I’m sure that you’ve been thinking over and over what is the best for setting up your new home studio, you’ve been searching all around internet (e-shops, manufactures websites etc) , you visit forums to read the suggestions from other home studio owners and I’m sure that you get to the point that you’re so confused and you don’t know where to start from , what you should buy! You have also your budget for your home studio gear but still it’s too much!
You don’t need that much! All you need is a simple , humble home studio to record, edit and mix your songs and your music. I give you my tips and some suggestions that you may find them very helpful and inexpensive because you can set up your new home studio for under €400. Yes ,you heard me! Think about it for a while! You’ve been searching so long and checking for hardware that cost hundreds of euros or even thousands of euros , you’ve been searching for softwares that you don’t really know what are all these about , but you get so excited just looking at them.You want to buy everything! HomeStudioProject is here to promote and support simplicity for creativity . I will never have a review of a €1000 mic preamp.No, I’m never going to do that!We ‘re going to work with the most simple and inexpensive tools that we can find on the market.We don’t get good sounding recordings if we get expensive software or hardware but good performances give us better results!
For setting up your home studio ,you only need five components that are the key for your success. These are :Computer ,DAW , Audio interface , microphone, headphones.That’s it! After these I will mention some peripherals (mic stand, mic cables ) that are necessary and handful for your home studio set up without going over our budget!
Let’s get started! First of all the computer. I think that you already own a computer.It doesn’t matter if it’s desktop, laptop , Mac or P/C. All you have to do if it isn’t new, is to upgrade your computer’s RAM so you can work faster and easier.You must be at least 2GB and more so you can start without having any problems.
RECORDING SOFTWARE(DAW)
Recording software is something that includes everything a professional recording studio has as inboard and outboard gear. What do I mean by saying that? The recording program (DAW from now on) has a digital console ,has replaced the recording tape DAT etc and has eq , compressors, reverbs , delays, and more. Everything you need , you have it all in one program.And the price for DAWs is between €280-€800. I’m going to suggest something more helpful and of course more cheaper! It’s all about audio interface
AUDIO INTERFACE €100-150
First of all , let me explain what an audio interface is.It’s a box that helps us to get all of our sounds that we record in our DAW. So simple!As I said before we support simplicity! You need a 2 channel audio interface, so we can record instruments and vocals and at least a headphones output! You need one line in with preamp (+48V phantom power) for recording our vocals. Nothing more, nothing less! Once you purchase an audio interface,most of them come with a DAW included. I suggest Scarlett Focusrite Studio
that includes an audio interface , a microphone , a mic cable, headphones and you get Cubase LE6 . An indicative price for this is €240 .I suggest below some other inexpensive but very reliable audio interfaces.
MICROPHONE €60-110
The microphone is our tool for recording all our acoustic instruments ( acoustic guitars electric guitars from an amp , bass, percussion, vocals and every natural sound that you can use to your recordings.Yo don’t have to spend a fortune on buying a microphone. All you have to do is to pick a microphone and practice with it. Practice a lot. Many of my students come and ask me “What do I have to earn from practicing on recording with my microphone?” The answer is “A lot!” We’ll dive in this chapter very often , here in HomeStudioProject.Here are my suggestions for microphones!
HEADPHONES € 25
Headphones are very useful for your recordings.You can use them when you record a new instrument for your song because you can’t record with your monitors on( if you have a pair of these).
Mic stand is very necessary for recording with your microphone.You can place your microphone wherever you want until you get the best sounding
We use a cable to connect our microphone with our audio interface.
Mic pop up filter is a tool that many of us skip it sometimes but we shouldn’t.It prevents P and big S to bleed in our vocal recording
As you can see , if we sum all these together , you can have your home studio gear for under €400. If you follow up my suggestions , I think that you ‘re going to have exactly what you need for starting recording your music!
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