What should every home studio have

You no longer have to deal with deadlines unless you impose them to yourself and you can schedule recording sessions whenever you want. Also, you can charge other artists for the use of your studio and you would no longer have to split the proceeds with a manager. And since you no longer have to deal with complicated bookings and reservations, you and your friends can immediately get to the nitty-gritty of producing actual music.

For those that are quite serious about music, home recording studios offer an opportunity to further hone their skills. After recording, you can immediately listen to your work and check for areas for improvement. From blending to acoustics, a home recording studio will allow aspiring musicians to get an idea as to how to improve on their music. Back then, setting up a recording studio can be as labor intensive as it is expensive.

Now, there are smaller and lighter recording equipment that can perform a wider range of functions. In fact, you can even create a small home recording studio with a laptop, the right kind of software, and even a few basic recording equipment More on this later.

A home recording studio is not just something for your exclusive use. You can have the place rented for other producers and artists for reasonable fees. Basically, a home recording studio allows you to earn while also building the right kind of connections to survive in the industry.

Before learning about the basic tools for your recording studio, you have understand one thing first: Simple is always better. Just like any hobby, attempting to do too much with your recording studio can be overwhelming.

And if you are overwhelmed, you have a tendency to get discouraged and stop investing in your music altogether. Also, with a simpler setup, you can save on a lot of money while still producing music that is technically competent at least. So what does every home recording studio need? Here is a rundown of the essential tools for your trade. This is by far the biggest expenditure on your recording studio but it also the most important.

The rule of thumb with computers is to always look for the fastest model within your budget. You do not need an ultra-spec PC just to record music. All that is necessary is for your computer to properly record and process data to come up with something worth listening to. The computer might be the one doing all the heavy lifting, but it is the DAW that makes music production possible. It is basically the software program you choose where you can record, edit, and mix songs in your computer.

The Audio Interface, on the other hand, is the hardware that allows you to connect your instruments and gear to the computer. Both of these devices can be bought separately but they can also be bought as a bundle. It would be better for you to pick the latter since:. For bands and DJs, these bundle offers will come in handy once you start recording. When you are starting out, you might just have one type of microphone in your studio. However, you would only need 1 or 2 microphones to get your studio up and running.

For guitars, pianos, cymbals and other instruments with a high frequency, you should use a small diaphragm condenser mic like the MXL or the AKG P These sounds come from instruments like the bass guitar and the kick drum.

These come from instruments like drums, electric guitar amplifiers, and some percussion instruments. There are other specialized microphones out there that will undoubtedly allow you to capture better-quality sounds.

However, for starters, these types of mics are all that you need for now. Since you are most likely going to do the recording all by yourself, you will need one p[air of headphones. However, for music recording purposes, you need to look for two specific headphone designs. Also, open back headphones are more expensive than their closed back variants.

If you have a limited budget, it is best to start with closed back phones and then save up for the open back variant. The way you position the microphone and how close it is to the object it is recording sounds from will make a lot of difference in terms of audio quality. This is where a mic stand comes into play and your studio should have at least 1 or 3 of it on standby.

The basic 3-legged stand should suffice as they offer optimum stability on the base. This means that the chances that microphone gets knocked off are low even if the stand is extended at weird angles. In the above guide, you will find all the information about these two types of monitors and also know why near-field monitors are good for the home studios.

Monitors are costly then headphones so if you are starting from a bedroom studio you can skip this equipment. But keep in mind as compared to headphones monitors provide a better output for mixing. Cables are essentials for each type of recording studios. In pro studios there are hundreds of cables are used for several different works.

In this journey from bedroom to pro studio, you will encounter several other types of cables. Some of them are,. There is a fair chance you get some rubbing sound in the recording which occurs by the friction of your hand with mic. Using mic stands. Again mic stands come in several shapes and sized built for specific tasks in recording studios and live sound. For bedroom studios, you just need one or two and get more as you transform your studio with time. Pop filters are used with mics to filter the popping comes out from the vocal.

In some alphabets such as P, PH, etc a popping effect occurs due to increased air pressure in the mouth. The intensity of popping is greater than then original voice so it interrupts the original vocal. Pop filter scatters the increased air pressure and minimizes this effect. Keep in mind that always go with high-quality pop filters as low standard does not guaranty the full elimination of popping.

