Home recording studio on a budget?
…or even if not and you have a lot of cash to spend on gear – we thought it would be cool to make a list of recording gear ideas to make your home recording studio sound just a little bit better without having to build out an entire control room. (and while hopefully saving some money in the process).
We care the most about sound quality. Normally in a standard room in a home your acoustics are not going to be great. Your windows aren’t isolated or angled, you have 90 degree angles everywhere… the room is a big box so it sounds that way. An inexpensive way to get some sound isolation and therefore a cleaner recorded sound is to focus on the sound source and microphone rather than treating the entire recording room.
This picture (the porta booth) looks a bit goofy, but if you look at it it’s a VERY easy solution to re-create on your own with not much money spent on materials. The purpose is to isolate the microphone so that acoustic reflections from your recording room don’t bleed back into mic, and therefore into the recorded track (results in a less boomy sound, more direct). It makes it so you don’t have to acoustically treat your entire room just to record a vocal.
Surrounding a microphone with absorbent material means it’s getting sound only from the front of the microphone, as directional as possible, and gets rid of most of the ambient noise in the room. It’s similar to an amp box (difference being an amp box closes entirely so you can turn it up).
The point: doing something like this will get you a much more isolated sound than covering all your walls with acoustic foam. This is easier and much less expensive; heck, you can make it out of cardboard and two materials with different density like a packing blanket on one layer, and foam as the second layer.
Mic options: Don’t be afraid of the Russians ;) Oktava will surprise you and aren’t outrageously expensive (though admittedly a little more difficult to buy than they used to be). Audio Technica and Rode are also inexpensive options that all have a generally clean sound w/o a ton of character, but can be applied to just about anything you’ll need in a home recording environment.
For recording vocals (if in a home studio, probably your main mic’ing focus): Large diaphragm condenser microphone. Make sure you have at least a roll off switch, a pad is a nice addition, but don’t worry about switchable polar patterns for now (just to keep cost down). For a long time I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the Studio Projects C1 microphone.
If you can grab a matched pair, go for it (both a large and small diaphragm set) so that you have options to stereo mic acoustic instruments, then you’re in good shape. You don’t have to get up to the AKG 414 price range, just stay in that $200-$300 price range and you’ll be in good shape.
Dynamic microphones: Hit up ebay for a Sennheiser 421. It’s a great and universal cardioid dynamic mic w/ a strong roll off that can handle anything from a cranked guitar cabinet to a vocal or a floor tom. If you’re doing drums… consider the drum mic kits by Sennheiser, or if you have to Audix. They get the job done, and if you take the time in placement and drum tuning, then you can get a good sound w/o having to spend a ton of money to mic the drum kit.
Cables: learn to solder. Seriously. Buy some bulk balanced cable, Neutrik audio connectors, some heat shrink wrap and go for it. Google for audio wiring diagrams (balanced and unbalanced, XLR, TRS, D-SUB, etc.) and instructions on how to solder different kinds of connectors and adaptor cables.
If you’re serious about recording audio and setting up your home recording studio so that you can get a better than amateur sound, then you’ll need to know how to solder and test cables. Setting up your recording studio this is a lot less expensive and you can solder any and all adaptor cables you might need rather than spending all kinds of money on adapter plugs and over-priced mic cables. Plus you can make them at precisely the lengths required so that your set up is cleaner in both look and sound.
And mic stands: spend a little extra money here. Nothing drives people more crazy than bad mic stands (plus you don’t want these things to tip over when you’re not looking… it’s never fun to watch your microphones plummeting to the ground.
Buy at least one good mic tube pre amp that has an EQ…. a 2 channel one if you can. This will make an incredible difference in your sound quality. Run your signal through the tube amp before sending you your audio interface, plus if you have a 2 channel, then you can even use it as an insert while mixing to warm up / EQ while mixing your music tracks. Look in the $475-600 price range (that’s pretty cheap, you’ll have to do a lot of shopping); you really don’t want to go anything below that, otherwise the overall benefits to your studio set up won’t outweigh the cost.
And finally: Take some time to understand digital audio: how it works, the importance of A/D converters, etc. Here’s a separate post about home studio digital audio set up and tips.
Published: by | Updated: 08-26-2014 17:20:17
