Internet Musician | Singer/Songwriter | Steve Chatterton

So, you want to build your own recording studio, eh?

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Chances are you’re closer than you think

This past weekend I was approached out of the blue by an old friend I haven’t seen in about a decade. Together, Todd and I had won our high schools Battle of the Bands competition back in the ’80’s and had since drifted our separate ways. As a musician, he had a lot of questions about setting up a home studio, and I tried to give him as many answers as I could, and then I got to thinking that I may as well put what I said into writing and pass it along here.

Back in my youth, home recording was primitive at best unless you were extremely privileged, but in recent years the cost of operating your own studio has come down considerably, and chances are most musicians have most of the resources they need already and just don’t know it.

In the old days, home computers were not the norm, but they’ve gotten so commonplace nowadays that some people are using old machines as paperweights and door stops. If you’ve got a computer, chances are you can make music with it.

Is your disc up to scratch?

One of the most important requirements for turning your computer into a studio is your hard disk’s speed. If you’re building a new system, always go with the fastest disk possible. You’ll get much better results with a 7,200 RPM disk than a 5,400 RPM disk. Spend the extra for this if you have to.

So let’s see, now we’ve got a musician and a computer, but we likely also have
a few instruments as well. In my case, there are acoustic and electric guitars, a beat up old trumpet, a penny whistle and a didgeridoo. Your results, like Todd’s, may vary. You’ll need some way to get the sound of your gear into the computer.

Take stock

If you ever play live, chances are you can re-use a lot of that equipment in the recording process. Guitar cables and microphones can come in especially handy here, but you may need one little bit of hardware at this point; a pre-amp that will convert your signal to line level so you can get a decent recording of it. I use a Tascam U-144 that does way more than I require at the moment (S/PDIF Digital Input & Output) but covers all the basics I need (recording vocal and guitar signals) all through a common USB 2.0 interface.

You may also want to yourself a MIDI input device, commonly referred to as a keyboard. Basically, all you need is something that will pump a MIDI signal into the computer to get going. Chances are that you’ll never use any sounds that come packaged with the keyboard once you discover the wide would of software instruments.

Get software for free - and legally, too!

Now that you’ve got a computer and all the means to get sound into the computer, you need a way to record your signal. When computer-based recording first started happening, the only solutions available were professional grade, but recently there are a lot of reasonably priced and free programs that will have everything you need.

Friends of mine who recently bought a Mac were pleasantly surprised to find they had GarageBand already installed as a standard program on their machine. If you’re on a Windows box, there are free software multi-track recorders you can use, such as Kristal Audio Engine. There are also several Linux solutions, if that’s your cup o’ tea.

For a great up to date list of free and more affordable music software, check out KVR Audio.

Also, keep track of any discs that come with the hardware you may have purchased building your studio. There are often light versions of commercial recording studios that are richly feature packed. In the last year I’ve acquired a version of Ableton Live that allowed for four tracks of audio and four tracks of MIDI instruments as well as a version of Cubase that’s “limited” to 48 tracks of audio (even if I used a full version of Cubase, I can’t imagine ever needing any more than 48 tracks, even if my CPU could handle it).

Stop renting, start owning!

One of Todd’s laments was that he was spending a fair bit of money renting a portastudio from a local music shop, which struck me as the wrong way to go about things. To get good results recording, you need to take the time getting comfortable with your gear learning it inside and out. It’s got to be hard getting comfortable with a rental, unless it’s a rent-to-own situation or something like that.

So take stock in what you already own and think about how little you actually need to invest in building your own little studio. You might be pleasantly surprised.