Complete guide to Home Recording Studio Equipment for any budget. Thanks to improvements in technology and availability of modern music studio software, recording excellent sounding songs is not difficult and can be done right from your home.
Easy to Setup a Home Studio
Technology is great nowadays. You can accomplish a lot with your computer, something that used to be possible only in a big studio, years back. With experience and the right gear, you can achieve commercial sounding recordings (almost) using a home recording studio setup.
- Are you a beginner who wants to learn music production?
- Do you want to set up a home studio and are happy with a couple of ins and outs?
- Do you want to create high-quality podcasts?
There are many reasons why someone would want to setup their own home recording studio – to produce music (for self or for others), for teaching, to create minus-one tracks for live performances, and more.
It is now easy and affordable to set up a small computer-based home studio that you can use to create great recordings at home.
You can always buy additional equipment as you gain more experience, but otherwise, a basic setup is good enough to get started with music production, and with practice, you can create great-sounding music even with minimum equipment.
While setting up a studio, you should also consider the acoustics of your room, which means you have to do something to the walls, if you are looking for the perfect setup.
What You Need to Build a Recording Studio Setup
If you intend to set up a home recording studio, here are some of the main “tools” you’ll need.
You might already be knowing about some of these things, and probably owning it too – such as mics, software, computer, etc, that goes in the making of a studio, but there are a few more equipments such as preamps, headphones, monitors, interfaces and so on, that are also required.
Each of these can vary a lot in prices, depending on the quality and the intended target audience. But it is indeed possible and relatively easy to make a great sounding recording studio on a low budget.
Depending on what you are going to record, you may only need a computer, recording software, and an audio source such as a microphone. You don’t need a mixer right away, but good monitors and a good acoustic space are important, they need not be too expensive though.
If you are not going to record vocals and guitars, then you may not even need the microphone to begin with. You can always take your tracks to a studio and record the vocals, as well as get those track mixed by the sound engineer working in the studio.
Anything more than that would just be a luxury, especially if you are just a beginner! It is recommended that you grow your home music studio as and when you grow in knowledge.
There are times when it does make sense to get your music recorded by professionals, but if you’ve just started composing your own songs, and intend to do it for some time, it definitely makes sense to build your own music recording studio at home.
Here’s what you can start with; a basic setup! You may choose as per your specific requirements.
Computer
The first thing that you need in any computer based studio is a powerful computer to run all the software. Without going into the debate of computer vs Mac, it is best to have a computer that is built specifically for music. There are many who use Mac but a PC should work fine as well.
You may use a laptop or a desktop but whatever you use, just make sure that is built to a very high spec, and if you can, keep the computer reserved only for music and for no other activities.
Software
You will need a good recording software / sequencer such as Sonar, Cubase, Reason, or Logic. There are many more but these are some of the popular ones. Besides, sequencing abilities most of these also come with editing features, a mixer, effects such as compressors, limiter, equalizer, and so on.
However besides the recording software, you will also need lots of sounds to be able to make music. These are known as software libraries and plug-ins.
Audio Interface
You need this piece of equipment to get the sounds in and out of your computer. In order to get the sound from your microphone, an electric guitar, or keyboard into your computer, you need a good audio interface. Every computer does have a built-in sound card for audio purposes those are not designed for music production. It is best to invest a decent audio interface as these have high quality “Analog to Digital” and “Digital to Analog” converters built-in to get the best possible sound quality. Having a good audio interface is the key to a great sound quality for everything in your studio.
Focusrite Saphire 24 Audio Interface is great for experienced music producers, but will work just fine for beginners as well. You’ll need to plug it into a firewire port, but then those are hard to come by these days. But with a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter, you’ll be in business in no time.
Another inexpensive alternative is to forego the audio interface and get a USB microphone like the Blue Yeti and a guitar input like the Apogee Jam 96k Guitar Interface.
Studio Monitors
You need something to listen to your music recording, what you’ve been working on. Your computer’s speakers or the headphones will not do, you’ll need a pair of decent powered studio monitors/speakers. These are totally flat, gives the clearest possible response, so that you can listen to the mix to the best of your ability.
Another addition to your output setup can be a good set of studio monitoring headphones. In fact, if you want something inexpensive, get a pair of Sennheiser HD25 headphones and you should be fine.
