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So…you want to build a professional home recording studio? Well, join the club. Due to the recent advances in technology in the fi eld of electronics, building a home recording studio is now more of a reality than it was 15 years ago. For example, 15 years ago, setting up a home studio to record 24 tracks at once would have been unthinkable for most people. The cost of the gear alone would have made it almost impossible to do, unless someone had some serious money to burn for a hobby. Today, though, the unthinkable has become the affordable.

Just look at current gear costs for a moment. For an investment of well under four grand, you can have a 24-track board designed by Malcolm Toft of Toft Audio Designs®, which has the same technology used on the Trident Boards he designed back in the ’70s and ’80s. And even better yet, it’s constructed directly under Malcolm’s watchful eye. That price is amazing when you think about the fact that you would spend upwards of $27,000 for a used 32-track Trident Console. Heck, even the 80B input modules cost $950 a pop used—if you can fi nd them.

Plus, you can have top-of-the-line tube gear produced by companies like Manley® in Chino California or Sebatron in Australia, and EveAnna Manley and Sebatron themselves are leading the way to innovative designs, while directly overseeing the construction of the gear they’re selling you. Then you have thousands of options for affordable solid-state gear, including effects boxes, compressors, limiters, preamps, amplifi ers, etc.

Companies like Joemeek, Tascam, PreSonus, M-Audio, and more all give you a wide variety of options for your recording needs. All of this creates an affordable cost for starting your own home recording studio.

Most of you reading this article probably have a fair idea of how to use this gear—after all, you’re musicians. However, what you lack is the knowledge that it takes to build a room in which you can use this gear effectively.

Don’t get me wrong—you can set up in any old room of your house (or apartment) and play around with your gear. Maybe you can even make some halfway decent sounding demo CDs if you run back and forth 10 or 12 times to your car so that you get the levels corrected. But, without a decent room, you’ll never be able to sit down and really make anything you’ll be truly proud of and excited to have other people hear.

The gear is only part of the equation when it comes to recording and mixing; the other part is the room(s) you do it in.

As a minimum, depending on the kind of music you do, the following are must-haves for a successful home studio:

Space

A quiet, comfortable space in which to record is essential.

A good microphone

There are almost as many microphones to choose from as there are singers and instrumentalists to use them. One of the best values on the market today is the Rode NT-1 (around $200), or its slightly more expensive cousin, the NT-2. If you’re on the slimmest of budgets, a Shure SM-58 ($100) will do in a pinch. For instrument miking, you just about can’t beat the Shure SM-57 ($100). Do not underestimate the importance of a good-sounding mic it’s one of the major advantages commercial studios have had in the past, since they can afford to pay thousands of dollars for high-quality large condenser mics like Neumann’s U-87 and U-89 series. These days, you can buy a large condenser mic (like the NT-1) that will come very close to the expensive Neumanns.

Mass storage for your master recordings

Most focus on using CD-ROM and CD audio as a primary means of storage , but you can also use a DAT or an external hard drive to great effect. Any way you look at it, you must have a reliable, lossless way to keep track of your tracks.

Mixers

Behringer or Mackie; Alesis in a penny-pinching pinch. Computer systems—HP, IBM, Dell, and Gateway are all reliable prebuilt PCs. Building your own can get you more for your money if you already know how to assemble all the pieces and parts and make them work.

Sound cards

A SoundBlaster compatible will do as a bare minimum; however, you’ll want to purchase a professional-quality board with higher bit depth and true full duplex capabilities, as well as multiple inputs and outputs.

Processors

PC and Mac machines are currently in abundance and have plenty of processor for multi-track digital recording. Fast Pentium are the best choices and are widely compatible with sound cards and other peripherals for use with PCs. AMD’s series of processors are also a good choice and often more reasonably priced.

Motherboards

If you’re rolling your own (building your own computer), motherboard manufacturers to look for are Intel, ASUS, Gigabyte. Read up on chipsets and the quality of their software drivers.

Memory

Use as much as you and OS can afford.

Hard drives

320 GB disk should be enough for first recordings.

Operating system

Windows 7 or Mac OS. An older version of Windows may work, but don’t go back any further than Windows 98, Second Edition.

Recording studio software

Propellerhead Reason, Cakewalk Sonar, Pro Tools M-Powered, Ableton Live, Acoustica Mixcraft and many more. Cheap, professional and easy to use.

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