The Cost of Building A Home Recording Studio
By Max on May 1, 2008 in Home Recording
The cost of building a home recording system on a budget can get tricky but is certainly possible. I have been recording in home for many years and find it very rewarding. Most will tell you just to save up for the products that you will inevitably buy later but I don’t generally agree.
My suggestion is that you really get familiar with how to run the equipment before you plop down a few thousand dollars on something you might not even enjoy all that much in the end.
First things first you should pick up a decent PC. Macs are more equipped for this type of artistic endeavor, but for a beginner a PC would be best because of it’s price and user ability. So instead, pick up a moderate but decent system for around $500, or use the one you’re using right now.
An ideal starter system should have around 1.5+ GHz for the processor, at least 1Gb of ram, a 7200rpm hard drive that is seperate from the one your operating system is on. Some of this of course can be played with and tweaked if you have IT know how.
The next thing you need for your PC home recording studio is the sound card. To narrow it down you should look at ones that have built in microphone preamps. This helps you keep costs and equipment lists down. The main ones to look at when starting out should be the M-audio brand as they offer great systems for a good price. They also have great product support and drivers, which is a must in computer audio and PC recording.
Try looking at the Fast Track Pro, which goes for about $200. It comes with some decent software, but I would suggest downloading a software called Reaper by the company Cockos. It’s only $50 and is an awesome program (there is a free demo on their site as well).
After choosing your sound card, a good set of headphones to listen back to your recordings and do some basic mixing is what you need next. The Sennheiser HD201 headphones are a great set as they are pretty flat sounding, meaning they don’t change what’s coming from your sound card much, and for $25 you can’t beat them. Most brands are pretty basic, but this is the one I’ve had the best experience with at the lowest price.
The last thing to get is a good microphone. Your recordings will only be as good as your mic. As always, I recommend the EV/Blue Cardinal as a great all around recording mic. Its priced around $200 but is worth every penny and will save you heartache later on. You could spend about half as much on standard Shure SM57, but I really would not recommend recording with it.
To summarize your purchases so far, you should have:
computer $500
sound card $200
software $50
headphones $25
microphone $200
Of course if you have a computer already, you’re halfway there. And many times you will find the budget sound cards, like some PreSonus models which come with the condensor microphone. This should save you a $100 or so and free up some cash for more software or the microphone I mentioned.
With plenty of research and the products I listed, or at least something similar, your home recording studio is incredibly affordable and can be done. Be sure to get plenty of advice from your local music retailer and always check out your product’s reputation online before making any purchases. Happy Recording!
