stop everything and wait around until they can afford one of those high-end pieces of gear. They think, “Well, my gear is sub-par. I can’t possibly make good recordings without upgrading first.” Nonsense. (See Gear Acquisition Syndrome.)

Here’s my take on it. When you’re first starting out, and you’re learning how to record, you don’t deserve the really high-end gear. That’s right, I said it. It’s kinda like buying a Lamborghini for a 13-year-old. He can’t even back out of the driveway yet…he certainly can’t appreciate such a sweet vehicle.

Just about any recording equipment you buy today will have a good enough sound quality to make good recordings. You can’t blame the technology anymore. You also can’t expect to be able to make pristine recordings with a Neumann microphone, Manley preamp, and Apogee converters if you can’t get a good sound out of a $100 microphone and an Mbox.

Does one technically have a better sound quality than the other? Yep. Does that mean your stuff is gonna sound better? Nope, not until you learn how to record. Not until you’ve put in the time to learn your craft.

It’s just like any other art form. I can’t expect to grab a chisel and a hunk of marble and come up with anything spectacular. Heck, I’d probably hurt myself.

It’s the same with recording. You have these amazing tools at your disposal, but you need to learn how to use them.

I’m not just talking about microphone technique, either. I’m talking about the entire process, the production process. Getting a good vocal recording is one thing. Learning how to make that vocal sit in the mix is an entirely different thing.

Put in the Hours

I’ve already said this once, but it deserves its own section in this article. You need to put in the time to learn how to make better recordings. That new plug-in bundle isn’t gonna save you. That microphone you’re saving up for won’t fix all the issues you’re facing.

You’ve got to invest time in making recordings. Start this weekend. Throw up some mics and record a song. Work it from start to finish. Make it sound as amazing as you can. Once you’ve finished. Start again.

Just like with anything creative, the more you do it, the more comfortable you’ll be. Instead of guessing around for EQ settings every time, you’ll think, “Well, I almost always have to do a 250 Hz cut on this particular acoustic guitar.”

You’ll start to collect all these little pearls of recording wisdom, and as time goes on, you’ll be making better recordings, and you’ll be making them in much less time than before.

Be Ye Comfortable

There’s more to the production process than the gear and practice.

Here’s what my buddy in Indiana wrote:

What’s weird is that I liked these tracks better than the vocal tracks we did at the Walnut House. I suppose it’s a testament to the fact that feeling comfortable is more important than the gear.

There’s your final take-home point. It doesn’t matter what gear you have in your rack. If the musician is uncomfortable, then you have no hope for an amazing recording. Sure it may sound decent, but a phenomenal recording is out of the question. (For more on this, check out my article called “Make the Singer Comfortable.”)

Whether you’re recording yourself or someone else, you need to get in the habit of creating a comfortable environment. Recording should be relaxing and fun, not stressful. This is getting at the psychological side of running a studio. If you plan to work with musicians, you’re also signing up for the job of making them happy. It’s a big task, but it’s a part of the gig.

Where to go from here?

Obviously, the “secret” to good home recordings is no secret at all.

You may have been nodding your head throughout this entire article. You agree that expensive gear isn’t always the answer. You agree that you need to invest time into your studio. You even agree that the psychological side of recording is important.

But you may not know where to start. You might have an Mbox and a mic, but you don’t really know how to go about producing an entire recording from song idea to finished master.

This is where I want to help. One of the biggest ways that I was able to go from knowing nothing about recording to knowing all the steps of the production process was by learning from someone else who had done it. For me, this happened in a college setting. I had professors in the industry showing me the ropes.

Do you have to go to college to learn this stuff? Not at all. That’s why I’ve developed an online training course for my readers. It’s called the HSC Production Club. As a member of the club, you’ll be a part of a group of home studio owners, learning the production process from start to finish. I’ll be teaching you through tons of videos, eBooks, and webinars, and you’ll have a place to interact with me and the other students and ask questions.

Membership won’t be free, but it won’t cost thousands like a lot of recording programs out there. We’ll jump right into the meat and potatoes of recording.

I’ll be posting more details later this week. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter to receive the latest updates!

[Photo by Shyald]

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Intro to Compression [Video]

Joe Gilder — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:59:10 +0000

Last week I posted the video Intro to EQ. This week we’re moving right along into the world of compression.

Compression can be a difficult concept to understand. I know because it took me a long time to get a handle on it. Hopefully this video will help clear some things up.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDhr8vJesNs

What thoughts to you have on compression? Leave a comment.

