How to make a music demo with ZYLIA MUSIC

by Eduardo Patricio

Let’s talk about recording music!
This tutorial will address key points to help you improve your sound and get to a great demo with your ZYLIA MUSIC set. All you need is the ZM-1 mic, ZYLIA Studio application and your music.
 

Before going any further, the general tips / rules apply:

• Choose your song / piece of music well, based on your goals, target audience, and with awareness of the market you’re going in;
• Have it arranged and well rehearsed before recording;
• Choose a comfortable and quiet space for recording. 

​Ok, have said that, as usual, let’s break it down into steps: 

A - Rehearsal room / Setup

You can record in rooms with great or not-so-great acoustics.
Key things are:
 
A1 - Place the ZM-1 mic in a central position in the room;
A2 - Avoid standing near walls. This will help specially if your room doesn’t have great acoustics. 

B - Recording

C – Mix and export​

​Once you have your recording you can adjust the volume of each instrument to get a better balance. You can also apply equalization to enhance desired or hide unwanted characteristics of each instrument.

EQ example

​If you record 2 guitars, say, with different functions (one focused on doing chords and the other more high-pitched patterns or solos), you can enhance the low end of the 1st and the high end of the 2nd one.

When you’re done with your mix, just export your demo and that’s it!

​To illustrate, here are 2 ZM-1 examples of ZM-1 recordings in completely different spaces, a martial arts practice room and in a church. Have a listen!

Recording done in a room with, err…, not-so-great acoustics

Recording done in a room with beautiful and style-matching acoustics

If you’d like to go further with mixing, you can either:
 

• Export the individual tracks of each instrument to bring them into a DAW
• Export the raw 19-channel file to import and mix them in a DAW, using ZYLIA Studio PRO plugin. 

Here are some related useful resources for you:
 
Tutorial: Recording an acoustic guitar with the ZM-1 mic
Tutorial: How to record classical music