Microphone
You need a microphone to record vocals and guitar, to get the sound into the computer. The most popular choice is to go in for a condenser mic. These are the most sensitive types of mics so you may need to get a stand as well for it. They do require a power source so your mic preamp or the audio interface needs to have phantom power on it.
You will need good quality microphones for recording, not the built-in microphone on your computer (they are good for chatting on Skype). Eventually, depending on what you want to record, you may have to decide between dynamic, ribbon, and condenser mics – but to begin with, a top-quality, multipurpose mic (like the Shure SM57-LC Cardioid Dynamic Microphone) should be fine for most voice or instrument recordings.
Keyboard Controller
If you have a really tight budget, then you can skip this. A keyboard controller is basically used to control the various sounds, and also key in the notes. If you are an absolute beginner who is just exploring how things work, you may directly input the notes in the sequencer by using the mouse of the computer if you wish. You can always buy the midi controller later on when you have the budget.
Preamps
A microphone turns an analog sound into a very minute electrical signal, which needs to be amplified before it can be recorded. That is where a preamp comes into picture. You do have preamps that are part of audio interfaces, so for most purposes that should serve you well.
Here are the various guides & suggestions for musicians on a budget (& newbies):
- A powerful Computer
- Audio Interface / Recording device
- USB Microphone Guide: As a beginner you want something that can be plugged in quickly and get you started fast.
- Monitor speakers and/or headphones
- MIDI controller or synthesizer (you can defer this, if you’re going to do more of beats programming)
- Good microphone/s (defer this, if you’re not planning to record vocals as of now)
- Cables
- DAW / Music Software
These are the basic recording equipment that you need (besides your guitars & amps) for setting up your Home Recording Studio. Today with digital technology being the norm in music recording, your greatest expense in setting up a home studio would be a computer or digital multi-track Recorder. This would be the heart of your recording studio as music recording today has shifted to software more than hardware. Almost every aspect of recording takes place in your computer or a digital multi-tracker.
Do You Need Them All? Guidelines!
Here are some guidelines (if you’re building your own music studio), and some of it may not apply to you if you are going to record music of any particular genre.
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- Choose what you want for your home recording studio, including your working space, and how you’re going to arrange it.
- A fast and powerful computer is a must as the recording software needs lots of processing power to deal with all the tracks and effects.
- If you’re going to record vocals and acoustic instrument, you need quality microphones (variety of microphones, including dynamic, condenser and ribbon microphones). Here’s a good dynamic mic for recording instruments, and an affordable condenser mic for vocals. If you’re going to record only dance music, you may not require it as of yet.
- You’ll also need an audio interface to help you efficiently capture the sounds on to your computer while recording, and improve the overall sound quality.
- Start with some free recording software to get the hang of it. You’ll surely realize its limitation though. So if you’re serious, get an inexpensive recording software program. There are tons of software programs out there including some expensive ones; you may choose to ignore them as of now. Take something that is entry-level; it is really possible to create good stuff even with inexpensive software if you’ve experience.
- Get a pair of quality studio monitors, or headphones meant for studio use to clearly hear your mix so that you can fix them efficiently.
- A MIDI controller keyboard can be handy as it makes it easy to input notes and add effects, which can be recorded in the software. A good one comes with several knobs and sliders (similar to a mixer) to give you total control over the recording software, so you may consider using one in your recording setup.
- As a beginner you may skip the mixer, however, if you spend a lot of time creating music, a mixer can be really helpful as it its much easier to control the various functions using the knobs and sliders rather than use the mouse of the computer.A good mixer comes with quality preamps, built-in effects, low noise design, etc.
- Most musicians/producers also use a FIELD RECORDER (portable hand-held recorder), such as the Zoom H4n portable recorder: a field recorder with five microphones and digital output via USB or SD card, perfect for recording on the cheap, as well as on the go.
Factors to Consider: Acoustics
Here are some factors that you need to consider when setting up a studio at home.
I know that very few of you may have a spare room to convert into a studio, hence depending on what you are aiming to achieve, you may have to take care of a few or probably all of these.
- Space & Budget
- Reverberation
- Acoustic separation
- Frequency balance
The most important thing to do is to make the room as ‘dead’ as possible; it means you basically want the room to absorb the sound instead of reflecting it. This way, you minimize the natural reverb that the room generates.
What sort of materials you can use to achieve this will obviously depend on how much you have to spend!
However, here are a few things that you can do:
- Use thick carpet on the floor; have several furniture items in the room as these help to absorb more frequencies.
