stage 1
Determine whats needed to start on a budget but quality studio. This being said i have to decided what i need. Now first you have to be able to mix well based of the sound your hearing. so after so long headphones become heavy and painful on you ears. This being said studio monitors are a must for me. Obviously i need high quality headphones for more complex mixes. things with multiple melody layers a lot of drum patterns so on and on this can go. not to mention prolonged exposure to loud sounds and high frequency's cause hearing damage ( i like my ears a lot!).
Now we have touched on whats needed for proper mixing we need to decide whats need for recording. First your going to want an audio interface(yay high quality moans... i mean uhhh memes!). In simple terms a sound interface is what process your sound and sends it to the speakers. This allows you to use phantom power on you mic's and speakers as well. and i know what you all asking whats phantom power? Phantom power is used with condenser microphones. It is called this because there is no external power supply for the condenser mic or speaker. (simple terms the interface is the power supply. gotta love over complicated business terms). This also allows you to record like electric guitar,violin.ext. Next you need XLR cables so the interface can read you mic in-input and power the mic. Also you need instrument cables(duh). though this only apply's if your recording live instruments.
And last but not least to stage 1. Midi stuff for the the instruments that arnt quite instruments(VSTi'S or downloadable/ non-hardware instruments. This is more preference based than some of the other stuff. You really have to decide what you want out of the midi devices. These are the devices you plug in to your computer/and or midi interface to play these instruments you download. For me this means a a built in drum pad and keyboard combo preferably.
stage 2: yay now the fun part!
First lets make a check list of what we need.
- Headphones
- Studio monitors
- Mic
- XLR Cables
- instrument cables
- mic stand (Didn't touch on this but kinda notable)
- audio interface
- and midi device or devices depending on you.
Lets start with monitors and headphones. you looking at the frequency response of these products. for there purpose you want flat level response out of these and good quality crisp sounds. Flat level means that they give you the exact level of sound that is given in the song or track. No extremely boosted highs or lows (leave your Beats studios for your rappers or listening to music cus they got that bass). With the frequency range you want a wide range response so if the sound is really low 20hz or really high 20khz they are capable of playing that sound clearly.(And if you didn't know 20hz and 20khz is the highest and lowest a human can hear)
What you want for studio monitors looks like this:
What you dont want looks like this:
And the difference is what there capable of in frequency response what how high and low they can produce sound. Along with how clearly they portray that sound.And headphones go off of the same principles really. look in to what there frequency response is and you cant go wrong.
Mic's and XLR Cables
This gets repetitive when working with sound but again when looking at Mic's you want a good frequency response (OMG how many times is he going to say frequency response. I know its repetitive). But this time its looking at what range it can pick up. only real difference there. build quality is important though you don't want a Mic that's going to break in a week and you get what you pay for. so do you research on the life span of the mic if it has a warranty and of course its range of response to in coming sound..
On to XLR Cables.You don't want to go cheap here. This is because a cheap cable doesn't send sound as well if the cables cheap there using cheaper materials less time on making it have good build quality things that are normal for absolutely any product.
So go for something like this its not cheap but its a well know and good quality company and product for this kind of thing:
Audio interfaces
Alright now we are at audio interfaces. i don't have to cover what these do because i explained that earlier this you can go cheap on(depending on you needs). I only need to be able to connect a mic and one instrument at a time so a cheap small interface will do since we are talking budget. 50-80$ will cover this for me.
something like the Behringer U-Phoria UMC204HD will work:
MIDI Devices
This really is based on what you need more than any thing like i said earlier. just ask your self do i need drum pads do i need a keyboard(probably if your a producer). things like that me i need drum pads, a keyboard and quite a bit more for my work flow(Im a needy little bit**) any way this is probably the worst part of this.
But what fits my needs is this:
That's the most expensive part of this entire list for me. that is the one place i couldn't manage to find a budget option for because if you arnt comfortable working then your not going to make good music.
stage 3
Building it. this will take a bit of time to get the money to do. I will from this point forward be recording video of the un-boxing of these products and assembly of my in home studio.
thanks for reading guys. and have a good day steamians.
