Wanna Be A Recording Artist?

Once upon a time, a young lad came to life and got so independent that he wanted to learn many things on his own. When he was young, he did not enjoy playing toys or watching cartoons at all. His interests lie more on singing, speaking, leading, and performing. Who would have thought that this man would have a weekly space in TechNews later on? His name is Glenn Richmond Ong, yours truly.

I admit that I am a jack of many trades, but a master of none. Without bragging, I am an IT Professional, a writer, blogger, eventologist and voice-over talent all in one. In this week’s edition, I’d like to share one of my skills, which is voice acting.

For the past years, I have been recording my voice-over spiels at home using low-end devices. However, I decided to invest a bit and purchase a gadget that would greatly help me improve the quality of my recordings.

If you’re like me who wants to record spiels and songs for personal or commercial use, I would highly suggest one of my recent purchases called the M-Audio Fast Track Avid Recording Studio.

What is it all about?

Small as it may seem to be, the expertise of this audio interface is to empower us to easily record instruments and vocals just like a professional. It is able to transform our Mac or PC into a full-featured studio through the awesome combination of the M-Audio hardware and the Pro Tools SE recording software. Through this, it allows the capturing of guitars, vocals, and other instruments in pristine quality.

The M-Audio Fast Track has three controls and ports specifically for the microphone, guitar, and headphone. At the back are two line outputs, which we can connect to a speaker for voice preview sampling. What’s great about this device is that it is powered by USB, which means it no longer requires a power adapter on its own to boot up.

Why do I need it?

When recording straight to the laptop and connecting via the ‘line in’ port, the sound that comes in and out isn’t as good due to the low number bits processed by the computer’s sound card. On the contrary, an audio interface handles the inputs and outputs of the audio before it reaches the computer. This way, there is a separate “entity” that does the processing and no more conversion happens within the computer.

How do I choose what to buy?

With myriads of recording interfaces available in the market today, selecting one from the many options may be quite a challenge. These questions might help you decide: (1) Do you need Pro Tools compatibility? (2) How many Inputs and Outputs do you require? (3) Do you prefer Firewire or USB? Make sure to invest in a good microphone and its corresponding cable as well.

Are you also like me who’s into voice-over recording? What do you use?

This article is my 49^th contribution to Manila Bulletin -- one of the Philippines' leading broadsheets -- published on December 12, 2011 (Monday) in the TechNews Section. You can view the PDF version here (upper right portion).