Home Recording Studio
If you want to produce music yourself, you have to think about the equipment of your studio. Even if today, thanks to modern technology, you can easily take recordings directly in the rehearsal room or bedroom, there are a few things to consider when choosing the means. Here are some tips to consider when setting up a home recording studio.
- Studio Monitor - Speakers
One thing that people tend to overlook when recording is monitoring. You cannot make sensible decisions if you don't properly hear the result of a recording. It would help if you had a monitor that you trust.
Hi-fi speakers can sound great, but a good studio monitor gives you an unadorned sound and must therefore sound different and as neutral as possible. Ordinary studio monitors are available for as little as a few hundred dollars.
Some home producers trust their headphones, but they are unsuitable for mixing. And what is also often overlooked is the sound of a room. If a room doesn't sound neutral, then the recording will also sound falsified.
Improving room acoustics is often seen as an unsexy investment, but it is essential. There are many expensive products for this on the market, but you can also make something yourself much cheaper to redesign a room in a sound-neutral manner if you deal a little with the topic.
- Studio Microphones
Unless you're making purely electronic music, you'll need at least a good microphone. Unfortunately, no one mic meets all requirements, and a professional studio usually has a whole set full of microphones for all sorts of purposes. But 1 microphone is enough for home recording, depending on what you are doing.
Microphones are a complicated precision tool, and therefore good microphones are also very expensive. Think carefully about what you need.
- Computer for home-recording
While in the past, one recorded with large, costly tape machines, commercially available computers are more than sufficient for home recording. The following things should be taken into account when choosing a recording computer:
CPU: Computers’ processor performance for home-recording is critical, so you should buy the fastest processor on the market. This ensures that you can enjoy recording in the long term.
RAM: Recording programs are very RAM-hungry, and if you use virtual samplers and instruments, you should already have at least 8GB RAM or more.
Hard disk: You shouldn't save on the hard disk either. Otherwise, you will quickly reach your limits. The hard drive has to be fast (it should be over 7200rpm)- Solid State Drive. In the best-case scenario, the operating system should run on a different hard drive than the recording data to ensure smooth operation.
- Software for audio recording to use at home
There are endless possibilities here, but I would trust the big providers to get support and updates for a long time.
Whichever program you use: learn the program so well that you can use it without getting lost in the endless number of options you usually don't even need. The recording quality should always be 24bit and at least 44.1kHz.
- Audio interface- sound card
Today, every computer comes with a built-in sound card, but these are not sufficient for recordings on the computer. Therefore, you should not save on this critical point. There are also many inexpensive audio interfaces available today; just make sure that they support drivers like ASIO and professional studio software.
The amount of in and out connections required depends on what exactly you want to record. If you want to pick up a drum kit live, you need at least eight inputs; if you do everything in the computer and mix it, fewer are enough. Ensure that your choice's audio interface has midi in / out and microphone / DI input.
- Plugins and Virtual Instruments
In the past, you needed huge racks with effect devices; today, you can do almost everything comparatively cheaply with software and digitally imitate even sinfully expensive instruments. Audio compressors are also essential to get the sound "fat" and filter out unwanted background noises.
- All the rest
Now you have all the essential equipment to be able to record at the studio level. But it would be best if you still thought of little things like the right cables, stands, etc., which are also crucial to take good pictures. A solidly equipped home recording studio costs money. First, you have to be aware of that. But it is an investment that you cannot avoid if you want to make music on a professional level.