Home Recording for Beginners

Geoffrey Francis has a definite talent for explaining matters according to the level he addresses them to. This book, built up on 30 lessons, is above all a solid grounding in what digital home recording involves, and a guideline how to progress further, in a very understandable and honest way. No marketing tricks such as "you'll be fine in no time, etc.".Also, this book does not refer to expensive equipment, but to software anybody can afford in order to first achieve a good basic knowledge. It also comes along with a CD with sample files for the projects in the book, and a fully 30 days functional version of REAPER, a fantastic DAW that absolutely plays in the same league as Cubase, Cakewalk, Ableton, etc. After 30 days, if you decide to carry on, you can get a licence for US$ 60.-- only for private users, and US$ 225.-- for commercial use. This selling-procedure is based on trust in the honesty of people, and I do hope that the makers of REAPER won't be deceived. You can clearly feel that behind the DAW and the manual/book there are no marketing people involved in the first place, but idealists and music lovers.In the meantime, I have started to like REAPER so much that it has become my definite DAW. The manual has been written by Geoffrey Francis, too, and it is - of course on a higher level - of the same excellent quality as this book. In fact, I have never encountered such a good and clear manual before.But, coming back to this book, it is not only aimed at beginners, as the title might suggest. Myself for example was the kind of person who only knew partial bits from here and from there about (digital) recording, thus lacking a solid base and a guideline how to progress further. This book put all in the right order and showed me the importance of knowing what I do instead of plodding along blindfolded or working by the principle of randomness. Now I have also ordered the other books of G. Francis, which will take me to a higher level.To finish up, I must say that I have read many basic books on the subject of (digital) recording so far, but only two have met my expectations fully: This one and the one by Karl Coryat called "Guerilla Home Recording".I have never written such a review before, but in this case it was my pleasure to do so.

I guess this book is ok. It really depends on where you're at in your quest for knowledge on home recording. This book is SUPER beginner, which for some might be great, but ... it is beginner down to the level of telling you what a file is within Windows, and initially teaching about file management, transfer, saving, etc. It's really written by and for someone who's just made the conversion to digital recording after working with tape or has no idea about anything. I doubt most kids these days would need such an introduction, as computers are a part of everyone's life from early on. The examples used are really lame ... using songs like Happy Birthday and Old Mac Donald. Sure, they're songs everyone knows, but ... that doesn't necessarily inspire someone to be excited about recording. Also, this book is heavily geared towards Windows, and while there are references towards Mac, it's not really a general book for all operating systems.My other beef with the book is that on many subjects where I wish the author would have gone deeper into specifics, but simple dismisses the subject as "vast" or "massive," and therefore can't be delved into at a beginner level, where he does choose to get into details there are inaccuracies. I found his explanations of things like impedance and bit depth to be more confusing than helpful, and not 100% correct.As someone who's recorded with friends for years, but has never known how to do the process myself, I know what a computer file and microphone is, and ... I'd assume most people interested in learning to record at home are in a similar boat. I'll have to do some more looking around, but I feel there are probably more useful books out there.

After reading half of the REAPER manual written by Geoffrey Francis I realized three things; first, Francis is spectacularly good at explaining technical subjects and his style and precision never falters. Second, REAPER is so powerful and flexible that reading the manual was truly missing the forest for the leaves, no matter how brilliantly and beautifully each leaf was described. Third, it was time to 'zoom out' and see the forest and buy this book because it would force me to start with the basics first.Interestingly, I actually prefer his writing style when it comes to complicated material. He does an admirable job with this book but I don't think it's his natural forte, it feels a little forced. That's irrelevant however, because he covers all the basics simply and effectively.The author does make it clear that recording is a very complicated endeavor and this book will not make you into an overnight success, rather this book is simply the first step in a long process of learning. Also, it's impossible to cover the needs of all home audio engineers and musicians because of the wide array of technology used, for example, some will want to record their bluegrass string band versus those that will be using electronic means like VST's and MIDI. All in all, I'm very happy I started here.

I used this book to help me get up and running with recording. I have a bedroom studio and purchased Reaper. This book is written with Reaper as the example DAW, but the basics of recording are there, it's just better fit to Reaper. Even on that note, the version of Reaper in the book is a bit older so the examples in the pics are not going to look like the current version, which is updated frequently. With that said, it was not hard to figure out where things were and I think I had to do an internet search once or twice to find something. The lessons are great and in the end I was confident and competent enough to record my own songs. I'm no pro, but this book gets your feet a bit wet so you can then get going and build up a good foundation. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get into recording, especially if you have Reaper.

I did not expect that much, but I find this book to be excellent. It's targeted at beginners with a 30 day course and written around the software package "Reaper"There is other information of great help, but its main strength is in getting you going with little or no back ground in a short space of time for next to no outlay. In this it succeeds very well and sets you up to approach recording with a computer nicely.Sure, old hands are going to find it of no use, but it's not intended for them and is probably more helpful than them too...

I will not mark this book less than 5 stars just because it is for Beginners. the Title says it all. Great Book which helped/helps me out a lot.

Great little book, its set out just like a short course. I have most of the equiptment but didnt know what to do with it. This little book made it very easy to get started. Very easy to follow the CD that came with the book was a nice suprise more should have been made of this fact. However,I went with this book as Amazon made it easy to look through the book online and this helped me make the choice. Which for me was the right one for an absolute beginner like me fab-a-mundo!

Very good easy to follow book laid out in simple lessons. If you have a little background in music/recording you can easily fit the early lessons in two or three at a time. Not worked my way right through yet but looks good so far

As a total newbie to DAWs etc, this book was a great read for me. Recommend it.