home studio

I review the AKAI Professional MPK Mini Play MKIII for Best Buy's blog. This portable midi controller impresses with its size and features the awesome MPC drum pads!

With the right gear, anyone can become a content creator. Here's how you can get the best audio for your content.

  Home recording technology seems to get better and cheaper with every passing moment. What you can achieve in your spare room or home studio today was only in the realm of high-priced professional installations a dozen years ago. The problem you’ve probably already encountered is that there is a LOT of information out there. I’m going to try and break things down into manageable chunks. I’ll walk you through some concepts you should be familiar with and touch on some gear that you may or may not want to consider.

 If you are in the market for a stereo mixer that won’t colonize a lot of space then the Yamaha MG06X may be what you are looking for. Compact but with incredible power and features, small-scale live performers, DJs, or home studio producers can all benefit from this compact, portable, and well built mixer.

The XSW 2-835-A wireless microphone system offers professionals quality build and excellent frequency response and wireless connectivity for all your live recording needs.

Ideal for simple podcast production, Shure's MVX2UI is a single channel audio interface that connects any XLR microphone to a USB-C port on your device.

The Shure SRH840A and SRH440A are revisions of classic monitor headphones that will interest audio creators, musicians and podcasters.

If you're getting into recording and want the most bang for your buck, the Audio Technica AT2020 is a professional grade microphone at a budget price.

For the vast majority of home studio owners, the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software is the control center of their studio. The DAW is the program that allows you to create, record, edit and arrange audio.   Picking one that fits your needs can be a confusing tornado of options, features and opinion. Which one do you chose? 

Any meaningful discussion with an recording engineer will inevitably morph into a discussion about microphones. Just as a closet full of shoes is never enough for a lot of the women I’ve known, a closet full of microphones is rarely ever enough for most recording engineers. There are a lot of different types of microphones and there are a many, many brands, shapes and sizes to pick from. I hope to at least get you started with a road-map of what to look for in microphones and I apologize in advance for setting you on this path! If you’re set on recording as a hobby or career, there’s a very good chance that you’re going to get slightly obsessed with microphones.