What to buy when setting up a home recording studio By Richard Harfield, HW Audio Ltd, Bolton. There are a million different combinations of equipment that you can choose, and the well-­‐known names all make gear that should work well together and, given enough time and experience, you can produce professional studio quality results with it. Bruce Springsteen even recorded an album on a basic cassette based portastudio (remember cassettes if you are over 30?) . The album is called Nebraska, and is surprisingly good. Basically you have 4 options as to the means of recording 1) An all in one portastudio – these are made by Tascam, who invented the portastudio, initially recording on cassette, then they progressed to card storage and now they have their own hard drives built in. Some will also record your finished mix to CD for a permanent record of your creation, or as a master for duplication. 2) A computer based system. This can either be PC or Mac. If you buy a Mac, which is the more expensive option, it comes pre-­‐loaded with the program or software you need. As standard it comes with GarageBand, but can be upgraded to Logic, a more comprehensive package. If you are going down the PC route, you will need to either buy a program, or the program quite often comes bundled with other gear that you will need, normally the recording interface – more about that later 3) A tablet based system. These tend to be simple 2 track app-­‐based recorders, which are used with an audio interface. 4) A mixer with dedicated channel recording output, such as the Line6 Stagescape M20D or one which will directly interface to a computer such as the Yamaha 01V. With the portastudio option, it’s a simple matter of deciding how many channels you need; this is determined by how many mics you would want to record at the same time. For example, a drum kit might require 6 or 8 mic channels, where an acoustic guitar may only require 1 or 2. Add a microphone (see our PA buying guide for more details on mics) , a pair of headphones for monitoring, and a set of powered speakers for mixdown and you have the basic set up. With the computer based option there are a few more things that can be bought, which makes the system more versatile, but also slightly more complex. You may need Microphone (unless you are only recording from a source like keyboard or electro-­‐acoustic guitar) This is most likely to be a large-­‐diaphragm condenser microphone like the one shown left, which would give best results. However your studio will still produce ok results with a conventional live microphone if your budget doesn’t run to a studio microphone. Audio Interface or Sound card. This is not to be confused by the internal soundcard in the computer which is not suitable for quality recording. It needs to have at least one XLR socket on it with phantom power for powering condenser mics (see PA guide for explanation of phantom power). Basic interfaces can’t be expanded, but more sophisticated ones have ADAT expansion ports which allow extra channels to be added simply, normally in groups of 8. Computer – Mac or PC – you decide according to budget. Macs are more stable and are “on” in seconds, unlike pcs which can take several minutes to load everything Midi Controller Keyboard In the program that you use to record your music are things called “plugins”. These are programs or apps which enable you to do various things including accessing a range of midi controllable sounds, accessing loops, inserting compressors, gates, de-­‐essers and many other effects into your recordings. Many of these plugins can be controlled by a controller keyboard. At its simplest it is just a keyboard to control on-­‐board midi sounds such as piano, strings etc.; at the other end, keyboards are available to control a whole raft of parameters on your program. Headphones These are used to listen to one track and play in sync the next track to be recorded, without getting overspill of the tracks you have already recorded onto the track you are recording. Studio headphones have the following characteristics: Closed back, to give isolation from what you are listening to, to open mics Flat frequency response and neutral sound – you hear what is actually recorded. Studio Monitors Studio monitors are designed to sound as neutral as possible. These days most monitors are “active” ; that is they have amplifiers built in them, which makes life a little easier. You will need a power socket for each though, and a signal lead to each one. Accessories Mic stand, monitor speaker stands, pop shields, acoustic tiles and reflection screens are also desirable extras. Tablet based system Primarily aimed at the iPad market, units such as the Focusrite iTrack combine a studio grade mic preamp with an iPad / Mac interface and a free recording app to make recording high quality sound on the move. It’s a great first step, but you will soon realise the shortcomings of the system and want to trade up. Mixer based recorders. If you are a live band who want to record your performances in a live situation, but then want to record overdubs, or remix at a later date, then there are quite a few digital desks which have real-­‐time recording of each channel direct to USB. An example of this is the Line6 Stagescape M20D mixer. It’s a very sophisticated, yet intuitive mixer which can record 16 channels to USB, which can then be imported into your favourite DAW program for mixing, Or if you want something more sophisticated, and what you would find in a smaller pro studio, the Yamaha 01V96 which is a full featured digital desk with moving faders, and perfect integration with Cubase which is included. So, in short, there is a lot to think about. Our experts at HW Audio are always happy to help you in specifying your home studio, just give us a call.