Essentials For A First And Inexpensive Home Recording Studio Setup
To record your own music at home and start establishing a studio you need some fundamental components to get moving. They are:
1. An instrument and/or microphone
2. Something to record into like a basic mixing board
3. An interface from your mixing board into your computer
4. A computer with decent speakers and/or headphones.
5. Some software to record and manipulate your work.
These days you can purchase a combined solution for items 2 and 3 in the form of a computer audio interface. This is a device that you can hook an musical instrument or mic into and the other end is connected to your computer either as a soundcard or via a USB cable. This will work as an audio input and the mixing board part is all covered in the software package.
Depending on your requirements this might be the way to go or it might not. If you plan on only putting down one audio part at a time then a computer audio interface makes sense. If you want to record a whole band with several parts at once then you'll need a mixing desk with enough channels to deal with this.
One thing you will need to deal with when attaching your interface and laying down your instruments and voice is latency. This is the delay between the sound you create and it being played back to you by the computer. Latency can completely throw off your rythm if you don't reduce it. A way to achieve this is to use ASIO device drivers for your computer interface. You can download free universal ASIO drivers at asio4all.com. Also be sure that your interface includes a preamp.
When you have your audio interface set up and can record and monitor your work without latency you're virtually good to go. All you want now is some decent computer software to act as a mixing desk, sequencer and sampler. Just about every good computer interface will come packaged with some recording software, normally a cut down edition of a full product but sufficient to get you started.
Other than that there are numerous low cost and even free programs you can download. There are also numerous communities on the web where you can share your ideas, get help and support and download royalty free samples to use in your music.
Those really are the bare necessities for a home recording studio setup assuming you intend to record your own material (as opposed to just play with loops) and that you already have an instrument and/or mic with the necessary leads. Aside from these it's also important to get some good speakers and earphones. These days things like effects and processors can all be found in computer software, although as you advance you may want to invest in some hardware versions of these down the line.
You'll also have to make sure that the acoustics in your recording environment are optimal. Don't forget soundproofing as well. There is a great deal to learn and do to get a good home recording studio setup but in the beginning you can just focalise on the essentials. A decent computer, an audio interface and some software can start you out very nicely. For more information there are plenty of free guides you can download off the web to get you going.
Peter Webber is the owner of dot-funk.com which has a free ebook download Home Recording 101 which will get you started on your home recording studio setup
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