- Use acoustic traps that are effective at absorbing sounds, especially in the low and lower-mid range of frequencies.
- Traps are also more effective than using things such as curtains or duvet covers over the walls and windows; those materials are only effective against higher frequencies and not the lower frequencies.
With Practice You Can Sound Far Better
Many don’t realize that being able to create music is also an art, just like playing the piano or the guitar. Being able to produce an excellent sounding mix also needs a lot of practicing; you become better the more you practice.
You really don’t need the most expensive gear to sound great!
You can actually make amazing recordings using a setup that costs a few hundred bucks, but it does take lots of practice to use the equipment correctly and to make great-sounding recordings.
Having the right brands and equipment are necessary, but it will not automatically help you to produce great music. It doesn’t matter what you pay for the equipment, it is of not much use if you don’t know how to use it. It is just not going to happen!
With practice, once you get a hang of how to apply the various effects you will be able to produce some mind-blowing tracks. It is very easy to rival the sound of big-time recording studios right at home, and you have to be thankful to all these music studio software.
It can take years to master the techniques necessary to make pro quality music. So whatever equipment / software you choose you need to become proficient at it. With experience, you will know exactly what you need and how to use them, and whether or not you should go far out of your way to get that dreamy gear.
I’m sure you would have ready interviews of several popular songwriters / musicians who have recorded chart-busters right in their bedroom studio.
So learn to use the equipment once you have your music recording setup at home!
An experienced music producer can easily create great music out of any decent recording software. So pick up whatever you can for the budget you have and work on it till you have developed your own style and something that sounds really good.
You can reduce the learning curve by focusing on a single genre rather than trying to cover many music genres. You may need more time to learn (and also need a bigger budget) if you want to create wide across a wide range of genres.
Basic PC based Home Studio with Mixer
Here’s an entry-level, basic, PC based home studio with a Mixer as part of the setup. If you have a computer at home, this setup will help you exploit its power (using a PCI audio interface) so that you can come up with a recording setup that is high on performance but still low on cost.
What Can You Use It For?
You can use this setup for the following:
- For your compositions or for recording a small ensemble, where you record one to two track at a time
- You can use one or two mics at a time (vocals plus acoustic guitar)
- The mixer comes in handy if you are no longer a beginner (in recording)
Studio Equipment
Here’s what you need for your home studio/rig:
Audio Interface
In this case, we are going to use a USB interface; its faster and quite affordable too. The best part about Focusrite Scarlett USB Audio Interface is that it has been around for some time and has very low latency.
Buy on Amazon | Buy on zZounds
Alesis V25 Keyboard Controller
25-Key USB MIDI Keyboard Controller with Backlit Pads, 4 Assignable Knobs and Buttons. the controller also comes with a copy of ProTools.Buy on Amazon
Yamaha MX61 v2 61-Key Synthesizer
This is an excellent, lightweight, and affordable Yamaha production synthesizer with several MOTIF based sounds. Its portable yet heavy on sounds. Offers a great selection of sounds. Easy audio/MIDI over USB.
Buy on Amazon | Buy on zZounds
Behringer XENYX 12-Channel Mixer with USB
This mixer is perfect for the solo artist’s home studio, it features quality mic preamps and a built-in USB interface.
4 mic preamps, tons of 24-bit effects, and a stereo USB audio interface built in for easy recording (so if you’re short of cash, you can buy this and skip the audio interface).
Buy on Amazon | Buy on zZounds
Behringer B-1 Single Diaphragm Studio Condenser Microphone
The B-1 from Behringer captures your sounds with incredible realism, sensitivity, and accuracy.
Buy on zZounds
Mackie MR624 Reference Monitor
These Mackie heavy-duty monitors are perfect for any recording artist or audiophile looking to upgrade their studio arsenal.Buy on zZounds
Sony MDR7506 Large-Diaphragm Foldable Headphones
These phones are comfortable & have everything a musician needs for the studio or on the road.
Buy on zZounds
Steinberg Cubase Artist Music Production Software
How to Connect These Equipment
Once the audio interface is connected to the computer, here are some suggestions for the connections:
- The outs of the Mixer goes to the line-in jacks of the audio interface
- The audio interface’s line-outs can go back to any of the unused line inputs on the Mixer
- The music keyboard’s audio outs goes to the mixer’s line inputs; MIDI goes to the audio interface (you can even use the keyboard controller instead of the synthesizer in case you wish to use sound libraries on your computer)
- Mics go into the XLR mic preamps on the mixer
- Active Monitors go on the mixer’s control room outs
That’s all you need to do to start making music.