Checkout Pop filter on Amazon. Now here comes the second type of recording studio. Many of us satisfied with our bedroom studios and keep in as a hobby. Few of us want to transform it. And at this stage, we need to know some other profesional recording studio equipment that we need to transform our bedroom studio into a home studio.

Bedroom studios are just for hobby purposes. But if you really want to record serious music you would have to upgrade your bedroom studio into a home studio. You need at least a dedicated acoustically treated room where you can arrange the following equipment to start your home studio. When we transform to a bedroom studio to a dedicated home studio the first thing we should optimize is the computational power of our computer.

Obviously, you will transform your bedroom studio to a home studio because you are getting more work. More work means more tracks and VST instruments and ultimately more load on your computer. So my very first advice is to buy a dedicated desktop workstation for your home studio with as higher configuration as you can afford.

After all, in digital recording, the computer is the hub for all connected devices. In Bedroom studio effect plugins are optional, as you already get some in-built effect plugins with your DAW which are enough for bedroom studios, yet when you upgrade your bedroom studio to a home studio, you need some extra plugins. In-home studios, there would be a different kind of projects you get. You need some extra plugins, such as Autotune for vocals pitch correction, Dedicate reverb and delay plugins, and some good dynamics plugins.

In the old days were needed specialized musicians for the different types of instruments. But today technology has changed.

Such as a bass guitar, electric guitar, sax, strings, etc so that when the musician is not available you can fill the gap by playing the instrument with your MIDI controller.

Even, most of the music producers today are one-man army by producing music with VST instruments, loop, and samples. Nowadays MIDI controllers are very common instruments in most of the homes studios. These instruments make us a one-man army and make us able to produce music by just our own efforts.

When you upgrade your bedroom studio to a home studio, you need some extra furniture such as chairs, tables, and some decorating items. Otherwise, there will be lots of trouble you gonna face. Studio recording is a sit-in-one-place skill so you have to be prepared to work for hours sitting in the chair.

So always choose the good furniture for your home studio especially the chair on which you will sit. Especially the low-frequency sound bass gather at the corners and multiply 3 times which is enough to spoil your recording. Bass traps are specially built for this problem and absorb most of the low-frequency sound energy that gathers at the corners of the room. Bass traps are available in many qualities but you need the best one. After bass traps, the second important acoustic treatment item is Acoustic panels.

They come into several shapes and sizes. All you need to examine your room and then search for the best size and shape. Diffusers are another type of acoustic panels that are especially used to diffuse the sound reflections and keep your room clean from unwanted reflections. You can set up them just behind you on the wall so that the sound directly coming from the monitors collide with the diffusers and do not come back to the monitor system.

As diffusers are made of wooden material and need some extra work they are costly than bass traps and acoustic panels. Sometimes it would be expansive for small home studios to bear the cost of acoustic treatment. If you have started your home studio for doing some vocal recordings you can use a cheap alternative to the acoustic treatment. These are acoustic pads that can be fitted ion mic stands alongside the mic and help to absorbing the sound reflections at the time of vocal.

When you directly place your studio monitors onto the table, the sound vibrations transfer to the other stuff and create unwanted resonance. These resonances mix up with the original sound of monitors and reduce the accuracy of the monitors. Monitor isolation pads act as vibration absorbers and prevent the vibration from transferring to the desk. They are cheap in price and you can easily afford them. I always suggest my readers use monitor isolation pads for accurate sound. As you know the positioning of studio monitors matters a lot in mixing.

With the help of a pair of monitor stands and an SPL meter, you can easily get the best position for your monitors. Somewhere in the journey, you will feel like you need something extra in your studio and that time you have to upgrade your recording studio into a semi-pro recording studio. In the next section, we will learn about some extra studio essentials needed in a semi-pro recording studio.

So, as we are already aware of that thing that we need extra inputs and space to record more instruments simultaneously, which is not possible with homes studios.

Suppose, you want to record a whole drum set in your homes studio and you only have a 4 channel audio interface so how could you connect the 8 mics used in recording drums.

The one thing you see common in all professional recording studios is rack mount. To take monitor positioning one step further…. A better option might be to use studio monitor stands instead. With stands… distance , height , and angle are fully adjustable, so you can move them wherever you like. And if you only plan on working by yourself in your studio, this may be all you ever need.

