{"id":752,"date":"2024-04-05T23:58:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T23:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnbriner.com\/?p=752"},"modified":"2025-02-26T04:53:04","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T04:53:04","slug":"building-a-home-recording-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnbriner.com\/?p=752","title":{"rendered":"Building a Home Recording Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Event\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

I cut my recording teeth on analog equipment through the 90s.<\/p>

I loved the big mixing boards, the patch bays, the effects racks, and trying to get your songs perfectly placed on 15 minutes-to-a-side cassette tape.\u00a0 I started collecting music from the tail end of the vinyl era, through to the cassette and CD era, and got sidetracked by life well before the streaming era.<\/p>

All the home, church, and university recording I did went straight to tape.\u00a0 And that was really the only recording medium I gained any real skills in.<\/p>

Fast forward to late 2023 when I decided to start exploring digital recording more seriously.\u00a0 As I began to look deeper into building a digital home studio, the first thing that surprised me was how little space was required.\u00a0 Where was the massive 40-track mixing boards?\u00a0 Where were the numerous patch bays and the rat\u2019s nest of patch cords?\u00a0 And where did the effects units go?<\/p>

After spending several weeks researching and trying to catch up on a couple decades-worth of missed technological advancement, I quickly learned that digital recording had distilled everything down into a laptop-sized workstation that housed almost everything required to produce pretty decent recordings.\u00a0 In fact, I was shocked to read how many award-winning artists were recording and producing in home recording studios.<\/p>

Armed with my research, I set out to building a decent home studio in an under-utilized part of the house.\u00a0 I was open to anything, but had a few guidelines; I wanted to stay within a budget under $5,000, do minimal renovations, put it together relatively quickly, and have decent enough equipment to produce broadcast-quality recordings.<\/p>

Okay, so with all of that criteria, here was the ten-step checklist I put together to build out my home studio as well as links to where I found everything:<\/p>

  1. Studio Space<\/li>
  2. Computer\/ External Hard Drive<\/li>
  3. Audio Interface<\/li>
  4. Studio Monitors<\/li>
  5. DAW<\/li>
  6. Microphones & Pop Filter<\/li>
  7. Headphones<\/li>
  8. MIDI Keyboard<\/li>
  9. Cables and Mic Stands<\/li>
  10. Room Treatment<\/li><\/ol>

    __________________________________________________________________________<\/p>

    1. Studio Space<\/span><\/strong><\/p>

    Cost: $0<\/strong><\/p>

    \"\"<\/p>

    We had a catch-all room in the house which had shelving containing everything from Christmas decorations to winter clothing, acted as a home office\/work station, and had a family\u2019s worth of unwanted and outgrown shoes.\u00a0 I tore out the shelves, moved out the boxes and d\u00e9cor, and gave the shoes to charity.<\/p>

    The room was perfect as the ceiling was over 8 feet high, and the room was rectangular at 8 feet x 14 feet.\u00a0 Square rooms that have symmetrical walls cancel out certain frequencies and mess with sound waves.<\/p>

    I patched up the holes and re-painted the room a soft, relaxing off-white.\u00a0 I put up a large bookcase at the far end of the room, where I put my vinyl collection and the books that inspire me.\u00a0 I hung my favorite art pieces and basically made a space that I would want to spend a lot of time in.<\/p>

    2. Computer\/Laptop<\/span><\/strong><\/p>

    Cost: $2,500<\/strong><\/p>

    \"\"<\/p>

    Even though I had only ever used PCs and had limited experience with Apple products, I decided to go with a MacBook.\u00a0 I knew it would be a steeper learning curve since I\u2019m not even a big fan of laptops, but I wanted the portability of a laptop so I could be a little more mobile, plus I had learned that Mac was quite a bit more compatible with recording software.<\/p>

    Considering everything your laptop needs to do, it wasn\u2019t surprising that this became the single most expensive piece of the studio.<\/p>

    I ended up getting a MacBook Pro with 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage.\u00a0 It is super light, and easy to operate. Super happy with this buy so far!<\/p>

    I ended up also purchasing a mouse as I had trouble getting used to the pad on the laptop.\u00a0 I wanted the feel and movement of a mouse.<\/p>

    Once my laptop arrived and I started experimenting, I added a couple other little goodies as well; an external hard drive to store my finished recordings, and a multi-port USB hub, since the laptop didn\u2019t have quite enough ports for everything I wanted to plug in.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>