How
do I make my own CD?Put
your songs on CD! We're
often asked:
>Very
interesting and informative home page (especially the tips on real
>audio).
Could you please give us some hints on "what's the easiest/best
>way
to make a CD?" (configuration, product brands, etc)?
Sure. First you have to get your sounds on the computer. There are many ways to
do this, but what I do is:
I have no drummer, so you might consider a drum
machine, and some inexpensive
books with patterns you can use. Now I add piano, pads,
organ, brass etc. using my keyboard as well as where the sounds
of the drums came from. Now I have a band! ;-) One quick way
of doing this is using Band
in a Box software or Jammer. Band in a box comes with
pre set band accompaniment in many styles, and Jammer has
the same but Jammer Pro allows you to easily edit or create
your own also. I'll either record bass guitar out of my keyboard,
or normally from my bass guitar into my recording
software. There are a lot of options here $24.99 - over
$400. I use Cakewalk Sonar which is very popular. On a budget,
you might also consider Power Tracks. ($24.99) What I like
is being able to record MIDI and audio files together. Now
I sing, play guitar, leads and so on, beg people to sing back
up and finish the song. I export the song as a wave file.
At this point I can make my own CD's with a CD writer you
can purchase at any computer supply store - Staples etc..
I can make real audio files from this as well using real audio
which is free also. ;-) http://www.real.com/ Aside from using
you or computer, there are also some very inexpensive multi-track
recorders available now.
Get
yourself a CD recorder. Cost - maybe $100 - $400. Take your wave file songs and
set up the order and shazaam, you're on CD!
For a more simple version, let's say it's just you and you're
piano: Record and sing into your microphone/mixer into your
sound card and record this using the recording
software I mentioned above. Save it or export it as a
wave file and use your CD recorder to make a copy of it on
a CD and you've got your own CD.
Get
yourself some CD labels and inserts. I use Avery labels with a ink jet printer,
cost me $1 per CD for the CD sticker, CD insert front and back. Print at 720 dots
per inch and it looks great! Watch for rebates on CD's. So
how much did it cost me? The price will vary on how elaborate you want to be.
You have a good computer, wave files chew up ram and MB like crazy. $200 for software
to record, I had the keyboard and instruments, $300 CD recorder, $.50 per blank
CD and $1 per CD to label them all. Pretty cheap.
Click here to see some very nice drum
machine programming books and books with many rhythm patterns
you can use. Click here for recording
books.
Dave
Byers
Dave is the founder of "writingsongs.com
and the Christian
Songwriting Organization. He has been writing songs since
1979. His book "Songwriting
fundamentals" is available at DC Music
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