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Intro to EQ [Video]

Joe Gilder — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:49:11 +0000

Yesterday’s post on things I wish I had known when I recorded my first albums revealed some interest among a few readers for more information on EQ and compression.

I’ve got some bigger plans for the future, but I’m still thinking through how I want to work out all the details. In the meantime, here’s an Intro to EQ video. It’s a longer video, around 16 minutes, but I cover quite a bit of ground. Enjoy!

Want in-depth training on EQ? Check out Understanding EQ.

See Also:

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Shure SM7B vs SM58 (With Audio!)

Joe Gilder — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:00:01 +0000

If you’ve been involved with audio for any length of time, there’s a good chance you’ve used a Shure SM58. It’s the workhorse of the live sound world, and it’s not a bad mic. But how does it sound in the studio?

Typically, when you think about recording vocals in a studio, you picture the singer in front of a nice large-diaphragm condenser microphone. Condenser mics are great, but is it ever appropriate to use a dynamic mic to record vocals?

Condenser mics are typically very sensitive. They pick up all the detail and nuance of a voice. They also pick up a lot of things that you may NOT want to hear in your recording. For example, if you have a noisy room, or if your room isn’t acoustically treated, a condenser mic will likely capture all of these along with the singer’s voice.

A dynamic mic, on the other hand, doesn’t pick up nearly the amount of detail as a condenser, and its frequency response doesn’t go nearly as high, but it has this raw, organic quality to it. It doesn’t sound “pristine” per se, but it can still sound amazing.

Also, since a dynamic microphone isn’t as sensitive as a condenser, it tends to pick up less of your room, which is great for us home studio folks. We don’t have perfect rooms. (Come on, just admit it.)

If you spend much time on forums such as Gearslutz or Harmony Central, it won’t have to look hard to find someone talking about the Shure SM7B. When anyone asks a question about a good mic for recording vocals in a home studio, almost inevitably someone will suggest the SM7B.

I’ve had the privilege of using the SM7B in my home studio for the last few weeks. The other day I thought to myself, “I do like the sound of the SM7B, but I wonder how it compares to the SM58?” I’d never thought to use the SM58 for recording vocals. That would be “amateur,” I thought.

So I broke out both mics and set them up tonight to do a mini shootout. As you can see from the picture above, I placed the SM58 just above the SM7B, and I removed the windscreens from both mics. After that I set up a pop filter approximately four inches in front of the microphones’ capsules. Then I sang into both mics (at the same time), and recorded them directly into Pro Tools through the preamps on my 003.

The more scientific types will argue that the capsules aren’t close enough, and that the difference in position is going to prevent a true A/B comparison. That may be true, but the whole point of this little experiment was to simply see if the SM58 (at $100) could hold its own alongside the SM7B (at $350), and I thought it would be more interesting to hear how both microphones sound recording the exact same performance, rather than singing in one then going back and singing in the other.

It took a minute to get good levels, as the SM7B’s output is a few dB lower than the SM58. Once I recorded the audio, I used the Gain AudioSuite plug-in in Pro Tools to measure the RMS level of each track, and I adjusted the level of the tracks accordingly to get them to roughly the same volume.

I was quite intrigued by the results, and I’d like to get your thoughts. You can download the files here: [Right click to download]

What do you think? Leave a comment with your guess as to which is which, and I’ll post the answer in a few days.

* If you’re familiar with the SM7B, you know that it has a high-pass filter and a presence switch on the back. Both were set to flat.

UPDATE – Here are the results: SM7B vs SM58 Shoot-out Results

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Why I Use Pro Tools

Joe Gilder — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:09:20 +0000

Sean over at KeyofGrey.com posted a great article recently called “Why I Use Logic Studio.” The following post is in response to that article, so take a minute to read his article first. (Go ahead…it’s okay.)

What I liked about Sean’s article is that he gave his honest opinions about why he uses Logic. He also makes it very clear that he doesn’t use Logic exclusively. There are some tasks that he prefers to do in Pro Tools.

Having used both programs extensively myself, I feel that Sean paints a very realistic picture.

As you know (and as several readers have pointed out), I’m a pretty big fan of Pro Tools. All the tutorial videos I’ve done so far have been in Pro Tools.

So am I anti-Logic? Not at all! In fact, Logic was my primary DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) for a couple years. I got to know it very well. I even won a songwriting contest with one of the songs I recorded in Logic.

So why the switch?

My reasoning for switching back to Pro Tools is very similar to Sean’s reasoning for choosing Logic. It was the program that I “cut my teeth” on. Everything I know about digital audio workstations, I learned in Pro Tools. I’ve taken courses, read books, and spent countless hours in front of Pro Tools, both in big studios and in my home studio.

