How to pick the best music writing setup for you
In this short series, we’re going through different simple gear setups that you could use to write music, in the home setting.
We’ve already talked about portable recorders. But, those aren’t right for everyone.
So, today we’re getting into the right questions to ask, so you can figure out exactly what you need for yourself.
Questions to consider before buying music writing gear
What makes writing music the most easy, and most fun for you?
Having a bunch of different instruments readily at hand?
Fiddling around on the computer?
Jamming in a group setting?
Whichever of these you choose, the quicker and easier your home recording setup makes doing that, the better. Here’s an example:
If you like writing music best working in a jam session with friends, grab a small mixer, some mics, and a cheap PA for your rehearsals. Then, have all your mics and mic stands always set up and ready to go. The Tascam Model 12 is designed to do this very thing, but any digital mixer will have a similar feature set.
Now, when you’re jamming, you can hit one button and record the full band on separate tracks, with no big annoying fiddly recording setup required.
Simple little timesavers like this have a really big impact in making your creative writing time easier. Why? There’s nothing worse for a songwriting session than having to take 20 minutes to set the mics up, just to get down a rough idea.
By the time you do that, you’ll probably have forgotten the idea.
Using a voice memo app for writing music
A simple voice memo app on any phone is another great tool for getting an idea down really quick. It’s another one-button solution: even easier to do, but also less flexible and powerful. It’s very easy to outgrow recording on your phone quickly.
You’ll probably also want something that lets you layer up and play with multiple musical ideas at the same time, and voice memo apps don’t really do that easily. So, at some point you will probably be looking into using a simple computer-based setup. We’ll go over how to do that cheaply and easily next time in this series.