Well this is not really a very basic setup because you have a mixer in the setup, and neither is it the cheapest option because you have a Yamaha synthesizer in the setup.
Home Recording Studio Packages / Bundles for Beginners
Here are some Home Recording Studio Packages available for cheap, perfect for those who want to learn the ropes and also make decent music.
You can use this setup for the following:
- For your compositions, where you record one track at a time
- Recording a small ensemble, overdubbing the parts
- You can use one or two mics at a time (vocals plus acoustic guitar)
- You can even create Hip hop, dance and all forms of electronic music
If you’re a complete newbie and already own a computer, you can get started for as little as a couple of hundred dollars.
Best Beginner Home Recording Studio Packages / Bundles
Here’s one home studio setup that you can build using the equipment listed below. This is what you need to build a basic home studio/rig:
PreSonus FireStudio Mobile FireWire Audio Interface
10-input, 6-output FireWire audio interface that can be powered right from your laptop.
Studio Projects B1 Large-Diaphragm Condenser Microphone
Suited for a wide variety of recording applications.
M-Audio Oxygen 25-Key USB Keyboard MIDI Controller
Features eight assignable knobs, plus dedicated transport and track select buttons.
Mackie MR5mk2 Reference Monitor
Heavy-duty monitors that are perfect for any recording artist or audiophile looking to upgrade their studio arsenal.
Sony MDR7506 Large-Diaphragm Foldable Headphones
Comfortable and these phones have everything a musician needs for the studio or on the road.
Steinberg Cubase Music Production Software
Powerful DAW for any home and project studio, it offers a range of proven editing and sequencing tools.
Recording Gear for Less than $200
Here are some cool options worth exploring:
Behringer PODCASTUDIO USB
The Behringer PODCASTUDIO bundle comes with everything that you need to make high-quality podcasts and also decent home recordings.
Ideally suited to produce a high-quality, talk-oriented podcast, you still get all the tools you need to learn the ropes of music production. Have a look at the price again 🙂 You get USB audio interface, mixer, microphone, headphones, professional audio software.
Although its cheap, it doesn’t feel so. The mixer is good, overall sound quality is sound, with no hiss, noise or distortion. Setting it up is easy through the included USB interface.
Focusrite Scarlett Recording Bundle
This special-prized Focusrite Scarlett bundle includes 2i2 USB Audio Recording Interface, Samson CO1/SR850 Microphone and Headphones Bundle, and more.
Perfect for the home studio, unless you need more than 2 ins & outs. No latency issues, good mic and headphones.
Buy on zZounds | Buy on Amazon.com
Presonus Audiobox USB DAW Recording Bundle
The Presonus Audiobox USB DAW Recording Bundle comes with with Studio One Artist Recording Software, Behringer C1 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone, Sennheiser HD201 Headphone, Desk Stand & 10ft XLR Cable. There’s a learning curve but still a great product, don’t forget to read the documentation.
How to Connect These?
Once you have these equipment, you need to connect these together, which is not difficult at all, considering that there are not many equipment in the setup.
Here are some suggestions:
- The cable (usb/thunderbolt/Firewire) cable connects the audio interface to computer
- The Microphone goes into the XLR input of the interface
- The Keyboard controller goes to the USB input. If you have a keyboard without USB, you need to use the
- on-board 5 pin MIDI on the audio-interface.
- The Active Monitors / headphones have to be connected to the main outs.
- Other equipment with sound-engine (keyboard or sound module) have to be connected to line inputs 3 and 4 on the back of the interface.
Things to Watch Out For
Though these recording studio bundles are designed to work with minimum hiccups, you can run into few problems, more common ones being:
Drivers
If you get installation errors, it could be related to the drivers on your computer. You may have to download the updated drivers from the manufacturers site. The URL and the details are usually provided in the user manual.
Latency
Again, these are supposed to give you NO latency issues. In case you experience some delay, just go through the user manual. At times, its just a matter of clicking some icon or changing a setting inside the main interface of the recording software, which solves this issue.
So, go through the documentation to see if any such scenarios are mentioned.
