Home Studio Setup

Modern technology has blessed the common musician with the ability to record your own music and have your own home studio setup. The power to create professional sounding recordings is literally right at your fingertips. No longer will you have to fork out thousands for a big wig producer to handle your recording and your craft. You can be completely in control of your music.

Though you don’t need to fork out huge amounts of money, there will definitely be some spending involved. So we’ll go over some of the very basics that you’ll need for your new home studio.

Let’s start with the DAW. DAW is short for Digital Audio Workstation. The DAW is an interface for you to track your recordings on, mix and process them through various effects and equalization. DAW’s can be found in very simple form online for free, giving you the most basic needs for recording a possible demo and so forth. Or you can spend an extreme amount of money on professional editions that major studios will be using. The average user actually does have access to most of the highest quality recording software.

There are also stand alone recording devices. You can still find a great deal of 4-track, 8-track, and even sometimes 16-track recording devices, that will be separate from a PC or Mac.

In all of this, you’ll need a good working computer. Most modern PC’s, which are typically geared toward gaming and entertainment, will be able to keep up with any basic DAW software. The processing needed to handle many recent games far exceeds what you’ll need for recording.

Next, you’ll be needing to look into getting an interface for your home studio setup. An interface will be an input device, or preamp as some call it, for you to run microphones into, and the interface will transfer this information to your DAW.

There are many simple two channel interfaces, which are often all that a solo musician will need. You can also find many 8 and 16 channel input devices as well. These are excellent when you’re wanting to track many instruments at one time. Often, these devices will be made to ‘daisy chain’ together where you can double or triple their input capabilities. These will usually use a USB or Firewire input.

Studio monitors, or even good quality speakers will be a necessity. The sky is the limit with these. What you choose simply depends on how much you want to spend and how far you want to go with this. You can start simple, and always have the possibility of upgrading. With monitors, you truly get what you pay for.

Finally, you’ll need to look at your actual physical gear. Your sound will only be as good as your equipment. So let’s look at microphones for your home studio setup.

There are a few different types of mics these days; condensers, dynamic, and ribbon. Those are the three basics you’ll find in any store or outlet.

A condenser mic is a very sensitive mic, providing a wide range of sound profiles. Condensers, typically tasked for vocals and sensitive instruments, need external power from your interface. Dynamic mics require no external power, and are usually used for drums. Dynamic mics can take a much more intense beating from sound waves. But the most sensitive of the mics is certainly the ribbon mic. The ribbon will give extremely accurate sound, but can be easily damaged. Handle these with care.

There are a huge amount of inexpensive mics on the market now, that actually compete in quality with the most expensive mics of ten years ago. The technology has come a very long way, and the average home studio setup has far more access to high quality equipment at low cost than ever before. Another great bonus is that there are a large variety of package deals out there, including everything you’ll need for a home studio. Many have found that getting started with home recording is far easier than they had ever anticipated.