It is increasingly common among musicians to hear about the «home studio» concept. This is nothing more than setting up the recording studio or audio production (or a part of it, at least) in one’s own home. The idea is to gather a series of basic elements to start making home recordings, with which, as long as the right thing is chosen, we can do more than just build the framework of a song.
Depending on the elements that we make, we will be able to count on a more or less powerful team that will determine, to a great extent, what kind of tasks we will be able to face. Have you ever thought of setting up your own home studio? Then keep reading, because we are going to give you a series of keys to know what you need.
First of all, we would like to make it clear that we are going to present you with three options to start working with: input range, mid range and high range. What we are not going to do is go into over-professional options, in the end what we intend to do is offer a small guide on what equipment you can find, how much it can cost and where you can get it.
Okay, but what is a home studio for?
A home studio can serve different purposes. It depends on the person who is going to use it, on the experience they have working with audio production, on what they want it for… There are as many different reasons as there are people. Everyone has them and knows their reasons, they don’t need to justify them.
One possible use could be to record your own demos. This could be because you have a project in which you are the band, or because you like to bring to your rehearsal space a more or less presentable idea of your songs: something that has a face and eyes, that is not just a loose riff or a loose piece of music.
You can also use it as a way to save money if you are good at sound. Recording studio hours are not cheap in most cases, and with good reason: the technician has to eat, the professional equipment is not cheap and it has to be maintained.
You can use it to record guitars, bass, vocals, keyboards or whatever you can think of, and use the professional studio just to record the drums if you need to.
However, the result will never be the same as if you use a professional studio for everything. I have to tell you that. Having said that, let’s get to the important thing: what do you need to have a home studio?
- The first step: a specific computer for audio
- Audio interfaces
- Listening monitors
- Microphones
- Recording software: DAWs and plugins to consider
You already have a general idea about what you need to set up your home studio for audio production. From here on, the decisions you make are all yours. What I have tried to do with this article is to offer a series of starting points and elements to take into account, but the last word is yours.