Home recording is a skill like any other and it takes time and practice to get better at it. If you’re new to recording in your home studio, here are five tips to get you started.
Invest in the right equipment
Let’s start with the basics. It’s safe to assume that you’re on a tight budget and don’t have thousands of dollars to spend building a home studio. The good news is that with the right equipment and expertise, you can create great-sounding music at home for an affordable price. At a minimum, you will need a digital audio workstation (DAW), microphone, headphones, cables and an audio interface. If you can swing it, it’s worth the extra money to buy a preamp along with other items. You don’t need the most expensive mics and preamps to make professional-quality recordings, but you’ll need to spend a fortune on these items to get the results you want. Microphones and preamps are especially important for sound quality and dynamic range in home recordings. You can skip the preamp in your setup, but use one for your recordings and you’ll hear a huge difference.
Using loop settings in your DAW
Whether you’re recording yourself or others, your DAW’s looping setup will prove to be an important tool you’ll use again and again. This feature allows you to select specific sections of your recording that you can record over and over again. Each take is collected non-stop, saving you a lot of time and stress. Performance takes can be repeated for entire songs or short, difficult sections that require special attention. The loop recording method is especially useful if you are recording your own music.
Make sure your performance is mastered before recording.
Seasoned musicians know the importance of this tip, but it’s worth mentioning for inexperienced Music recording studio production. Home recording will be much more difficult if you don’t pre-master the recording musician’s performance. Mistakes and flaws are inevitable in musical performances, and they can also be seen as unique musical characteristics that define the character of a track. But forgotten parts, having to repeatedly stop mid-record, and a general lack of confidence in the material will make the home recording process a nightmare. Whether it’s you, someone in your band, or a friend recording in your home studio, make sure the gig is on track before you start.
Choose your room wisely and eliminate unwanted noise.
This is an obvious tip, but worth mentioning. Even if you’re seeking a lo-fi vibe in your recordings, you’ll want to eliminate non-musical noise as much as possible. Pets, lovers, air conditioners and heaters, creaking pipes, and the weather can all contribute to unwelcome noise on a recording. Your recordings will sound much better if you make an effort to eliminate and avoid noise like this in the space you are working in. Choosing and treating the best space for recording in your home, apartment or dorm is also worth spending time on. Use foam and acoustic panels where possible.
take notes
This may be the most important tip on this list. Be sure to take notes as you record to save time later. Instead of trying to remember again which of the 30 takes you recorded were the strongest, a better way is to mark them as you go.
We live in an amazing music age where, with just a computer and some gear, almost any musician can record and share music that sounds like it was expertly engineered. But this technology doesn’t develop overnight.