home studio

Advances in technology have made it easier than ever before for the casual musician to write and record their own music. The iPad is a user friendly and portable addition to this.

Equally adept as a field recorder or an audio interface, the ZOOM H4n Pro is versatile wherever you might need it.

Recording decent audio for video production is arguably the most difficult aspect of the video making process. The Zoom H5 with its quality and ease of use just made this process a whole lot friendlier.

 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.

 There was a time not so long ago when the thought of purchasing a quality large diaphragm condenser microphone meant that you were about to drop some serious dollars. In recent years several manufacturers have started to produce top quality mics at an affordable price point and the MXL 2006 may be the cream of this crop.  

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.

If, like most home or project studio owners, you’ve opted to use a computer as the center of your studio, then you’ll most likely be hearing a lot about audio interfaces.    For the typical home user, the sound card on your computer is just fine. Unfortunately, for a studio owner, you’ll very quickly find that the onboard sound system is inadequate for your needs. They’re typically noisy, they lack inputs and outputs you’ll most likely need and they can be inefficient in the way they translate analog and digital audio.   That’s where audio interfaces come into the picture. An audio interface is a piece of dedicated hardware that you connect to your computer. In the most basic sense, the interface is the audio middleman between you (the real world) and the computer. 

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? 

How are you going to be using your studio?   The answers to this question will set you on a path to figuring out what you might need to start your journey in recording. There are many, many different configurations of gear that can be assembled into a studio. Which configuration fits your needs best?

  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.