Getting started
Start your home studio: three decisions that matter
People usually start a home studio by buying a microphone. That is the second-most expensive decision available to them, and it is usually made before the two decisions that actually shape the result.
Decision one: what are you making?
A home studio is not one thing. The gear, the room and the workflow for a spoken podcast are barely related to those for a five-piece band, and the cost difference is large.
Before anything else, write down the kind of work you expect to do in the next year:
- Voice only — vocals, spoken word, podcasts, audiobooks. A decent USB microphone, a pop filter, a decent pair of headphones and a soft room will get you most of the way. You do not need an interface at all.
- One person, many instruments — guitar, keys, the occasional drum loop. This is the classic home studio, and it needs an interface with a couple of inputs, a couple of microphones and a DAW.
- A band, tracked one at a time — guitar and bass parts recorded at home, drums and vocals as overdubs. You need more inputs, more microphones, and a room that can take a kit without falling apart.
- Live recordings — playing together in the same room with microphones. Harder than it sounds, and the room matters far more than the microphone choice.
Write it down and stick to it for a year. The temptation to buy for the version of you that exists in two years is the single biggest cause of wasted money in home studios.
Do not buy for the person you might become. Buy for the work you are actually going to make this year, then spend the difference on the room.
Decision two: what room do you have?
Your room is a given, not a purchase — but it decides how much treatment you need and what you can realistically record in.
Look around and answer three questions honestly:
- What is the size? Small rooms are harder than large ones. Below about 2.5 meters in any direction you will fight bass modes whatever you do. Large rooms are often worse for early reflections because the reflections arrive later and overlap the direct sound.
- What is the floor and ceiling doing? Carpet, bed, sofa and heavy curtains absorb high frequencies. Bare floor and bare ceiling give you back everything you record.
- What time do you use it? A room next to a road is a different problem from a room next to a washing machine. If the noise is there at two in the morning, no amount of microphone technique will save the recording.
The good news: the majority of home studios are in small rooms, and the majority of small-room problems are solved with broadband panels, a rug or two, a curtain, and bass traps in the corners. That is a few hundred dollars of materials and a weekend, and it beats every equipment purchase on this page.
Decision three: what do you already own?
Some of the most useful gear is already in the house:
- A laptop or desktop — modern computers are far more powerful than the software assumes. If your machine can run a browser with several tabs open, it can run a DAW.
- A phone — good for reference, not good for recording.
- Headphones — the ones that came with the phone will get you started, badly.
- A quiet corner, a closet full of clothes, a garage, a bathroom with a hard surface — all potential recording spaces, each with different problems.
Check what is in the house before spending. A free trial of a paid DAW, a borrowed interface, or a second-hand microphone from a local seller can carry you months.
A sane order to buy things
This is the order we recommend, and it is the same for almost everybody:
- A DAW — start with the free or near-free option. See choosing a DAW.
- An interface with one or two inputs — see choosing an audio interface.
- A microphone — one microphone, chosen for the room you are in. See microphones.
- Headphones — closed-back, for tracking.
- Room treatment — panels and traps, once you can hear the problem.
- Monitors — last, if ever. Many great records have been mixed on headphones and nearfields.
- The second microphone — when you know what the first one is doing.
Common beginner mistakes
- Buying a condenser microphone for an untreated room. Condenser mics pick up the room beautifully, including the noise and the reverb. In a reflective room, a dynamic microphone is the better instrument.
- Buying monitors before treating the room. Untreated monitors are lying to you about what you have recorded.
- Buying a big condenser for loud sources. A guitar amp at three feet needs a ribbon or a dynamic, not a large-diaphragm condenser. This is the single most common self-inflicted wound in home studios.
- Buying plugins before a room. Nothing fixes a muddy recording.
- Mixing at random hours of the day. Your ears change with fatigue and with background noise. Mix at the same time of day, at the same level, for the whole project.
The most common piece of missing gear is a quiet room. It is also the cheapest, if you are willing to spend a weekend on it.
A 30-day plan
- Week 1 — pick your project type, find your room, check the noise floor at the quietest time of day, install a DAW and record anything at all.
- Week 2 — borrow or buy a basic interface and one microphone. Record a voice and a guitar. Listen back critically and write down what is wrong.
- Week 3 — fix the loudest problems: noise first, then levels, then the room. One treatment session with borrowed or cheap panels.
- Week 4 — record a complete piece, even a rough one. Do not mix it yet. Export it and listen a week later.
That last point matters more than it sounds. A finished rough recording teaches you more in a month than a month of gear research.