Often when we think of building a home studio, we think of excessive expenditure in material, it’s not true! The creation of a home studio can be very clearly accessible to people who want to enter the field of professional audio recording.
Building your own Professional Recording Studio, ‘s very expensive?
If you choose to build your own professional home studio, the average investment cost is around 650 euros (around $800 USD). Of course, you will need some basic knowledge in the musical world in order to unleash your potential by investing in more expensive equipment afterward! First of all, you will have to invest in equipment that will serve you right away no matter what level you have or what you think you will use it for (professional or not !)
What do you need for a Home Professional recording studio?
In fact, it all depends on the budget you want to put into it, before investing in high-end equipment directly, the thing to think about is to do the three F (For what, for who, for what utility ? )
For what: What is your goal in investing in the creation of a personal home studio? Is it for a future professional purpose or simply for a passion for music and computer music creation?
For who: Do you want to do it for friends who are singers or musicians or can this passion turn into a job and ask you to have clients afterward?
For what utility: This question is a bit on hold if you don’t want to invest for professional purposes, but it can still be interesting, you may have a desire to progress and make one day your own music studio that will host Beyonce (ok it’s a bit pretentious) any way you have to ask yourself this question, is the investment you’re going to make is for a return on investment and do you want to make a living from your activity?
What equipment do I need to Build my Home Studio ?
We have selected a few things you need to get started with a basic budget of less than 1300 euros (1580 $USD)
- Desktop computer or laptop: You can get them for less than 500 euros (about $610 USD), even very good ones on second-hand unless you invest in the Big Apple brand it will be more expensive!) If you are mobile, the laptop is, of course, the best option! Favored the processor, RAM, and storage which will be very important to run software and hardware requiring a strong potential!
- An audio mixing software: A license for music management software like Cubase, Ableton Live, Audacity or even Garage Band which is a good native software on the Apple OS)
- Digital plugin for the audio console: On some software, you can buy complementary plugins to revive the expensive consoles of Jean-Michel Jarre’s time, very good alternatives that can enrich your way of working with audio.
- Microphones: The best is a microphone clone type Neumann or AKG in DIY as you can find on Mic & Mod, a clone of Neumann U87 will be a good investment, which will allow you to start recording voices and even instruments! A clone of AKG C12 will also allow you to make beautiful realizations thanks to its integrated 12AY7 tube, ideal for acoustic guitars or piano! You can have cheaper microphones already built, but isn’t it more interesting to have sounds close or even better than the good old Neumann from the 50s or 60s?
- Microphone stand: If you buy the U87 or C12 of Mic & Mod, you will already have a shock mount adaptable to this one, you will just have to choose a good stand to fix it ( No need to ruin yourself for that, a K&M 210/9 Black will do the job!
- Studio speakers: A small pair of active loudspeakers of the kind KRK Rokit RP5 G4 will be more than enough to have a satisfying sound return!
- Good studio headphones : A simple headphone like the AKG K-240 will be a good value of quality !)
- Instruments (if you already have some so much better, otherwise I can advise you to buy basic brands like you can get from Yamaha music, which is of very good quality)
How much space is needed to Build a Home Studio in the best condition?
To start a home studio in the best conditions, it will be necessary to have a room of about 15 m2 without windows if it is possible, otherwise, it will be necessary to insulate the walls and openings (doors and windows) as much as possible to avoid noise pollution.
The best is still to buy acoustic foams that you can find at any audio retailer at low or higher prices depending on the quality of the foam and the format (simple, honeycomb, thick, etc.).
The important thing is to be isolated from the world, a room in a basement will be very interesting, already because you won’t bother anyone with your sound volume, but also because you will be able to isolate the outside noises to the maximum and contribute to obtaining the best studio quality rendering.
