Recording Music at a Home Studio
You can record high quality (possibly even “professional quality”) music at your home studio because of the wonderful leaps in technology. A recording studio that might have cost $75,000 to build fifteen years ago can be built for $3000 in 2010.
Your first investment if you want to build a home studio should be a good quality computer with plenty of hard drive space and lots of RAM. Luckily high quality computers are becoming less costly. I just ordered a new computer with 6GB of RAM for just over $850.
After you get your high quality PC or Mac you need some kind of DAW software (this stands for “Digital Audio Workstation”) that you will be doing your recording and mixing with. One obvious choice is ProTools but that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for you, you may want to consider Logic Studio instead.
What you get after that initial purchase of a computer and a DAW varies depending on what kind of music you want to make. If your interest lies in making completely electronic music without any sort of live instrumentation or vocals then there’s a good chance you will want to consider buying various software programs like Celemony Melodyne Editor but most people (even those doing electronic based music) will want to be able to record vocals and instruments and will need some sort of audio interface.
If you’re one of those that is going to need an audio interface you should be aware that many of them actually come with free DAW software.
An audio interface is how you get sound from a microphone or an instrument into your computer. Yes that’s a very “dumbed down” explanation but I think it gets the point across.. Personally I use the EMU 1616M and it’s highly recommended for those on a PC who do not need a lot of inputs. There’s a wide selection of audio interfaces to choose from, it is too big of a topic to cover in detail. Again the “industry standard” is Pro Tools but that’s not necessarily the best way to go.
Another “must have” for most people is a microphone. A good mic will allow you to record acoustic instruments, vocals, & amps. It will clearly be a very important part of your home studio. The Shure KSM44 is an excellent choice if you can afford to buy it.
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