Build Your Own Recording Studio
Building a music room or recording studio in your home can be a great investment to increase the value of your home, even if you aren’t a musician.
Whether you are a musician, aspiring to be one or just have an appreciation of the art, building a recording studio or music room can be a rewarding experience…and a sound investment. A word of warning though, go about it slowly. Certain parts of your home studio will be easier to upgrade over time than others, so plan out what you’re going to do before you start hanging foam and running cables.
For home studios you don’t have to buy huge mixing consoles, expensive multi-track recorders, outboard processors, D-to-A converters or any of that other gear that you may not be unaware of anyway. These days you can scrimp down on those major expenses and focus on these main components: software, computers, interfaces, microphones and soundproofing.
Digital Audio Workstations, or DAWs, are recording software that get rid of the need for outboard mixing consoles. DAW’s have the least impact on the final sound of your recordings but they are the component you will interact with the most, so ease of use is your primary concern. Pro-Tools by Avid is the industry standard but it is the least intuitive and the most proprietary, not to mention the most expensive. Other options like Cubase by Steinburg, Sonar by Cakewalk, and Logic by Apple have the same features as ProTools but tend to be easier to use. Demo versions of all of these programs are available online so feel free to try before you buy.
Computers for a home studio have to have good processing speed and LOTS of memory. There are a lot of opinions about weather PCs or Macs make better platforms for a home studio. The PC is upgradeable, but the Mac is not, so you can save on the purchase with the PC and the upgrades as opposed to having to buy another Mac with a bigger hard drive. However with Macs, you don’t have to worry about viruses and worms like you do with a PC. Once again I think this comes down to ease of use. The best guideline is to work with what you know.
The sound interface converts the analog signal from a microphone and instrument cable into digital information that your computer records. Most interfaces can plug into your computer via USB but some require you to install a dedicated sound card. With interfaces you want to consider how you are going to use it. If you want to do a lot of live recording then you need an interface with lots of inputs. If you are going to go record one instrument at a time then you only need one or two inputs. Avid, Presonus and MOTU offer larger and smaller options and recording forums all over the internet are replete with suggestions as to which are the best.
Microphones are important because they impact how faithfully you capture sounds. Condenser mics are good for recording quieter sounds like acoustic instruments and vocals while dynamic microphones are better for louder sounds like guitar amps and drums. Companies like Sure, MXL, and AUDIX have microphones that range from cheap to absurd. It’s okay to start out with cheaper mics but the general rule of thumb with mics is you get what you pay for, so be prepared to upgrade as you go.
