"How To Cut Your Own CD"
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Music Publishers |
If you are an artist your one dream has probably been to walk into a record store and see your CD sitting on the shelf. Now, the reality is that this is a very rare occasion and many of you will never have this dream come true. However, with all the advances in technology it is not unrealistic for you to produce and record your own CD. Here is how to cut your own CD:
1: The first step you need to know on how to cut your own CD is also the most obvious, get the equipment needed. Now this should not be too hard for most of you as the main piece of equipment is a computer. Outside of a computer you may want to make a small investment and purchase some digital recorders that will take care of almost everything for you, that being it will record, mix, master, and burn your music, all in one.
2. Once you have the equipment you are ready to begin creating your CD. The first step is recording. No matter if you are recording vocals, drums, guitars, etc., a recording device will save your individual tracks ands lets you play them back whenever you want. Your songs will be saved onto a hard disk, memory card, a digital tape, or a CD.
Now, if you are a vocal artist you will need to capture the sound using a microphone. The microphone will need to be connected to the computer, studio workstation, or mixer, with an input jack, which will transfer the music to the recorder. If you are using an electric instrument just plug that in rather than the microphone.
3. Now, after you have recorded your music it is time to blend it all together. The mixer gives you the ability to make the vocal tracks louder than the guitar tracks, even though the guitar tracks are louder without the mixer. The main goal is to make the track levels balanced and the mixing program will help you to do this. Also, depending on the mixer, you may be able to add effects to your music.
4. The third step is mastering your music. This means you go over your CD and make sure it sounds the way you want it. There are three main ideas to mastering and they are: Identify and fix any problems in your music, check the overall EQ, and add track markers to your CD.
5. The final step is burning your track to a CD. There are two types of CDs you can use to burn your music, CD-R/RW is what most CD burners use. CD-R discs can not be erased once you have burned them. CD-RW discs can be erased so you are able to actually reburn them. Burning the CDs is easy and most burners come with instructions so you should have no problem at all.
Those five steps should help you to know how to cut your own CD.
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Brian Cook is a freelance writer whose articles on music and songwriting have appeared on many websites.
You can find more of these at SongwritersGuide.com.
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