Pro Tools was the first full-featured recording platform I ever learned. Had I learned Logic first, then I’m sure I’d be singing its praises today instead.

My Logic Sabbatical

As I mentioned earlier, I switched completely over to Logic for a couple of years. I did this for a few reasons.

I had outgrown my Mbox. I needed more inputs, and I didn’t want to spring for a 002.
I had become very familiar with all the non-Digidesign audio interface manufacturers. I was particularly impressed with PreSonus at the time, so I bought a Firepod.
I knew Logic was powerful, and I knew the basics of how it worked, but I wanted a more in-depth understanding, so I opted to learn it by using it exclusively in my home studio.

Switching DAWs is a painful process. While they all do the same basic functions, they each do them completely differently from each other. I had to re-learn keyboard commands and drop-down menus and workflow…everything.

I would be lying if I claimed that the process was without frustration, because my patience was tried many a night, as I struggled to do simple tasks like cross-fades and MIDI quantization.

After a few months, however, I was rolling. I wouldn’t say I was a power use, but I could run a recording session with confidence and produce a passable mix at the end of a project.

I remember the turning point for me, the moment that started me back on the path to Pro Tools. A friend and I were tracking drums at his home studio. He was playing drums, and I was running the session, which happened to be in Pro Tools.

Everything came naturally. I had always felt a little bit clumsy in Logic, like I didn’t quite have complete control of the session. Not to overly romanticize things, but sitting in front of a Pro Tools rig again felt like coming home for Thanksgiving after being gone since Christmas.

The Prodigal Son Returns

I knew I had to get back into Pro Tools. But why? Aside from the fact that I learned Pro Tools first, why couldn’t I just stick with Logic? Well, there are a few features I missed. I’ve listed them below. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are some of the big reasons that mattered to me.

Simplicity – A Blank Slate

When someone completely new to recording asks me what software to get, we obviously discuss Pro Tools, and simplicity is a word that I often use. Don’t get me wrong, Pro Tools is complex (as are all DAWs), but to me it has the most simplistic layout.

There are two windows – the Mix Window and the Edit Window. (Version 8 introduced a MIDI edit window, to be fair.) Logic, much like Cubase, Sonar, Digital Performer, etc., has a lot of windows to navigate through, and there are a lot of buttons in each of those windows.

It’s not a difficult thing to learn, but being away from the two-window layout of Pro Tools, I felt like my workflow suffered a bit.

The other simplistic aspect is the fact that when you open up a new session, it’s completely blank. You create exactly how many tracks you need, nothing more. There’s no need for 32 audio tracks, 12 Instrument Tracks, and 6 Aux Busses, etc. when you’re first starting out!

Industry Standard

Sean explained this well in his article. Whether naysayers admit it or not, Pro Tools is in virtually every studio. If you plan to work in a studio, collaborate with another engineer, or even send your songs off to be mixed, chances are you’ll need Pro Tools to pull this off with minimal headache.

Just because everybody uses something, does that make it the best? No, it doesn’t, but you have to come to terms with the extreme popularity of Pro Tools. It’s everywhere.

It’s like VHS vs. Beta. Beta was undeniably better, but VHS still won out. If you were in the business of creating videos, it would have been foolish to only make Beta tapes when everyone was using (and buying) VHS. Sure, you could still make some Beta tapes, but you would need to make VHS as well if you wanted to be successful.

In the same way, while Sean prefers Logic, he owns and uses (and is familiar with) Pro Tools as well. Good call.

Audio Editing

This is probably one of the biggest reasons I came back to Pro Tools. The audio editing is second to none. If I want to chop up a region and quickly fix timing issues, I can do it much faster in Pro Tools. Logic can do the exact same functions, but it requires you to use several different modifier keys and edit modes to do different types of edits.

For example, in Pro Tools if I want to simply select a portion of a region and move it, or delete it, I can highlight it with the mouse and press “Delete.” Done. With Logic, I have to select the Marquis tool to highlight the region. Then I have to select the Eraser tool to delete the region. Or I have to use the Scissor tool to make two cuts in the region, then select the newly formed section and press “Delete.”

Again, these aren’t difficult things to master, but Pro Tools takes the blue ribbon for me when it comes to audio editing.

Engineer vs. Musician

One underlying difference between Pro Tools and Logic is that Pro Tools seems to be designed more for recording engineers, whereas Logic is designed more for musicians. Generally speaking, if you want to do something in Pro Tools, you have to do it yourself.