The biggest problem with the studio we just set up…. Is that it only offers a limited number of input channels. What this means is…it will be very difficult to record more than one person at a time…. Which is harder to do without certain tools. Is the inevitable addition of your first rack-mounted setup. Of course, the first step in building any rack to buy the case itself. So check out this article to see which ones I recommend:.

The one item common to virtually every rack is a power conditioner. Because rather than having a half-dozen power cables sticking out the back of your rack from each unit….

Now that the rack and the power is taken care of…. Which you will get by adding a multi-channel microphone preamp to your setup. Another common variety of this device is the high-end single-channel mic preamp, which studios often use on vocals or any other particularly important track in a mix. To see which models I recommend for both single and multi-channel preamps, check out this article:.

NOTE : Whenever buying a multi-channel preamp, you must also make sure that you audio interface has enough line inputs to accommodate the extra channels. Once you have plenty of input channels to work with…. Typical headphone amps offer stereo outs for anywhere from sets of headphones. Advanced headphone amps…can send multiple tracks of audio to personal mixers for each musician, allowing them to individually control exactly what they want to hear, without affecting what is heard by everyone else.

And in studios that can afford one, this added functionality can make the entire recording process much easier for everyone involved. Sometimes in advanced studios, engineers need to compare how their mixes sound over a variety of playback devices. To accomplish this task, a tool known as a monitor management system is used….

Which allows engineers to switch back and forth between different speakers with the push of a button. If and when you ever need this in your studio, check out this article to see which ones I recommend:. Which for many of us, is simply not possible. Home recording is expensive enough without having to buy a dozens of instruments as well. The solution to this common problem is of course… virtual instruments. The biggest problem with virtual instruments is….

Not only is it no-fun …. While virtual instrument drums might be good enough for some…. Today, they can sound almost as good, and in some cases even better than a real acoustic kit. The stereotypical fantasy which initially sucks us into the world of recording is…. Crafting your latest masterpiece on the massive analog mixing board of your million dollar studio. Because in this reality, mixing is usually done on a computer keyboard and mouse. Which to be honest…kinda sucks.

More importantly, it slows down your workflow, and makes it much harder to perform some of the more advanced mixing techniques, such as automation. The solution to this problem is of course, a control surface , which is essentially a MIDI controller designed to mimic the look and feel of the analog boards from decades-past. To see which ones I recommend, check out this post:. However, the fact is that top engineers will spend thousands of dollars on premium plugins….

Which are somehow better than the free ones. If you do have some skills, they can make a BIG difference. At this stage in the game, with the gear you now own…. Well once you reach this point, the standard solution to turn to is a snake cable like the one shown in the picture. By combining several individual cables into one, snake cables allow you to dramatically clean up the look of your studio, and more importantly….

They keep your cables permanently organized, so never-again will you need to trace-back an entire length of cable through a tangled web just to find out where it leads.

The only problem is…most snakes are designed for much larger rigs than a typical home studio, and it can be difficult for beginners to find the right one for their purpose. Do you know what can happen during a recording session when the power goes out?

Which is why anytime a computer holds important data, it makes sense to use an uninturruptible power supply UPS. Essentially functioning as a back-up battery, a UPS gives you several minutes of power to shut down your computer safely in the event of a blackout. Now unlike every other item on this list, which should be added in sequence…a UPS is one of those items you can add at virtually any time.

In the studio, where cables sometimes extend as long as a hundred feet to reach their destinations…. And direct boxes solve this problem by taking an unbalanced instrument level signal , and converting it to a balanced mic level signal ….

Which can then be sent for several hundreds of feet if necessary, while gathering virtually no noise at all. Because of the fact that most audio interfaces and microphone preamps have at least 1 or 2 direct box channels built-in…. At this point with the new additions we just covered, your studio should be good enough to record bands and possibly even charge clients for your services.

But since many of you are at least curious about it, I might as well give you a few examples of how pro studios differ from amateur ones. Hidden within your audio interface , and many other devices in your studio….

Another little-known device hidden within virtually every digital recording device is…. The master clock aka word clock, aka digital clock. In most setups, the audio interface clock defaults as the master , and the others as slaves. Meaning one clock leads, and the others follow.