Many musicians wonder what they need in their home studio to make professional level recordings.
These musicians are often asking questions like…
What do I need to be able to record vocals at home?
How can I make music at my house?
What gear do I need?
To answer these questions, we’re going to go over 5 things you need to build a home recording studio.
Let’s dive in.
1. The Right Room
The first thing, and arguably one of the most important, is the room.
When choosing a room, hard surfaces are your enemy.
Avoid recording or mixing in rooms that have hardwood floors or lots of counter tops. Instead, you want to record in rooms that have soft surfaces so that it sounds more dead and you avoid reflections and echo in your capture. You can’t take these things out in the mix.
2. The right speakers or headphones
If you can’t hear your recordings correctly, you won’t be able to create a good sounding mix.
If you’re in a bad room, look for the most high-end headphones you can get, such as the AHD 650’s from Sennheiser. If you’re in a bad or small room, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to properly hear the bass, which can lead to mixes with an off-putting low end.
If you prefer to mix with speaker monitors, you can find lots of good low or mid-budget sets, such as the Focal CMS 65 monitors.
If you find that you’re mixing in a bad room with speakers, while it can be fun to crank them so you can feel the music, it’s actually better to mix at a low volume. This way, the room is less involved in what you’re hearing from the speakers.
3. A DAW
There are tons of different DAWs out there. I’m personally a huge fan of Studio One. This is one of the best options if you’re looking to get into everything – recording, mixing, and mastering.
Another option is Reaper. This is also a good all around DAW, and is basically free, or around $60 for the premium version.
Pro Tools is another standard DAW in this industry, but it can be a bit complicated if you’re new to music production.
Try out a few of these and choose the one that best fits your needs.
4. A good Microphone
There are tons of different options out there for microphones. You could go for the standard Neumann, but there are a lot of good modeling mics out there now. Slate and Townsend are some examples, and these can be a better alternative to the standard mics out there.
The problem with microphones is often that different brands might sound better with different vocalists. Switching out your microphone can be tough when you’re on a budget. Modeling mics basically give you a cabinet of different microphone models that let you adapt to a vocalists sound.
When buying a microphone, the $200-300 ones aren’t going to sound that great. Save up your money to spend at least $1,000 on a good one.
5. A Pre-Amp
The pre-amp is what you plug your microphone into in order to give it gain, phantom power, etc. The UAD Platform and UAD Twin are probably the best options available these days.
These are all-in-one preamps that allow you to plug headphones or speakers in, which means you can use them as monitors as well.
These also include Unison technology which enables you to try different emulated preamp and compressor combinations to find what’s best for your voice.
Conclusion
There you have it – 5 things you need to build a home recording studio.
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below.
If you need your songs mixed or mastered, hit me up at mixandmastermysong.com
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