Recording Equipment

Signal flow is something everyone who wants to have a home music studio must wrap there heads around. The creative process that goes on in your mind leaves your head then starts flowing through your home recording equipment in the form of electrons running through wires. If you can understand signal flow, inputs and outputs you will be in greater control of your home music studio. In the case of trouble shooting and understanding what is happening at different stages of the signal flow you can diagnose and improve your studios efficiency, making it easier to transfer your ideas into recordings.

A simple example of signal flow involving a computer, audio interface, microphone and speakers: Remember this is how you should train yourself when thinking about the signal flow in your home music studio, it’s all about Inputs and Outputs.

Music starts with a sound source, the sound comes OUT of the instrument which then goes into the microphone, the electrons move along the microphone cable and then goes IN the audio interface. So you will connect your microphone to the input of your audio interface. Now the electrons are swimming inside your audio interface and they need to go OUT to your speakers. Now your speakers are connected to the output of your audio interface. Because your audio interface serves two purposes there are both inputs and outputs.

1.) convert the audio signal coming from the microphone into a digital signal that can be understood by your computer.

2.) playback the digital signal from the computer and make it analogue for the speaker to play.

So in this case there is an output on an audio interface for the speakers to connect too as well as either USB or firewire that serves as an input connection to the computer so now signal can flow into the computer, which you will then see represented as wave forms on your recording software.

This is the most basic set up you can find but if you wrap your head around the IN and OUT concept you can add to your home music studio set up by adding keyboards, synthesizers, mixers, cd players, effects and so on.