I’ve been asked many times about the particulars of building a home recording studio. Most recently, a friend of mine was moving into a new place and he asked for my advice.
What sort of home recording equipment should I get for my home studio setup?
I thought this question was very applicable for many of my readers. Everybody that wants to set up a home recording studio seems to ask this same question.
However, one of the most important question is this:
What is your budget?
Once you’ve answered that question we can move into the specifics of your equipment.
Let’s say, for hypothetical reasons, that you have a budget of $1,000.
A thousand dollars might seem like a lot of money, especially if you’re just starting out. You can get by with a little less by budgeting even harder, but if you give yourself some headroom you’ll actually spend less money in the long run.
Here’s why:
If you buy the cheapest things right off the bat you’re never going to be satisfied until you get something a little nicer, or better sounding. But if you spend that little extra on something you actually want, then you won’t run to the store as soon as you get more money. Be content with the gear you buy. Don’t just buy it because it’s cheap. Buy it because you know you’ll use it.
Once you have a budget lined up you can start shopping around. You can create a nice home recording studio with a budget of $1,000.
But I’d like to exclude one thing from the budget.
Your computer.
If you already have a good enough computer for recording then a $1,000 will be good enough to set up a decent home studio. But if you don’t have a decent recording computer I would try to increase your budget to reflect that.
You can get great deals on computers on sites like Slickdeals.net. Woot also has occasional laptop and desktop computer deals that are a real steal. Scan around those websites for a decent computer for your home recording studio.
Things to look out for in a computer:
Processor - If you’re going for a desktop I would try to find a Quad Core processor. If you have processor heavy plug-ins on every channel when mixing, it helps to have a processor that can handle that. If you are buying a lap-top then something in the 2.3 GHZ range is the minimum. The more the better.
RAM - 4 GB RAM minimum. 8 GB RAM ideal.
Hard drive space – SSD Drives(Solid state drives) are lightning fast but expensive. 7200 RPM hard drives are fast enough for any sort of audio production, and slower drives aren’t necessarily impossible to work with. You can also buy an external, fast hard drive to record to.
Now, you can get decent computer that have all these characteristics on deal sites like Slickdeals.net and Woot.com for around $500 to $800 tops. Therefore, if you had a budget of only $1,000 it wouldn’t leave you with a lot to work with.
Also, if you are looking for high-end recording computers dedicated to audio production you should check out Rain Computers. Their computers are custom-built to run audio as efficiently as possible.
So for enjoyment purposes, let’s say that you already have a good computer. That leaves us with a nice grand to buy audio equipment with. Now we need something to connect to the computer, something to record with and something to listen to.
Next week we’ll look into the various interfaces you can get for your home recording studio.
Image by: Michel Banabila
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