Getting Started

I got so caught up about doing reviews and helping others get studio quality sound out of their home studios on a budget that I forgot about the most crucial part of the home studio, getting started!

            When you first get into recording and you’re still learning about what you need to start a little home studio you may be overwhelmed with all the terms, equipment, and not to mention the price tags you will encounter when making that first purchase. Hopefully this post can help those who are looking to start their journey into the recording world and make sure they are happy with their first purchase in that direction!

When first starting out there are four crucial things you will need to begin recording music: a computer with a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), an interface, a microphone and a pair of monitors. Like most things, the largest investment you will have to make is when you start. Although it can seem like a large investment for you at the time it is the most important investment you can make, especially if you are starting your home studio to financially benefit yourself. I have been recording music for the past 5 years and still have the first interface and microphone I purchased, newer versions of my DAW of preference have come out since then but essentially I still use the same one.

Now you may be wondering, “what is this DAW thing that you keep mentioning?” A DAW is simply a fancy word for a recording program. DAW stands for Digital Audio Workspace that is essentially what it is, a workspace where you can edit, mix, manipulate, chop, amplify, do whatever you can imagine to the audio you have recorded! There are several DAW’s out there available to choose from; some of the more prevalent audio industry leaders currently are Pro Tools, Logic, and Reason. Each of these tailor more towards different uses, for example, Pro Tools is much easier to use when recording audio and editing and mixing it into your song versus Reason which is tailored specifically to people who compose music using midi instruments. Logic is similar to Reason in the aspect that it is tailored towards those composing music using midi instruments, however, it also has the capability to record audio but lacks the feasibility that Pro Tools has when it comes to editing and mixing the tracks. In the end of the day it comes down to what you plan on recording to make the best choice for yourself, every situation is different and do lots of research on different DAW’s people are using. There are several more out there besides these three, find out which ones out there work best for you!   

How does sound get inside my computer into this DAW from the outside world? That is the job of your audio interface! Essentially, that is all your interface does however this is probably the most crucial part of the sound of your recording because cheap interfaces have cheap converters and parts that add a lot of noise and unwanted artifacts into your audio when you record it down into your DAW. Interfaces have a part called the A/D (Audio to Digital) and D/A (Digital to Audio) converters. As their name states they convert Analog audio signals into Digital information and vice versa. You want this to preserve the quality of audio you are recording if you have cheap converters you will hear a lot of noise when you record your first track and that noise will make you sad because it doesn’t sound as nice as the stuff we all hear on the radio. However, a lot of interfaces out there serve dual purpose as a good preamp as well! A preamp is simply needed to boost the microphones output level to a line level, or a loud enough level to record at. Just like the DAW’s it is good to do research and base you purchase on what you will be recording. If you plan on only doing vocal work get a smaller interface with great converters and a few inputs with a great preamp built in or if you plan on recording several instruments at the same time maybe a larger interface suits you best. I’ve been using a Digidesign 003 since I’ve started and have had great results with it. There are several other awesome interfaces around their price range of $600-$900 it’s just a matter of picking out which one is best for you.

Monitors are extremely important considering they are the speakers that you will hear everything you have just recorded through. Since you are working with audio it is kind of important to hear the audio you are working with. There are a lot of speakers out there to chose from and they come in all shapes and sizes and like everything else in the audio industry there is not a right pair of monitors to purchase but like I mentioned earlier its important to not skimp out and get something cheap for these. Monitors are crucial because they will be your representation of what your mix will sound like. What you want from a pair of monitors is for them to translate well between different listening mediums (e.g., car, laptop speakers, headphones). You want a pair of monitors that you know when you finally bounce your mix and play them in your car your mix will still sound the same. Something a lot of speaker boxes will have is what frequencies those speakers can produce (e.g. 80-20,000Hz) this is important because if your mixing with small speakers that only produce frequencies from 500Hz and up you wont be hearing any of the bass when mixing and since you cant hear them you turn them up until you can but then when you move that mix to listen in your car all you will hear is all the bass and that is not a good mix. The Yamaha HS80’s are some great beginner monitors that translate really well and I have been really happy with my mixes through them, but everyone hears differently so chose the speakers that sound best to you!

Last but certainly not least comes the microphone! Well to get any sound into your computer and out through your monitors you will need a microphone. Just like the interfaces there are cheap microphones out there that are made from cheap components that will add noise to your recording, I unfortunately made this mistake when purchasing my first microphone. This however can be one of the departments you won’t have to shell out more that $500 for to get a decent sounding piece of equipment. Around the $200 there are several great starter microphones such as the: Rode NT-1A, Blue Spark (Baby Bottle’s Little Brother), Audio-Technica AT20-20 or AT40-40, these are just a few of the abundance of microphones available! Something worth checking out for microphones is checking what their frequency response is, that is something I always check before purchasing a microphone. If a microphone has a boost around 2 kHz I may purchase that microphone primarily for use with vocals or guitars, if a microphone has a boost around 100 Hz I may purchase it to use with a kick drum of bass guitar. Any microphone can generally be used for anything that is the beauty of the recording, experimenting with different microphones to capture different sounds to find the one that works best for my mix. There is no such thing as an ultimate vocal production microphone or the best overall microphone it is all a matter of opinion and what sounds good to you and your ear! Microphones are like the paintbrushes to an artist different ones will give you different textures and usually you wont get away with using just one for your whole project. I’d go into the different types of microphones but that is a whole other post in itself. Like everything else do your research on different microphones and find out which one works best for you to start working on your projects!

If you have made it this far into the post give yourself a pat on the back for reading through all that! If you still feel confused about anything please feel free to comment or email me with questions I would love to help out! I hope you have found this blog post helpful towards taking your first steps into the audio industry and that you have as great of a journey as I have so far down this long confusing road!