I am happy to announce that home studio tips now has a companion message board. I thought it was important for people to be able to discuss things other than in the comments of this blog.

Please sign up and post as often as you like. I'd like to build a community where we can share all of our home studio tips!

iSound is having a Battle of the Bands contest with over $12,000 in prizes for bands and musicians! You will have a chance to get your own CD pressed, get 2 songs on the upcoming iSOUND compilation, get your band t-shirts printed, internet distribution for your music and a ton of free promo on iSOUND.com.

iSound will pick the 8 top artists. The top 8 artists who receive the most unique MP3 plays from April 17th to May 15th will be picked as the winners!

First place battle winner receives:  read more »

The greatest thing about going digital for me was the fact that I can cut and paste sections and I could automate my faders. Two very simple things that completely changed the way my recordings sounded.

Back in the day, I used an old Tascam 4 track. It was good for what I was doing. I loved it. It wasn't until I started using my PC with n-Track and Pro Tools that I really discovered how much more flexible digital recording was.  read more »

I'm always surfing the web to find cool new music sites. I found this one called Chord Book. It is a really nifty site.

Basically, it's a flash site where you can pick different chords and it will show you the fingerings and you can also strum the chords to see how they sound.

You can learn to play scales and improve your lead solos, with the guitar scales generator. Quick tune your guitar using the guitar tuner and try out alternative tunings.  read more »

What is the worst album cover ever? I'm not sure, but I just found some stiff competition. Hopefully, when you finish your CD in your home studio, you'll come up with a better CD cover than these?

I know this really has nothing to do with home studio recording, but I had to share this with you. I found this site today. I must've spent the last hour or so laughing my *ss off.  read more »

Over at Guitar Geek, they have a cool site that shows you different guitarists amp and pedal setup. You can look and see what Jimi Hendrix or Robert Fripp use for pedals, strings, setup, etc. It's really cool. Each artist has a nice graphic showing each piece of equipment in the chain.

Now the only problem is coming up with all of the money to buy the equipment that Jimi Hendrix or Robert Fripp use. The chaining part is easy thanks to Guitar Geek.

This is something you can try to get a different guitar sound. Connect your electric guitar to a direct box, and go from the balanced output to the recorder. Connect the 1/4" throughput to the guitar amp. Put a mic in front of the guitar amp as you usually do. Play through your amp as usual, only save the 'clean' direct track for later use. You will now have two tracks: 1. the guitar-amp/miced track and 2. the clean, direct from guitar track.  read more »