Here’s an extremely useful diagram that clearly shows how the connection between the various recording equipment is made. Very useful to know before you do your own recording setup.
How to Wisely Choose Musical Equipment for Your Studio
Musical Equipment for Your Studio: How to Choose Wisely. Here are useful tips and suggestions that will ensure that you spend minimum, when upgrading your equipment in the future.
Not everybody likes to use only the soft-synths, vsts, and stay confined to the software domain, when it comes to using sounds for their music production needs.
There are many who are good musicians as well, and can play the guitar or the piano or the saxophone or other musical instruments. And instead of using the software, they would prefer to use sounds from their actual musical instruments.
Resale Value
If you’re such a musician, a simple advice would be:
“When choosing equipment, make sure you choose ones that have some re-sale value in the future.”
This is important because not everybody uses the same gear throughout their life.
Everybody starts with a simple setup and with experience upgrades to better equipment. But then, every-time you upgrade you just can’t make fresh investments out of you pocket.
Even though you may have saved, it will be a big relief if you can dispose some of the equipment that you already own, and feel are no longer required in your setup.
Musical Equipment
There are thousands of guitars, and several good brands out there, but in reality only two makes have always stood the test of time, and their guitars constantly increase in value – Gibson and Fender.
There’s no doubt there are other good brands, but the moment you take them out of the shop, you have lost money.
A Gibson or Fender will always hold most of it’s value, and in certain cases, the older it gets the more its worth.
And how about keyboards? These are electronic equipment and several new models come out every year, so the same may not apply, unless its an acoustic piano.
Almost every manufacturer brings out a classic every once in a while, be it Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Nord, etc, that can do everything you desire.
And once you’ve paid thousands of dollars, you’ll find a few months down the line that they’re waiting to promote their new model (which is seemingly better than yours).
If you’re an experienced synth/piano player, you would know that keyboards manufactures are the worst at this.
But then again, sticking with the top brands does pay you when you want to put it for resale.
Buying Used Gear
Sites like eBay, Craigslist are good places to buy, provided you’ve done enough research about the seller, and know that particular models history and condition.
You have to check the important sounds or those that interests you. Remember a keyboard usually has hundreds of different patches (sounds) but you may not really use all of them. So check the basic sounds such as pianos, strings, brass, and maybe synth-sounds (if that’s what you’re looking for). You can also consider buying online, especially from the “Blowouts/Used” section to get better deals.
Read more on How to buy used gear.
As a music producer or experienced musician, you’ll always need musical equipment for performing and for your studio. But just because a particular advert looks tempting and seems convincing to you, doesn’t mean you just grab the offer. Take a step back, and take a while to go through the points we discussed here.
Closing Thoughts
There is no doubt that the home music recording studio is becoming more and more powerful. It is a known fact that most movie soundtracks are often produced by major record labels and well-known composers. However that might all change in the future. In fact, most low to medium budget movies are already using freelancers to provide music for their films and documentaries. And this is where the home recording studio can play a major role.
We have been talking about what all things you need to setup and get your home recording studio up and running. There are few things which we didn’t talk about, especially the outboard gear, such as compressors, limiters, external effects processing units and so on. These are some of the things that you can think of adding to your setup later on. These are not essential for you to get started, and most of these are also offered as features within your recording software.
We have mentioned quite a lot of things here and to reiterate, you really may not need all of them right from the beginning. But everyone has to start somewhere and you can always get them one at a time. Probably, the most essential ones are getting a computer, having some software on it and if you can get some good studio monitors, it will help you to produce some music properly.
So that’s it then! You actually don’t need to spend a lot assuming you already own a computer. In most likelihood you would already have a computer which may need to be upgraded.
Recording Gear Reviews on KeytarHQ.com
Useful Links
A typical music studio setup at home will consists of the following equipment:
- A Good Computer
- Recording software (such as Reason, Sonar, Cubase SX, or Apple Logic)
- MIDI interface
- Audio Interface
- Preamp (most audio interface has it else you will need to buy it separately)
- Studio microphone
- Good pair of studio monitors
- Guitar Players: How to Record on Computer
That is all you need to get started and it really won’t cost you a lot, especially if you already own a computer.
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KeytarHQ editorial team includes musicians who write and review products for pianists, keyboardists, guitarists & other musicians. KeytarHQ is the best online resource for information on keyboards, pianos, synths, keytars, guitars and music gear for musicians of all abilities, ages and interests.
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