For example, when setting up a reverb, you have to create an Aux track, open a reverb plugin, and create a send on the track you want to send to the reverb. In Logic, the send is already there on the track. When you direct a send to a particular bus, Logic automatically creates an Aux track for you. This is great, and quite handy, but I’d rather be in control of every step of the process.

That’s the engineer in me speaking. Now, I’m certainly a musician, too. But my inner engineer is more relaxed when I’m in complete control, and as a result the musician in me is more relaxed and performs better. (For more on this, read The Many Hats of a Home Studio Owner.)

All-or-Nothing Architecture

Logic is a smart program. If you have a virtual instrument that only plays on the chorus, then Logic will only allocate CPU resources to that instrument when it’s playing. Once it stops playing, that CPU power becomes available for something else.

Pro Tools, on the other hand, takes a more “all or nothing” approach. When a virtual instrument is on, it’s always on. (And it’s always using CPU power.)

At first, I thought this feature in Logic was awesome! But then it began to choke my computer. I’d put together these huge compositions, and while everything would play back perfectly at the beginning of the song, as soon as the extra guitars and orchestra came in, the CPU would overload, and playback would stop.

This isn’t to say Pro Tools doesn’t do the same thing sometimes, but it seems more consistent to me. I would know I was overloading the system as soon as I add that seventh violin track, as opposed to finding out twenty minutes later in Logic when I try to play back all the tracks at once.

The big difference here is that Pro Tools stops playback before audio quality is degraded. It doesn’t drop any samples. Logic, on the other hand, will slowly begin to introduce pops and clicks in the audio as the system works harder and harder to keep playback going. Yes, you may be able to have more tracks and effects, but you may also be degrading your sound quality a bit.

Conclusion

As I wrote earlier, all these DAWs do the same thing. You can get great results from Logic or Pro Tools or any other program, but these are some of the reasons why I use Pro Tools.

My advice, surprisingly, is not “Go out and buy Pro Tools today!” If you have recording software, learn it. You will accomplish so much more by knowing your system inside and out than you would by changing platforms every few years.

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Gear Acquisition Syndrome

Joe Gilder — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:10:16 +0000

Today I want to take a break from the 12 Home Studio Necessities series. When talking about all the nifty gadgets you need for your home recording studio, it’s important to beware “Gear Acquisition Syndrome.”

What is G.A.S.?

If you’ve ever worked in music retail, you’ve heard of Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It’s this phenomenon that happens once somebody gets hooked on music equipment. Suddenly having one guitar isn’t enough — they need seventeen. Owning one good vocal microphone isn’t enough — they need a closet-full.

Now this certainly can be an awesome thing (especially for the music store you buy from). Having a home studio decked out from floor to ceiling with all sorts of gear is pretty satisfying.

However, I want to raise a concern I have with Gear Acquisition Syndrome. I see it in myself, and I see it in most home studio owners that I meet (and I’ve met a lot). My concern is that we can get so caught up in buying new equipment that we lose sight of the music.

My last few years of college are a perfect example of this. My freshman year I had a cheap little audio

interface, a cheap mixer, and a cheap microphone, but I recorded a ton of music. Even back in high school, when I had even worse equipment, I recorded an album.

Then something changed. I was studying a lot of recording techniques and doing a lot of recording in the big studios at school, but I wasn’t doing much of anything at home. I had saved up and bought a Pro Tools LE system, which I used to work on projects for school. However, since I finally had some semi-decent equipment, I thought I would wait until I had just a little bit more to get started on my next album.

I would say to myself, “You’ll just have to re-record everything if you use that $80 microphone.” Or “Once I have a nice preamp I’ll get started on that album.”

What happened? You guessed it. I never completed another album.

I was so caught up in this must-have-more-gear spiral that it froze me creatively. I felt that my music deserved better equipment, and my only solution was to stop recording music until I got better gear. How ridiculous! Gear Acquisition Syndrome 1. Joe 0.

Just because your recordings could sound better doesn’t mean they can’t sound great today. If you’ve got songs that haven’t been recorded, and you’re waiting around for the perfect signal chain before you play the first note, you’ll wait a long time. And chances are you’ll become rusty or, even worse, lose interest in your music altogether.

Unless you’re planning to buy that magical new piece of equipment today, don’t wait around to start making music. You could have all the gear in the world, but it’s just be a pile of junk if it hinders or delays you from being creative. Yes, you should always be looking for ways to improve your home studio setup, but not at the expense of your music.

Do something musical this weekend. If you don’t have any recording equipment, buy something. If you’re not in a place to do that, write a song. If you’ve got both recording equipment and a song, what are you waiting for?