“A home studio, or a project studio can cost anywhere from three or four hundred dollars up to, you know, 10, 20, $30,000 a build. A professional studio starts around 40 to $50,000 on up to a few million, or better.”
– Rick Camp, RC1 Productions & Master Mix Live, Las Vegas, NV
“I would say realistically 10 to $20,000 for a home studio whereas a professional studio would cost, say between 150K and a million plus to open the doors.”
– Mike Johnson, Clear Track Recording Studios, Clearwater, FL
With Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube and other platforms nowadays, anyone can just record and release their music directly to these websites. But of course you want to make sure that you download quality music and with quality, it means you need to have your songs recorded from a recording studio that has the best equipment. Although you can rent a recording studio, setting up your own can help you save in the long term and having it means it would be easy for you to record once you come up with an idea.
We want you to only have the best so check out the essential equipment for your home recording studio:
Home Recording Studio Essentials
1) A Decent Computer
Your computer will act as the backbone of your entire digital music production setup - that's why it is important to make sure that you only choose the best. Here are the must haves for computers that are making music: at least 8 GB of Ram, at least 1 TB of Memory, a 12” screen or up, and a 3.0 processor and at least dual core.
And here are the top computers that would work best:
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M7 from PCAudio Lab
Pros: Easy to set-up, can accommodate many types of software and hardware, Low latency, fast rendering and fast sample load times,Smaller, faster cache, i7 processor, Direct media interface with speed of up to 2 GB/s
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HP Pavilion Power 15
Pros: Good Battery Life, Solid Graphics and Overall Performance, Slinky Design
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Dell Inspiron 15
Pros: Interesting surface haptic, Surprisingly decent audio output,Good price performance ratio, Big Widescreen, Simple and straightforward design
2) DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)
First off, What is DAW?
A Digital Audio Workstation is a software that is used to edit, record,mix, master and produce audio. Whether you are mixing and recording music, doing podcasts or voice overs, a DAW is where it will all come together. Hence, the decision in choosing the best DAW is one of the toughest yet most important decisions that you have to make to set up your studio.
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Apple Logic Pro X
Pros: allows users to easily edit audio recordings and record audio from scratch, as well as create IDI tracks, Interface intuitive and easy to use, Excellent piece of Software, Integration with all Apple products
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Avid Pro Tools
Pros:Strong software support, quality plug-ins , Powerful Multi-track Editing, Optimized for Multimedia projects
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Presonus Studio One 4
Pros: Pristine Sound Quality, Unlimited audio and instrument tracks, advanced automation features, virtual instruments, buses, and FX channels and Chord Track manipulates audio and note data of any or all tracks for easy chordal experimentation and song prototyping, Build unique sounds with Multi-Instrument and Extended FX Chains.
3) Quality Microphones
With so many options for microphones that you can find in the market today, it might be confusing to decide which ones you need to choose. You’re not just choosing random microphones. You need the ones that will perfectly work for your recording studio.
The best are the ones that can perfectly capture the sound of the instrument or the sound source.
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Shure SM7B
Pros: Natural Sound, Works without external shock mount and pop filters, Easy to use, Works even without external shock mount and pop filters, and Crystal Clean Rich, Lows.
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Rode NT1-A Anniversary Model
Pros: Easy to use and to set- up, gives professional sound quality at an affordable price, Generates deep and natural sound and warms up any recorded sound.
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Neumann TLM 103
Pros: Extremely low self-noise, Broad presence boost for enhanced sound definition,
4) Studio Monitors
Having decent monitors to properly hear what you’re recording and mixing is very important. That is why choosing the best studio monitors can be pretty much stressful for many studio owners. There are many options to choose from and each studio monitor may have different features.
And what makes a good set of monitors?
Wide frequency range that can reproduce both high end and low end sounds without distortion. Should give an accurate reproduction of your original audio recordings highlight any weaknesses in the recording so that you will not what to edit and you can get the exact sound that you want to have.
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KRK Rokit RP7 G4
High Grade Material and the State of the Art DSP
High-grade materials equal a great listening experience
State-of-the-art DSP maximizes your room’s acoustics
Custom-designed power amp retains better audio integrity
Pros: Punchy delivery with plenty of EQ tweaking options,Front port useful if you need to position close to the wall and Integrated isolation and mounting pad.
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Focal Shape 65
Pros: Revolutionary M-shaped inverted-dome tweeter, TMD surround ensures total midrange neutrality, Double passive-radiators ensure low-end stability, Glass Speaker Cones, and the Next-generation amplification and electronics.
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HEDD Audio Type 20
Pros: convenient dimensions to easily fit the speakers into compact recording, sophisticated home studios and the complete skill set of a full-range midfield monitoring system
5) Headphones
Not all headphones would work best for your home studio. You need a closed back pair of headphones while recording to minimize any bleed from the audio you are tracking to.
Here are some of our recommendations for your recording studio:
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Sennheiser HD 650 Open Back Professional Studio
Pros: High quality sound, professional and sleek design and has a solid base quality
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Sennheiser HD 800 Reference Studio
Pros: Comfortable design, Excellent audio production, durable quality
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Audio-Technica ATH-M50x Professional Studio
Pros: Powerful bass, 90° swiveling ear cups for easy, one-ear monitoring, Great value
6) Good audio interface
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Audient iD4
Pros: Has a dual headphone output and has both jack and mini jack output, iOS Compatible, and built to last
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MOTU M2 and M4
Pros: High quality, low noise pre-amps, power switch, Individual phantom power and monitoring buttons, loop-back facility, DC Coupled outputs and Jack and RCA outputs
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Mackie Onyx Producer 2.2
Pros: Robust build quality and compact footprint, MIDI input and output, Bundled copy of Tracktion 7 and DAW Essentials to get you started and Up to 24 bit, 192 kHz operation.